In order to enhance their health and well-being as adults, a child who has not had all of their needs met by a parent or caregiver may need to learn how to provide for themselves.
Reparenting gives adult clients the chance to offer themselves what they were denied as children as part of the therapeutic process. This frequently entails both the unlearning of unhealthy lifestyle choices and the learning of new, adaptive ways to interact with others and oneself.
Within the context of transactional analysis, the term “reparenting” refers to the process by which a client unlearns negative and unhealthy ways of relating to both themselves and other people. Learning new, healthy ideas and behaviors is the aim. In the end, the clients would get to experience things they might not have had as kids.
Parenting has taken on a variety of shapes over time. In the 1970s, total regression was established. In this type of rehabilitation, an individual resides in a mental health facility or institution under the supervision of their therapist.
A different type of reparenting known as time-limited regression just requires the patient to attend treatment sessions on a regular basis rather than living with a therapist. Particularly, people with schizophrenia and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) have been treated with this kind of care.
Self-reparenting
Dr. B. Vinod, a licensed psychologist and counselor, shares, “Working with a reliable professional can assist in addressing issues like pacing and overcoming obstacles as they appear, as well as in examining and elucidating harmful or maladaptive patterns that may benefit from reparenting. You can replace the harmful inner conversation you acquired from your parent or caregiveriver with a better one by self-reparenting. Self-reparenting has several advantages, such as improving your communication skills, regulating your emotions, establishing firm boundaries, and developing a more positive outlook on both yourself and other people.”
acknowledge and communicate your feelings
Our original families have a big influence on a lot of what we learn about handling and communicating our emotions. There are families who have a culture of identifying, expressing, and sharing emotional experiences, and there are families that are not very open with emotional language or sharing. Through the process of reparenting, we can learn how to articulate our emotional experiences in words that others can understand and how to share them with others in a healthy way.
establish limits
A common component of reparenting is learning how to set limits. Children frequently pick up people-pleasing skills without developing a strong sense of self-awareness. This might be troublesome for adults since, in the aftermath of your relationships with other people, you might feel more easily burned out, unhappy, or unsafe if you don’t have limits. Reparenting can provide a therapeutic emotional experience where clients can learn how to assume the emotional risk of setting and upholding desirable limits as well as identify or clarify these boundaries.
modify your self-perception
It’s true that negative self-messages can affect how we interact with people and move through the environment. Through reparenting, clients can assist in creating an honest, healthy, and positive self-image, in addition to challenging outdated, harmful messages about who they are. Together with their therapist, clients explore their values, abilities, desires, and talents. The client may go through a genuine change in how they see themselves during the reparenting process.
Experience the security of a close, reliable adult
Reparenting may be beneficial for clients who have frequently suffered physical and emotional abuse at the hands of close and significant others. These traumatic events have the power to profoundly alter a person’s perception of other people and give them the impression that most people are dangerous. Reparenting can provide therapeutic emotional experiences that let clients experience the security of a close, reliable adult.
discover what kind of relationships are healthy
Growing up, children are exposed to a lot of messages about relationships, mostly from their parents and other family members. Our interactions as adults are frequently shaped by the lessons we learned as children, which affect how we interact with friends, family, and romantic partners. For example, if your childhood connection with your parents was one-sided and they never paid attention to your opinions, you might tolerate similar behavior from a friend or love partner as an adult.
Who could gain from parenting again?
To some extent, Dr. Krushna Reddy, a mental health professional, shares, “Detrimental patterns in communication, self-perception, boundaries, and relationships have been ingrained in the minds of many people. It seems logical that reparenting — especially self-reparenting — can aid in displacing these unhealthy thought, feeling, and behavior patterns with more constructive ones. Those who have been the victims of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, as well as those who have been the victims of emotional and physical neglect, may benefit from reparenting the most.”
The four pillars of reparenting are as
follows, as the experts share:
Discipline
Discipline carries a bad connotation for a lot of us, and we may have inner children who are resistant to the concept altogether. But one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves as adults is the ability to learn discipline.
Self-Care
Self-care and reparenting are the same thing in many respects. Self-care refers to the act of genuinely taking care of ourselves while we live our lives. For some, self-care consists of hot bubble baths and slices of cake. Even though those are both wonderful, sleep, nutrition, exercise, and compassion are actually the four main components of self-care.
Joy
Letting yourselves reconnect with that childlike side of ourselves is one of the best aspects of reparenting. It is common knowledge that children are joyful. The fun, the giggling, the playfulness, and the spontaneity. That is essential to who we are and something we all need. It’s crucial to support and make room for that in our adult lives, allowing our happy inner child to come out.
Emotional regulation
Co-regulating with our kids is a key aspect of parenting. Your ability to comfort and encourage our kids helps them internalize the process and eventually become self-sufficient. They therefore know how to control themselves when they are injured or upset. Emotional regulation in adulthood establishes a homeostatic baseline that enables us to safely traverse the highs and lows that will unavoidably arise in our work, life, and relationships, as well as to respond to ourselves responsibly when we are provoked.
Try to incorporate some of these into your daily life, and you will see a powerful positive change:
Yoga
Meditation
Cooking
Regular exercise
Eat healthily and mindfully
Get enough sleep
Stick to a routine
Try not to rush
Take up hobbies and stick to them
Be creative
Prioritise yourself and your self-care
