“The greatest gift you can give your children is your own healing.” Dr. Shefali Tsabary said that.
Am I doing too much or not enough? Am I harming my child? Am I being too hard on my child? Am I being too soft? Am I spending enough time with my child? Do I help too much? Should I help more?
Is my son going to be taken advantage of because he talks about his feelings? Is my daughter going to be considered too bossy because she has boundaries? Should I be doing more as a parent? Or less?
These are the questions that flood the minds of parents who had childhood trauma and are trying to heal while parenting. The main goal is simple: not to do to their children what was done to them.
One parent recalls deciding not to have a baby until she had healed enough to not repeat the trauma she experienced growing up. She thought that would not be too hard. There was no way she was going to dismiss her son’s feelings. She was going to be emotionally and physically present. No matter what he went through, she would be compassionate, nurturing, and unconditionally loving.
That is what children need and deserve. It is what she needed and deserved too.
But then the questions started. The doubt. The constant second-guessing. That voice that quietly asks if you are doing it wrong. She calls that Not Good Enough Stuff.
No matter how many loving things she did, that voice still showed up. Am I talking about feelings too much? Should I let him handle things with friends on his own? When he is upset and says he needs space, do I leave or stay close? When I think a teacher is being unfair, do I step in or let it go? If I know he needs help, do I wait for him to ask, or do I offer it?
It is exhausting trying to get it right all the time. Underneath everything, she notices two core fears.
The first is this: Am I giving my son too much affection? She always asks him if he wants a hug before giving one. Recently, her son was upset about something that happened at school. She sat next to him and asked if he wanted a hug. He said no. She paused, unsure what to do next. Every part of her wanted to pull him in anyway, to comfort him in the way she always needed but did not get.
Instead, she asked if he wanted her to sit with him or give him space. He asked her to just sit there. So, she did. She sat next to him in silence, fighting the urge to fix it, to say something, to do more, and her mind got loud with doubt.
That moment hits something deeper because affection and comfort were not things she received consistently as a child. For a long time, she thought that was normal. That belief started to shift the first time she spent the night at a friend’s house. Before bed, her friend’s mother hugged her. It felt safe, warm, and easy.
So, the next night, she told her mother what happened. She asked if she would start hugging her at bedtime, too. That did not go well. Her mother got triggered and angry. She was told that if she wanted a mom like her friend’s, she could go live with her.
She shares that not to shame her mother, who did not receive affection or nurturing either. She does not think her mother knew how to give something she never had. But as a child, what she learned was that her needs were too much. Those beliefs do not just disappear when we grow up. They follow us into adulthood, into relationships, into parenting.
So now, when her son says no to a hug, it does not just feel like a simple preference. It brushes up against something old. And that is where the Not Good Enough Stuff gets louder.
The second fear underneath all of this is quieter, but just as powerful: Am I pushing him too much to talk about his feelings? Am I setting him up to be seen as weak?
This self-questioning often goes back to childhood. Parents had emotional needs that were not met, and now they are trying to make sure their children do not experience that same emptiness. That is a beautiful thing. But there is one major problem. They were never shown how to do this. It is like trying to get somewhere without a map.
A couple of years ago, her family moved across the country. Making that drive with no directions, no GPS, and no one to guide you would lead to wrong turns and frustration. That is what this feels like, she says. Parents know the kind of parents they want to be. They just do not have a clear path for how to get there. So, they make mistakes, and then they turn on themselves for making them.
They try so hard to give their kids what they did not have that they start to question if they are overcorrecting. But she finds a grounding thought. People often think they need to give kids more activities, more opportunities, more things. But she has seen children who had very little financially, whose emotional needs were met, and they were more than okay. They were emotionally healthy.
She has also known what it feels like to have things but not have the affection, comfort, and nurturing that actually mattered. If she is being honest, she would have given up a lot of what she had just to feel safe, seen, and loved. That reminder brings her back to what actually matters. Not perfection, but connection.
Of course, parents are going to make mistakes. That is unavoidable. And yes, in some ways, they will get it wrong. But what makes the difference is that they are doing things their parents did not do. They reflect. They question. They care. They are willing to change. They are working on their own healing while raising a child. That matters more than getting everything right.
The parent believes these parents are doing something meaningful that a child will carry for life. Maybe they apologize when they mess up. Maybe they listen instead of dismissing. Maybe they try again the next day. Those things are not small.
She says she sometimes loses her temper with her son. In those moments, she hears echoes of how she was raised, and sometimes she repeats things she heard as a child that were harmful. But she also notices it. That awareness allows her to repair, and repair matters more than perfection ever will.
When parents repair with their children, they teach them that mistakes are okay. They teach them how to take responsibility, how to reconnect, and how to build healthy relationships. That is something many were never taught, and it changes everything.
So, when you start questioning yourself again, take a step back. Remember that you are doing something incredibly hard. You are parenting in a way you were never parented. You are learning as you go. You are choosing something different. That matters more than doing it perfectly ever could. You deserve compassion. You always did. And now, you get to give some of that compassion to yourself.
This process of healing while parenting highlights a broader understanding in psychology about breaking generational cycles. Experts point out that the act of self-reflection and conscious effort to change ingrained behaviors is itself a powerful corrective experience. It shifts family dynamics not through flawless execution, but through consistent intention and the willingness to address mistakes, thereby fostering resilience and emotional security for the next generation.
