Childhood is the most important phase of one's life.
A child goes through different stages of development in different domains: physical, cognitive, social, and emotional, which have a significant impact on one's personality. How one handles success or failure in life is determined by one's early childhood. Until the age of 7, a child is like a sponge that absorbs everything around him/her. This is called the "imprint period" when the surroundings' values and beliefs are programmed into a child.
Influence of Parenting
Parents, teachers, friends, and media are the biggest influencers on a child. Whatever is put into a child's mind is what reflects out. That is why Parenting plays an important role. Parents need to understand that the rate of development varies from child to child as there is a constant interaction between all factors of development. Thus, they shouldn't set extremely high expectations on a child for everything and compare him/her with other children. Variability is a fact of nature and individuals are no exception to this. How parents interact with their children will create subconscious patterns in a child's mind.
Parenting Styles: Different for different family!
The type of parenting decides how smooth your childhood, adulthood and life after that is.
Among all four, the ideal parenting style would be the Authoritative Parenting style, where warmth, care, responsiveness, control, and demand are all equal. In this kind of parenting, parents solve problems together with their children, they set clear rules, and expectations but keep the communication open.
Some parents follow the Authoritarian Parenting style where warmth, care, and responsiveness are low, instead, control and demand are high.
In the Uninvolved Parenting style, parents altogether neglect their children, neither warmth nor control exists that makes the child feel uninvolved due to the lack of care and guidance.
Some parents are Permissive and Indulgent in their parenting style, their children receive more warmth and are given whatever they demand, but because they are less controlled and left out, hence, they lack direction.
Constant mistakes in parenting styles can be responsible for creating inner child traumas that take a lifetime to forget a few minutes of childhood.
Bad Parenting
Errors in parenting may lead to unhealed traumas that show up as a low sense of self-worth, codependency in relationships, fear of being abandoned, putting your needs aside for other people, tolerating abusive behavior of others, not feeling good enough, trouble asking for help, scattered thoughts, brain fog, the need to plan everything, resisting changes, disturbed sleep cycles, addictions, etc. The problem with the traumas is that even while going through it, you try to maintain a sense of normality until you are no longer able to tolerate it.
A Thought to One's Parenting
If you're experiencing any traumatic lifestyle issues, you need to give at least a thought to your childhood and your parenting. When did you feel hurt? How did your parents address such emotions? When something painful happened with you, was there open communication? Did you feel free to be yourself or did you fear what others might think? The more questions you ask, the better will be your understanding of yourself. That way it is important to re-parent yourself to heal these traumas because your inner child holds your accumulated childhood pain, fear, anger, feelings of unworthiness, and abandonment which mess up the current relationship with yourself.
Re-Parenting Oneself!
Re-parenting requires working with your inner child which in turn means working with your subconscious to change current day patterns. How do you reparent yourself? Firstly stop blaming and start seeing yourself as a child of yours. Take care of yourself in the same way you would look after your child.
Self Care: Care starts with you!
Focus on nutrition, proper sleep, journaling, connecting with nature, practicing boundaries, meditation(if it works for you), cultivating new hobbies, and listening to sad music to release those painful emotions followed by positive and happy songs that will uplift your spirit and also setting goals, working towards it daily through self-discipline. Apart from these, write a letter to your parents speaking all your truths and acknowledging your painful experiences, you don't need to send it to them as you're just releasing your pent-up anger by writing that letter. This is called Catharsis. Do fun things alone rather than waiting for the right people. Find joy in small things. When you're not okay, don't repress it. Admitting that you're not okay is fine. It's okay to feel bad. You are worthy of everything good.
Show Yourself Some Love
It's not your fault when other people are in a bad mood, your feelings are valid even if they weren't met with understanding, nurturing, and love. Tell yourself that you love yourself and mean it. If you don't heal yourself and wait for someone else to heal you then you will never be able to heal. If you have the right companion who can help you heal, that's great. But, if you don't have one, it's okay as you have yourself.
Be grateful to every cell of your body which is working so hard to keep you alive. Remind yourself how wonderful you are. If you do not like some things about your past then apologize to yourself. Censor your inner critic. Promise yourself not to repeat those mistakes. After all, your life is about you.
Aren't you your silent strength? I believe in you, my dear warrior.
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