Parenting w/o the baggage
March 19, 2008 | Media Interviews,Nurturing Family
I visited with Jeff and Lee KKMS live at AM980 KKMS radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul at 5 CT. If you are visiting after that interview, I’m glad you stopped by.
Jeff and Lee asked some great questions about parenting without the baggage of the past.
Let’s look at one of those. . .
- How can you get rid of childhood baggage so that you don’t do the same thing with your kids?
We can’t change the past, but we can learn from it. It’s important to step back and take an honest look at the things that once damaged your family or you. Is it neglect? Abuse? Screaming? Addiction?
Oh, Suz, I don’t want to go there. That’s behind me.
Listen, we aren’t looking at the past through the eyes of a victim, but as a scholar. Why? Because we have some serious unpacking to do. If our goal is to grow as a parent and as a person, we can learn some helpful things from the past.
Legacies are handed down from generation to generation. Legacy sounds like a good word, but many of you reading this received a painful legacy. Look at it. What actions or words harmed you? What caused family dysfunction?
It will look different in different generations. In my family abandonment during conflict was a parenting tool that was not only ineffective, but harmful.
My parent grew up with a mom that she loved, but who took off when things weren’t going well.
Then when my mom became a mom she struggled to know what to do with conflict. As an adult I can see she needed support and help, and didn’t have that. She struggled with suicidal thoughts and threatened suicide when things were tough. It looks different than what her mom did to her, but it was still the same unhealthy parenting method.
When I became a parent I also hated conflict. Bad things happened during conflict, and I avoided it at all costs. Push it under the rug. Don’t deal with it. But it wasn’t the best thing for my family or for me. I needed to learn how to deal with conflict in a way that made my child and me feel safe and loved, but really deal with the issue.
By recognizing this pattern I was able to not only identify it, but learn more appropriate ways to handle life’s harsher moments.
For more information on how to unpack unhealthy parenting baggage, as well as much, much more, I hope you’ll consider reading The Mom I Want to Be: Rising Above Your Past to Give Your Kids a Great Future.
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Suzie,
We had a great time talking with you on the show. Here is a link to the interview: http://www.kkmslive.com/MP3/17031908-Suzie%20Eller.MP3
Jeff Shell
March 20th, 2008 at 6:36 pmTalk Show Host
KKMS