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What is Reparenting?

Break unhelpful cycles, build healthy boundaries, and heal your inner child by connecting the dots between how you were raised and how you behave now.

Dr Becky Kennedy

Dr Becky Kennedy, Clinical Psychologist

5 min read

What is Reparenting?

What is reparenting? And why is it especially helpful when you’re raising a kid of your own? Well, picture something your child does that really gets under your skin. Maybe it’s whining, shouting “No!”, or throwing a tantrum because you cut their sandwich the “wrong” way. 

In these moments, most of us tend to focus on the kid's challenging behavior (“Why can’t they stop whining!”). Here’s the thing: If we want to improve our children's actions, we actually have to get curious about our reactions first. Cue the most important question for parents: “What does this situation bring up for me?” 

At Good Inside, our mission is to give parents like you the knowledge and tools you need to raise confident, resilient children. We believe everything we struggle with as parents has a story to tell. And most of these stories? They started when we were kids ourselves.

In this article, we’ll walk through how to uncover these stories and start reparenting. By connecting the dots between our past experiences and how we show up now, we can break cycles of harmful parenting and create healthy boundaries for our families.

The concept of reparenting

Reparenting yourself is the practice of exploring your unmet needs in your childhood and giving yourself what you missed. You’ll learn how to gain a deeper understanding of your triggers, challenges, and struggles, so you can grow and change. 

Here are several reasons you might be interested in reparenting techniques:

  • You struggle to set healthy boundaries and say “no.” 
  • You feel selfish making time for self-care.
  • You have a strong inner critic that’s quick to self-blame.
  • You want to decrease yelling and reactivity.
  • You experienced traumatic or difficult situations in your family of origin, and want to break the cycle of harmful parenting. 

Using reparenting techniques doesn’t necessarily mean criticizing or blaming your own caregivers. It may be helpful to consider that two things are true: Your parents were doing the best they could with the resources they had and you may not have received everything you needed as a child.

What is your inner child?

An “inner child” symbolizes all of the younger parts of ourselves—our memories, experiences, and ideas—that influence how we behave as adults. 

The concept of an inner child is informed by attachment theory, which explores how our bonds with early caregivers shape later relationships. Think about it: A child’s survival—both physical and emotional—depends on a literal attachment to caregivers. Because of this, when we’re young, we learn to “grow” certain parts of ourselves that bring us closer to our caregivers (safety) and “shrink” parts of ourselves that create distance (danger). 

Now, as adults, these same attachment patterns influence how we relate to our partners, friends, children, co-workers, and more: what we express (or don’t express), how we define security, how we navigate conflict, what we fear, and more.

How reparenting benefits parents

Reparenting yourself is about more than just healing from your past or changing behavior in the present. By reflecting on early experiences and healing your inner child, you can break harmful intergenerational cycles and build healthier patterns that will define your family’s future.

The truth is most of us default to raising our kids how we were raised. Even though we’re no longer reliant on our parents as adults, our bodies are still wired to follow the same attachment patterns we learned as kids. When you snap, yell, or react strongly to your child, it’s often because your child’s behavior triggers something from your own childhood.

How does your inner child impact your parenting? 

Here are just three examples of how we can unintentionally repeat intergenerational patterns. 

  1. When you cried as a kid, you were told, “Stop making a big deal over nothing!” or “I’ll give you something to actually cry about!” Now, you react strongly to your own child’s tantrums, repeating the cycle of shutting down strong emotions. 
  2. Your parents had high academic expectations, and you received lots of validation for good grades. If your own child struggles with school, you might respond to them with frustration or disappointment: “Why can’t you just get it?”
  3. Your parents were absent growing up, and you often had to take care of yourself and your siblings. Now, as a parent, you struggle modeling how to set healthy boundaries with your own child—you might feel guilty taking time to yourself or have difficulty saying “no.” 

The good news? Our brains are incredibly adaptable. By reparenting your inner child, you can actually rewire your body and change how you relate to yourself and your kid.

How to reparent your inner child

Imagine someone suddenly tells you, “Hey, you don’t need to look both ways when you cross the street anymore! Cars just pass right through people now.” The next time you step into the street, you know this piece of information. But then a car zips around the corner, and your body jerks you back to the curb. Why? Well, that’s how you learned to survive, and it takes practice to rewire a life-long pattern! 

For you, “stepping off the curb” might look like setting healthy boundaries or asserting your needs. Reparenting is a slow, steady process in which you’ll reflect on why you behave the way you do, revisit childhood experiences to actually “rewire” memories, and acknowledge your inner child’s stories while building new patterns. 

By reading this article, you’ve already taken the hardest first step—showing up and dedicating time to learn about reparenting. This tells me something important about you: You are a cycle-breaker. You are brave. You are strong. You are carrying the weight of generations before you and changing these patterns for generations to come. 

Place your hand on your heart, take a deep breath, and acknowledge all you’re doing and becoming.

3 key takeaways on reparenting

Okay, we covered a lot of information about reparenting your inner child. New ideas can feel exciting… and they can also feel overwhelming! So, let’s ground ourselves in three key takeaways:

  • If you feel triggered by your kids, there’s nothing wrong with you—and there’s nothing wrong with them. Parenting often brings up experiences from our own childhoods. 
  • If you want to change your kid’s behavior, get curious about your own behavior first: “What does this parenting situation bring up for me?”
  • Reparenting heals your family’s past and future. You’ll not only break harmful intergenerational cycles, you’ll build new healthy patterns, too. 

Most importantly, remember this: You just took time out of your (very!) busy schedule to reflect on how to show up as a more confident, resilient parent. That’s amazing, and your kid is so lucky to have you.

Start reparenting with Good Inside

While you may be the first in your family to engage in reparenting, you don’t have to do it alone. With Good Inside’s Reparenting Program, you’ll receive practical strategies for healing your inner child, reducing reactivity, improving self-worth, setting healthy boundaries, and so much more. 

Plus, when you sign up, you’ll gain access to our full suite of personalized resources for every stage of raising kids. From engaging in self-care to managing anxiety to reducing tantrums, we’ll help you solve current challenges—and get ahead of future ones—in just 5 minutes a day.

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