Season 2 Episode 13 | I Promise I Will Do Better (when parenting brings up your own childhood)
Episode Summary
The crying starts from the back seat.
You turn around and say, “I know you’re upset,” and try to soothe them or distract them but they keep going.
You try again. Then again. Traffic isn't moving, the noise is getting louder, and you can feel yourself running out of room for any more of this.
For a second, you hear your own voice in a way you recognise immediately, angry, frustrated and annoyed. It isn't necessarily the words that catch you. It's the feeling behind them. The feeling that makes you think, this isn't how I want to do this. Because you have thought about this. You have tried to understand yourself. You have promised yourself that you would respond differently.
And that's what can make parenting feel so complicated. You can know exactly what kind of parent you want to be and still have moments when you can't seem to access that version of yourself. You can understand emotional regulation, know your triggers, recognise when you are becoming overwhelmed and still reach a point where your capacity disappears. Knowing what is happening doesn't always mean you can stop it happening.
Here's the uncomfortable part: parenting asks you to do this while another person is having a completely different experience right in front of you. Your child is angry because something matters enormously to them. You're frustrated because you've asked five times. They keep pushing. You keep trying to hold the boundary while also trying to stay calm. Both experiences are real, and neither one makes the other disappear.
This is where the things we learned growing up can become relevant. Childhood gives us ideas about what parents do when children are difficult, what happens when emotions become too much, what deserves attention and what should simply stop. You may have consciously rejected some of those lessons and chosen something different for your own children. But choosing differently doesn't mean you suddenly stop having a nervous system, a history, limits or bad days.
And sometimes that is the part parents don't give themselves enough room for. You are not failing at conscious parenting simply because you get frustrated. You are a human being trying to stay connected to yourself while also being responsible for another human being. Self-awareness isn't about monitoring yourself so closely that you never react. It is about becoming more familiar with what happens inside you, so that you have a better chance of recognising when you are reaching your limit.
The thing is, what happens after a difficult moment matters too. A child doesn't need you to demonstrate perfect emotional regulation every minute of every day. They need to experience what happens when things go wrong. Can anger be acknowledged? Can responsibility be taken? Can you reconnect? Can a difficult moment become something you both move through rather than something that defines the relationship?
That also means paying attention to what your reactions are telling you. Sometimes the problem isn't that you don't know enough about parenting. Sometimes you're exhausted. Sometimes you've been holding yourself together all day. Sometimes your child has touched a place in you that needs more attention than you realised. And sometimes the most useful thing you can do is notice what is happening before immediately deciding what you should have done differently.
Because parenting differently isn't about getting every response right. It's about becoming increasingly aware of the person you are in those difficult moments, so that your choices become more conscious over time. You can take what you learned from your own childhood without being defined by it. You can want something different for your children without demanding perfection from yourself. And you can keep doing the work without turning every difficult moment into proof that you aren't doing enough.
Free Pause resources for You
Your Weekly Pause: a weekly email with a reflection of real life situations (like people pleasing or saying no) with a step by step guide on how to change it in real time.
After the Pause: companion journals to unblock what’s stopping change for you
The Listening Room: so you can go deeper into the episode to see where your triggers are
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In This Episode
Why knowing the kind of parent you want to be doesn't always make it easy to respond that way when your child is overwhelmed or you're reaching the end of your own capacity
How your childhood can shape your understanding of parenting, even when you have consciously decided to do things differently with your own children
Why understanding your triggers and learning about emotional regulation doesn't mean you will never become frustrated, angry or overwhelmed as a parent
What happens when your child's emotions and your own experience collide, and why both can feel completely real at the same time
Why emotional safety in parenting isn't about creating a home where difficult feelings or conflict never happen
How children learn from what happens after a difficult interaction, including the importance of repair, responsibility and reconnecting
Why self-awareness in parenting is less about controlling every reaction and more about recognising what is happening inside you
How exhaustion, limited capacity and accumulated stress can affect the way you respond to your child, even when you are trying to parent consciously
What it means to parent differently without demanding perfection from yourself, and why awareness can matter more than getting every moment right
The Invitation
This week's pause is to take a couple moments and check in with yourself once you're in the middle of the chaos.
1. Notice the pattern.
2. Notice any feelings that are happening inside the body.
3. Just take a step back and take a deep breath.
And when you try all 3 of those steps, it will give you a chance to just check in on the situation and get a little bit more. perspective, so you can decide what you want to do.
Work with Muneeza
There are moments in parenting when you know what you want to do, you understand why it matters, and you are still struggling to get there in the moment. You may be trying hard to stay patient, communicate differently and remain connected to your child, while also discovering just how quickly your own capacity can disappear.
Somatic coaching can give you somewhere to slow that process down. We can look at what happens in those moments before you react, what you notice in your body, what makes certain situations harder than others, and how you can become more aware of yourself without turning parenting into another thing you have to get right.
If you want to understand your reactions more deeply and find more space to choose how you respond when parenting gets difficult, and reduce your triggers this is something we can explore together.