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Mental Health
Kirti Bhati December 13th, 2023 · 6min read

What Is Reparenting: Learn How To Re-Parent Yourself!

No one is perfect in this whole wide world. There are children who fail at being children, likewise, parents who fail at being parents also exist. If you, unfortunately, have had parents who couldn’t parent you well, you need to know how to reparent yourself.

As a child, you didn’t choose your parents but your parents did choose to have you. It’s not your fault that your parents failed to give you the love and affection you deserved. If they failed at their jobs, it’s on them not you.

You need to learn to reparent yourself so that you can give yourself the love, comfort, and affection that you didn’t receive in your childhood.

Before I tell you how to reparent yourself, let’s understand reparenting and who you might need it…

What Does It Mean To Reparent Yourself?

Reparenting here does not have a technical procedure that has to be followed in order to reduce any symptoms or anything. In simple words, reparenting is a way of giving yourself the love, care, attention or whatever that you missed when you were a child.

We should all be consciously aware in general. We should know who we are, what, why and how we are supposed to do things, etc. Some people have an unconscious set of parents. Parents who are emotionally, mentally or physically unavailable.

Children of unconscious parents often have a very traumatic childhood or a troublesome adulthood. To deal with these issues you might need to reparent yourself so that your mental health is at bay.

Reparenting oneself is basically being a parent to your own self. You give yourself the time to recover, the comfort to heal and the love to get back on your own two feet.

Why Do I Need To Reparent Myself?

Reparenting is required when parents fail to do their duties. Now, I am not playing the blame game here. Let bygones be bygones. But we cannot forget that unavailable parents in your childhood can be the cause for many psychological illnesses.

A child whose needs are not met can foster a lot of mental health conditions. The Time Machine is not here yet. We can’t go back in time and fix the problem. You will have to fix it now, all by yourself.

Here’s a list of consequences you might have to face if your needs were left unmet in childhood:

Reparenting will help you fulfill all the needs that we left unmet during your childhood. Here’s who all might need to reparent themselves:

  • If you had an emotionally abusive parent
  • If you had a mentally, physically, or emotionally absent parent
  • If you have a narcissistic parent
  • If you were given less importance than your sibling
  • If you were bullied by your parents or siblings
  • If you had an abusive childhood
  • If you were in a bad foster care facility
  • If you have lived as an orphan (lonely child)

Now that you know why and who all need to reparent yourself, it’s time to learn how to actually reparent yourself and fulfill all your unmet needs from your childhood.

How To Reparent Yourself?

1. Be self-aware:

awareness is very, very important for you. You need to identify what are the needs that have been unmet. Be aware of how those unmet needs are affecting you. Be self-aware about your thoughts and feelings. In order to help you first need to know what’s actually bothering you.

2. Connect with yourself:

you need to form a strong connection with your inner self. We are often forcing ourselves to put up a strong front for society but that can really damage our inner child. Let that inner child live, connect with you inner self only then can you know what you actually need.

3. Have some fun:

you deserve to be happy and that’s why you should learn to have some fun in life. You have ample of time to be serious in life, the inner child needs to have some fun. Do what makes your heart happy.

4. Let the negativity flow out of you:

there is no place for shame, guilt or any kind of burden. Show some kindness and compassion towards yourself. There’s no shame in caring for yourself. Let all the negative feelings about taking care of yourself flow out of you as you exhale and inhale some self-love.

5. Teach yourself all that your parents didn’t:

you know your parents made a mistake but now you are old enough to undo that mistake. Take some time out from your busy routine and learn all that you missed in your childhood.

6. Learn to establish healthy boundaries:

setting boundaries in life is very, very important. Having not so amazing childhood can blur the boundaries so it’s your duty to actively indulge yourself in setting healthy boundaries.

7. Learn to manage emotions:

your emotions can be all over the place because of your abusive, unhealthy childhood. You can try some mindfulness techniques to get your emotions back in control.

8. Forgiveness:

forgive your parents and yourself. We are all humans and we make mistakes. Forgiveness is the key to happiness. We have underestimated the power of forgiveness, it’s high time we realize how effective forgiveness can be.

9. Make good relationships:

make sure you make healthy meaningful relationships and a great social support so that you can receive and give affection and comfort to them.

10. Self-care:

self-care is a must. It’s only you who can take care of yourself. Practice self-care as often as you can so that your body and mind feel the love and warmth too.

11. Be yourself:

be true to yourself, be your own true self, there is no need to put on a persona for society. You can never be happy in your presence. Remove that mask so that you have nothing to worry about.

Endnote

Learning how to parent yourself may sound sad but it’s actually how you choose to see it. Your parents might have made a mistake and sometimes things just don’t fall into place. The end of the story is if you get a chance to reparent yourself, why not do it the best way possible.

I hope you found this blog helpful. Do comment and tell us how this blog helps you learn how to reparent yourself. Share this blog with all those people you think require to reparent themselves.

Thanks for reading.

Take care and stay safe.

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