Parenting is one of the most rewarding yet challenging roles we take on. Many of us enter it with the best intentions, determined to raise emotionally secure, confident children. But what happens when we unknowingly repeat the patterns from our own childhood—the ones we swore we’d never pass down?
In episode 26 of Roadmap to Secure Love, Kimberly Castelo and Kyle Benson explore the complexities of breaking generational parenting patterns and the deep self-awareness required to raise emotionally secure children. They discuss the challenges parents face when navigating their own emotional triggers and provide actionable steps to create a healthier, more connected parenting approach.
Why Generational Parenting Patterns Are So Hard to Break
If you grew up in a household where emotions were dismissed, punishment was the primary form of discipline, or love felt conditional on behavior, you may find yourself struggling to parent differently. Without even realizing it, you may default to the same reactions your parents used—whether that’s shutting down, yelling, or dismissing your child’s emotions.
Generational parenting patterns are hard to break because they are deeply ingrained. Our nervous system has been wired to react to stress in familiar ways. When we feel overwhelmed, we instinctively return to what we know, even if we intellectually understand that we want to parent differently.
Kyle shares a personal experience of this challenge:
“I was driving home with my toddler and infant, already exhausted from the day. My daughter started crying for a snack, and when I gave it to her, she threw a fit and refused it. My first instinct? I felt frustration build. I wanted to shut it down—to tell her to stop crying, to get louder so she would listen. But I knew that wasn’t the parent I wanted to be. Instead, I took a deep breath and validated her feelings while setting a boundary. It wasn’t easy, but in that moment, I chose to respond differently.”
This is the heart of breaking generational parenting patterns—pausing, recognizing the instinct to react, and choosing a different path.
Common Struggles When Trying to Parent Differently
Feeling Overwhelmed by Your Child’s Big Emotions
Many parents weren’t taught how to manage their own emotions, so their child’s distress can feel unbearable. Without emotional tools, a child’s tantrum or defiance may trigger a fight-or-flight response.
Guilt About Not Being the “Perfect Parent”
It’s common to feel like you aren’t doing enough, especially when trying to parent differently. But striving for perfection creates unrealistic expectations that only add to stress and burnout.
Reactivity in Moments of Stress
If you were raised in a household where anger meant punishment or emotional expression was not tolerated, you may find yourself reacting instinctively in high-stress situations rather than responding intentionally.
Lack of Emotional Resources
Without a support system, parenting can feel like an endless cycle of giving with no time to recharge. When you are depleted, it’s much harder to be patient and responsive with your child.
Key Takeaways for Breaking Generational Parenting Patterns
Secure Attachment is Built Through Repair, Not Perfection
One of the biggest misconceptions about parenting is that you must “get it right” all the time. The truth? Research shows that parents only need to be emotionally attuned about 30% of the time to foster secure attachment. The remaining 70% is about making repairs—acknowledging mistakes and reconnecting.
Apologizing to Your Child is a Powerful Act
Many of us didn’t grow up hearing our parents apologize. But owning our mistakes and saying, “I’m sorry, I was feeling overwhelmed,” teaches children that relationships can recover from conflict. It also models healthy emotional regulation.
Your Triggers Are Your Roadmap
If a child’s tantrum makes you disproportionately angry, or if their playfulness annoys you, those reactions are clues to your own unhealed wounds. Ask yourself: What did I learn about emotions as a child? Was I allowed to express them safely? Understanding your emotional history helps you break cycles instead of repeating them.
Prioritizing Your Own Emotional Well-Being Makes You a Better Parent
Parents who are stretched too thin have less capacity for patience and empathy. Self-care isn’t about indulgence—it’s about maintaining emotional regulation so you can show up for your child in the way they need. Whether it’s taking a walk, journaling, or having time alone, recharging allows you to parent from a place of calm instead of stress.
Expanding Your Support System is Essential
Parenting is not meant to be done in isolation. Many parents feel they need to do it all, but seeking help is a sign of strength, not weakness. Swapping childcare with a friend, hiring a babysitter, or joining a parenting community can provide the break you need to parent with more patience and intention.
Healing Yourself as You Parent
One of the unexpected emotional challenges of parenting is the realization that you are giving your child something you never had. This can bring up feelings of sadness, resentment, or even grief. It’s okay to acknowledge that you deserved the love and validation you are now giving to your child.
Kimberly and Kyle discuss how reparenting yourself—learning to give yourself the care, validation, and emotional support you needed as a child—is a powerful part of breaking generational cycles. This process can include:
- Noticing your inner dialogue and shifting self-criticism to self-compassion.
- Creating space for your emotions rather than dismissing or suppressing them.
- Seeking support through therapy or coaching to work through unresolved childhood experiences.
You Are Changing the Future
Breaking generational parenting patterns is some of the hardest work you will ever do, but it’s also some of the most meaningful. Every time you pause and choose connection over control, validation over dismissal, or repair over avoidance, you are creating a different future for your children.
The journey isn’t about being perfect—it’s about being intentional. Your children don’t need a flawless parent; they need a parent who is willing to grow.
Follow The Roadmap to Secure Love on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.
Sign up for The Secure Attachment Path course to learn practical tools for building secure connections.
Until next time, stay connected and keep listening with love.
Listen to previous episodes of the podcast below:
Transcript for Episode 26 of the Roadmap to Secure Love podcast:
Narrator:
Welcome to The Roadmap to Secure Love. In today’s episode, Kim and Kyle explore a powerful and often overlooked parenting strategy—how taking care of yourself as a parent is key to raising emotionally secure children. Let’s dive in.
Kyle: Today, we’re talking about how to raise emotionally secure kids. While that might sound simple in theory, in practice—it’s really hard. For example, I was recently picking up my daughter from daycare, and my 9-month-old son was in the car. On the way home, my daughter started crying for a cracker. I handed her one, and she immediately got upset, saying she didn’t want that cracker. She began to melt down.
Then she asked for a hug, and of course, I wanted to give her one. But inside, I was overwhelmed—just wishing we were home already. I wanted the crying to stop. But I also recognized that what she really wanted was comfort. I couldn’t pull the car over, but I could still try to emotionally connect with her.
So I said, “Of course you want a hug. Daddy wants to give you a hug too. I’m so excited to give you one when we get home.” She responded, “I want a hug now.” And I said, “I know it’s hard not to get what you want right away. I love you, and I promise to give you that hug.”
That small moment reminded me how challenging it is to show up for our kids—especially when they’re dysregulated and we’re overwhelmed. Parenting requires us to hold boundaries while validating their feelings and staying regulated ourselves.
Kim: Absolutely. When you’re driving with two crying children and trying to stay safe, while also being pulled emotionally in every direction, it’s exhausting. And even when you say, “I’ll hug you in five minutes when we’re home,” they often respond with, “No! Now!” That persistence is developmentally appropriate.
Ignoring or punishing them for needing comfort isn’t helpful. What is helpful is acknowledging their feelings, validating them, and then responding when it’s appropriate and safe to do so—exactly like you did.
Kyle: It’s so hard, though. There’s a part of me that wants to shut it down by raising my voice. Another part just wants to ignore it until I get home. That’s real. And I think many parents, depending on their emotional bandwidth, might choose one of those paths.
But we can learn from those moments. Why did I react that way? What was going on inside me? I want my kids to have a voice, to feel safe sharing their needs and emotions. So even when I don’t get it right—when I’ve snapped or shut down—I come back, apologize, and try to do it differently.
Kim: That’s something many of our parents and grandparents didn’t do. Apologizing to your child wasn’t common. But we’re human—we’re going to mess up. Owning our mistakes models emotional safety and growth for our kids.
Attachment research shows that children only need us to be attuned about 30% of the time to form secure attachment. That’s an A+. The remaining 70%? It’s about making repairs—coming back after a disconnect, acknowledging the impact, and trying again.
Secure attachment is about creating a felt sense of emotional safety. It’s not about perfection—it’s about connection and repair.
Kyle: I can hear so many parents thinking, “Am I really connecting with my child enough? Am I doing this right?” Especially when you’re exhausted and stretched thin, you might think you’re failing.
The first step is validation—acknowledging how hard this is. Parenting is overwhelming. Even as a therapist, I have moments where I turn to my wife and say, “Wow, they were a lot today. I love them—but that was intense.” We often take turns tagging out because we’re at capacity.
Parents are juggling so much—meeting emotional needs, feeding kids, and somehow taking care of themselves too. Often, we get only 30 minutes to an hour to ourselves each day. That’s not enough to restore fully.
Kim: Exactly. And in many households, especially with little support, parenting becomes a constant grind. That’s why it’s essential to find ways to carve out small pockets of time for self-care. For some, it’s taking a quiet moment in the bathroom. For others, it’s asking a partner to take over for 10 minutes so you can recharge.
And beyond solo time, it’s about identifying things that bring you joy—and making space for them. Maybe your child joins in sometimes, and maybe other times you need that space just for you. This is something my husband and I are constantly negotiating.
Kyle: And we can’t do it alone. Expanding your support system is crucial. When our daughter was younger, we’d swap babysitting with neighbors. That gave us the chance to have date nights or simply breathe.
When we took that time, we came back as better, more connected parents. We had more patience, more joy, more spoons to give. But when we keep pushing without pause, we burn out—and our capacity for empathy, guidance, and regulation shrinks.
When I reach my limit, I might default to controlling behaviors or just shut down. Those are my clues: I need a break. Whether it’s hiring a sitter or stepping outside for five minutes, I need to refill my cup so I can pour into my child’s.
Kim: What I love about this episode is that we came in planning to talk about raising secure kids—but what we really uncovered is that it starts with us.
So much of the parenting advice out there is about techniques, scripts, or strategies. But all of those things require emotional capacity to implement. And we can’t have capacity if we’re not caring for ourselves.
Self-care isn’t selfish—it’s foundational. It gives us the energy to respond with love, hold boundaries, and validate our child’s emotions.
Kyle: Another important piece is making space for our own inner child. If you grew up in a household where feeling overwhelmed wasn’t safe, that may show up now as frustration or reactivity.
When I became a parent, I noticed that being overwhelmed often led to anger. I realized that in my childhood, overwhelm wasn’t welcomed—it was punished. So, I’m now learning to sit with that feeling, express it to my wife, and rewire that message. I want it to be safe to feel overwhelmed, for me and for my kids.
Kim: That’s reparenting—giving our younger selves the support and validation we didn’t get, so we can show up differently for our children. And yes, sometimes it feels unfair. You may think, “Why am I giving my child something I never had?”
But those feelings are normal. Acknowledge them. Tend to that younger part of you. And then celebrate the fact that you are doing it differently. You’re breaking cycles, and that’s incredibly meaningful.
So if you’re wondering how to raise a secure child—start by taking care of yourself.
Narrator:
Thank you for joining us on The Roadmap to Secure Love.
Today’s episode reminded us that:
Parenting begins with self-care
Validation matters more than perfection
Boundaries and empathy go hand in hand
Reparenting ourselves transforms how we show up for our kids
Follow The Roadmap to Secure Love on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.
Sign up for The Secure Attachment Path course to learn practical tools for building secure connections.
Until next time, stay connected—and keep listening with love.
Sure! Here’s a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section tailored for Episode 26 – The Parenting Hack No One Talks About: How Taking Care of Yourself Creates Secure Kids from the Roadmap to Secure Love podcast:
FAQ – Episode 26: The Parenting Hack No One Talks About
Q1: What is the main takeaway from this episode?
A: The key message is that taking care of yourself as a parent is essential to raising emotionally secure kids. You can’t meet your child’s emotional needs if your own needs are consistently unmet.
Q2: How does self-care impact secure attachment?
A: When parents are emotionally and physically depleted, their ability to regulate, validate, and connect with their children diminishes. Self-care replenishes your capacity to respond with empathy and consistency—both critical for fostering secure attachment.
Q3: What does “breaking generational parenting patterns” mean?
A: It refers to becoming aware of and intentionally changing harmful or emotionally neglectful parenting behaviors passed down through generations—such as suppressing emotions, using control-based discipline, or never apologizing to children.
Q4: What if I feel triggered or overwhelmed by my child’s emotions?
A: That’s a common experience. Your triggers are signals pointing to unhealed wounds or unmet needs from your own childhood. Recognizing and working through them is part of reparenting—a vital step toward becoming a more emotionally responsive parent.
Q5: How often do I need to be emotionally attuned to my child to build secure attachment?
A: Research shows you only need to be emotionally attuned about 30% of the time. The rest involves repair—acknowledging disconnections, apologizing when needed, and reconnecting intentionally.
Q6: Is it okay to apologize to my child when I make a mistake?
A: Yes! Apologizing is one of the most powerful tools in parenting. It teaches accountability, models humility, and reinforces emotional safety. It also helps repair relational ruptures and strengthens your bond.
Q7: What can I do if I don’t have support at home or in my community?
A: Kim and Kyle suggest finding creative solutions like swapping childcare with neighbors, joining parenting groups, or hiring help when possible—even for just an hour or two. Building a support system is vital for your well-being and capacity to parent effectively.
Q8: What is “reparenting,” and why is it discussed in this episode?
A: Reparenting is the process of healing and nurturing the wounded parts of your own inner child—especially the parts that didn’t feel safe, seen, or supported growing up. Doing this work helps you respond differently to your child and break old cycles.
Q9: How can I start taking better care of myself without feeling guilty?
A: Start with small, intentional acts of care—breathing deeply, setting boundaries, asking for help. Remember: self-care is not indulgent; it’s necessary. When you care for yourself, you expand your capacity to care for your child.
Q10: Where can I learn more about secure attachment and parenting strategies?
A: Enroll in The Secure Attachment Path Course for tools and guidance to deepen your understanding of attachment, heal old patterns, and build strong, secure relationships with your children and partner.
