Reparenting: What It Is and How It Helps with Anxiety Relief

Ideally, every child would grow up with loving parents or caregivers. They would form secure, strong attachments with those parents and feel safe and provided for. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case.

Maybe your parents were abusive or neglectful. Maybe you experienced trauma as a child, or your parents couldn’t provide for your needs the way they should have. Whatever the case, those parenting issues can have lasting repercussions that impact you into adulthood.

One way to resolve the emotional needs from childhood that may have been lacking from your caregivers is an approach called reparenting.

Let’s take a closer look at what reparenting is and how it can help with anxiety and other issues you might be facing.

What Is Reparenting?

Reparenting doesn’t mean you look to your own parents or caregivers to give you what they couldn’t before. Rather, it’s a process of healing the trauma you went through and the anxiety it might have caused by helping you develop coping mechanisms and strengthening your sense of self.

You’ll start by identifying the unmet needs you experienced in childhood so you can work on meeting those needs as an adult.

For example, if you didn’t receive compassion, care, or kindness from your parents, you’ll learn how to give yourself those things. You’ll learn how to identify and manage emotional responses in healthy ways while establishing a safe environment for yourself.

Perhaps most importantly, reparenting teaches you to recognize that you have value. You’ll develop a positive self-image, even if that’s something you’ve struggled with for years as a result of unhealthy parenting.

How Does Reparenting Help with Anxiety?

Unhealthy parenting habits can lead to negative thought patterns throughout your life. You might constantly feel worried or that you’re incapable of love. You might always feel that you need to be on edge, or that you can’t fully trust anyone.

Reparenting helps with the anxiety caused by these issues in a variety of ways.

First, it helps you challenge those negative thoughts so you can actively fight back against them. It’s not easy to break thought patterns, but with the right strategy and support, it’s possible. Reparenting can help you shape your negative thoughts into more positive, realistic ones.

It will also help you find healthy coping mechanisms to deal with anxiety. Things like self-soothing, setting boundaries, and even mindfulness techniques can all help you stay focused on the present and bring you a sense of calm.

Finally, you’ll learn to be more self-compassionate while building your self-esteem. The more self-confidence you have, the easier it is to combat anxious thoughts.

What Is the Role of Therapy?

Working through the reparenting process in anxiety counseling will remind you that you’re in a safe space with someone who is there to help. The role of the therapist is to help guide you through the process by allowing you to explore the experiences of your past without judgment. Therapy will help you learn healthy coping mechanisms and self-nurturing strategies so you can move forward.

Self-care is essential when you’re trying to manage anxiety, no matter the cause. If you struggle with things like low self-esteem due to poor choices by your parents or caregivers, self-care isn’t always a priority. Therapy can help you realize that prioritizing your well-being is important every day when it comes to your mental health.

If your needs weren’t met as a child or you weren’t able to form a secure attachment with your parents, you have nothing to be ashamed of now. However, you don’t need to live with the impact of your childhood forever. Contact our office today to learn more about reparenting or to set up an appointment.