As parents, we often strive to provide our children with the nurturing environments we may have lacked in our own upbringing. However, it’s essential to reflect on whether our parenting choices are genuinely beneficial or if they stem from our unresolved traumas. I’ve met so many parents who think they are “gentle parenting,” when they’re really doing something else entirely—they’re running away from their children’s big emotions. They seem to equate any childhood distress with parental maltreatment. (My kid is upset = I’m being a bad parent.) This has much more to do with the parent’s own trauma history than it does with any intentional, conscious parenting choice. But it’s easy to see why parents confuse the two.
The Myth of Perpetual Calmness
Some parents believe they must remain perfectly regulated and calm at all times, fearing that any display of emotion could harm their child. This perspective often arises from a lack of modeled healthy emotion regulation and repair during their own upbringing. However, parenting is a marathon, not a sprint; it’s the overall pattern of interactions that matters, not isolated incidents.
Yet, many posttraumatic parents “awfulize” moments of frustration. They believe that one instance of losing their cool means they’ve emotionally damaged their child. “I yelled—now my child is going to need therapy!” or “I snapped—I’ve ruined their self-esteem forever!” This internal catastrophizing often leads to cycles of shame and self-blame, preventing repair from taking place. But our children don’t need perfect parents—they need parents who can recognize when they’ve made a mistake, take responsibility, and model healthy emotional recovery.
When we grew up in homes where anger meant danger, it makes sense that we would panic at our own anger as parents. Maybe we saw anger escalate into screaming, humiliation, or even physical harm. Maybe we learned that expressing frustration led to rejection or withdrawal of affection. Either way, we internalized the idea that showing emotion—especially negative emotion—is inherently harmful.
But our kids are not us. They have us. There’s a difference between being a child who was trapped in an environment of constant invalidation and being a child with a mostly regulated parent who sometimes loses their cool. Experiencing a parent’s momentary loss of control, followed by repair, does not scar a child. In fact, it teaches them resilience and the normalcy of human emotions.
The critical piece is repair. If we get upset, we need to take a breath, check in with ourselves, and reconnect with our child. If a moment was messy, we can acknowledge it: “I got frustrated, and I yelled. That wasn’t the right way to handle that, and I’m sorry. Let’s try again.” That’s what our children need to see—not a perfectly calm parent, but a human parent who can regulate, reconnect, and move forward. (For more on repair once we’ve “lost it” with a child, click here.)
The Importance of Emotion Coaching
Emotion coaching is one of the most powerful tools we can use to help our children develop emotional intelligence. It involves using language to help children understand and manage their feelings. For instance, saying, “You’re trying so hard to put on your pants. It’s getting frustrating. Let’s try again together,” helps a child label their emotions, assures them they’re not alone, and demonstrates that articulating feelings can be soothing.
When parents are comfortable with their child’s uncomfortable emotions, they teach their child to be comfortable with them, too. But if a parent is afraid of their child’s emotions—if every cry feels like a crisis or every meltdown feels like a personal failure—the child learns that big emotions are dangerous. Even if the parent’s buttons get pushed and they temporarily lose their cool, they can still model how to recover, regain a sense of self, and try again. That is the essence of emotional resilience.
However, if the parent is too busy shaming and blaming themselves for losing control, that internal dialogue interferes with the repair and coregulation process. We’ve said it before—your inner child can’t raise a child. Neither can your inner critic! Parents who believe they must be perfectly regulated at all times often set themselves up for failure, when in reality, emotional recovery—not perfection—is what children need to see.
If we grew up without emotion coaching, we might struggle with this process. Instead of seeing emotions as temporary states that can be worked through, we may see them as problems to solve—or, worse, as threats to avoid. But emotions aren’t problems. They are signals. And when we help our children name, understand, and process their feelings, we teach them that emotions are not something to fear.
This is also true for ourselves. If we allow ourselves to feel what we feel—without shame, without self-judgment—we can show our children what true regulation looks like. Not suppression, not avoidance, but awareness, acknowledgment, and the ability to move through emotions instead of getting stuck in them.
When Conflict Avoidance Looks Like Gentle Parenting
Many trauma survivors become conflict-avoidant or people-pleasers as a survival strategy. When we “people-please” our kids in the guise of gentle parenting, we deceive ourselves. We aren’t parenting from a place of values. We aren’t enacting a well-thought-out parenting approach. We’re afraid of our kids’ strong emotions, so we’re people-pleasing instead.
That’s not gentle parenting. It’s not even permissive parenting. It’s bordering on neglectful parenting—neglectful in the sense that we are neglecting a critical aspect of our child’s development: the ability to handle frustration, disappointment, and boundaries. And we do this from the best of intentions.
The true intent of gentle parenting is that all emotions are welcome, and we can teach our kids how to cope with uncomfortable emotions rather than edit all the uncomfortable emotions out of existence. When we prioritize our child’s momentary happiness over their long-term resilience, we aren’t being gentle—we’re being avoidant.
We can even gaslight ourselves into believing we’re “gentle parenting” when, really, it’s our trauma running the show. True gentle parenting doesn’t mean eliminating all sources of distress. It means holding space for emotions and helping our children build the tools to work through them.
Setting boundaries and saying no are essential aspects of healthy parenting. Lori Gottlieb, in a recent New York Times advice column, used an analogy to describe different parenting styles: children are stunted in a fishbowl (overly strict, authoritarian parenting), drown in an ocean (permissive parenting with no boundaries), and thrive in an aquarium (authoritative parenting with appropriate boundaries and room for growth). This analogy underscores the importance of authoritative parenting, which balances structure and support. I think true gentle parenting and true authoritative parenting are basically the same thing. But what passes for “gentle parenting” on social media is really more about people pleasing and trauma responses than it is about parenting consciously and in accordance with our values.
Conclusion
Recognizing how our past traumas influence our parenting is a vital step toward fostering healthier relationships with our children. By embracing emotion coaching, allowing ourselves to experience and model a range of emotions, and setting appropriate boundaries, we can break the cycle of trauma and nurture resilient, emotionally intelligent children.
© Robyn Koslowitz, 2025