Ep 26: Answering Your Questions About Decolonized Parenting & Inner Child Re-Parenting

“To meet your child’s relational needs by attuning to them, you need to know what it feels like to be attuned to. And to hold space for your child to be who they are fully, you need to know what it feels like to take up space without any fear of losing your parents’ approval, acceptance, and availability.

But when your parents’ love was conditional on your performance and productivity, it’s really hard to know what those feelings feel like. Again, it’s hard to meet your child’s relational needs when your own inner child’s relational needs weren’t met.”

 

Episode Summary:

In this episode, you and I are going to go back to the fundamentals and explore these six questions together: what is an inner child wound? Why is it so important to heal inner child wounds or re-parent your inner child? What’s decolonized parenting? How can you begin practicing decolonized parenting? Why do we address both inner child wounds and internalized oppression wounds together? And lastly where do we begin this complex & lifelong work? I hope that in understanding these definitions you can discern what gifts and strengths you bring to our liberation work and what areas require unlearning and relearning.

Full episode transcript here.

Episode Outline

  • A heartfelt gratitude for the intergenerational and communal liberation you’re doing as a parent.

  • Question #1: What’s an inner child wound?

  • Defining relational needs and physical needs of a child.

  • Unmet relational needs -> Survival Strategies: Contorting to Conform -> Inner Child Wounds

  • Instead of pathologizing your survival strategies you had to over-learn, let’s contextualize them.

  • Question #2: Why is it important to heal an inner child wound or re-parent your inner child?

  • Defining re-parenting an inner child.

  • Re-parenting your inner child is an important milestone in your parental development for two reasons. 

  • Reason #1: Unhealed inner child wounds often become parenting triggers. 

  • Unpacking the react-revert-reduce cycle that keeps you stuck in survival.

  • Reason #2: Unhealed inner child wounds often become barriers to your child’s relational needs.

  • Reflecting on which of your child’s behaviors you tend to encourage and discourage.

  • How to balance “prepare & protect” with being “present” with who your child is. Without this balance, parenting can unintentionally be a projection. Then, the “generational curses” keep getting passed down across generations.

  • Re-parenting your inner child isn’t a solo assignment. It’s done in a community; with those you trust.

  • Re-parenting your inner child is a form of radical self-love.

  • Reflection questions on re-parenting your inner child.

  • Question #3: What’s decolonized parenting

  • Parenting is a role with pre-written scripts written by the oppressors.

  • Defining decolonization.

  • Defining decolonized parenting: 4 elements of decolonized parenting

  • To decolonize parenting, first discern then do. 

  • Question #5: Why do we address both inner child wounds and internalized oppression wounds together?

  • Healing these wounds help you be both the parent and social justice advocate you know you can be.

  • Question #6: Where do we begin this complex & lifelong work?

  • Defining regulation in relation to systemic oppression and collective liberation.

  • Decolonizing child development and parental development.

  • What it looks like to be stressed, get things done, but still anchored in regulation with your child. 

  • In regulation, you can root your parenting decisions in social justice values and be guided by child development science. 

 
 

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