Will The Parent Inside You Safely Embrace The Child Inside You?
Realizing you cannot solve something is, in a way, solving it.
Relationships with parents often resemble this system: you must resolve the issue yourself… with yourself.
So, shall we set out and see if we can solve it?
By the end of this text, will you have “resolved it with yourself”?
Is it possible to separate stories and say: “This is my story”?
In childhood traumas, problems in parent–child communication are often the most visible.
The very first attachment happens with the caregiver — most often the mother.
The attachment style you form with your mother tends to continue into adulthood.
You will experience countless situations related to this, and these experiences reveal your attachment style and relational cycles.
If these cycles disrupt your functioning or prevent you from forming and sustaining healthy relationships, then it becomes the adult’s area of work.
At this point, one’s personal work begins.
Psychotherapy is the name of this journey — the subtle art of hidden help.
A Case Example
I once recall a mother who came with a concern about her 8-year-old daughter.
She explained that her daughter always slept with them and never in her own bed.
At that time, I was working in an institution with children.
For a psychologist well trained in developmental psychology, this was a familiar issue.
The underlying dynamics were worked through, and the problem was resolved easily.
But then another problem appeared!
The mother began to worry about why she couldn’t solve the problem herself.
Her inadequacy schema was activated, which led her to project onto the professional.
Instead of thanking the therapist and leaving, she entered another area of distress and created conflict within the process.
What was even more damaging was that she projected her inner anger onto her child.
If the mother does not transform her attachment with her child into a secure bond and does not go through her own therapeutic process, she will prepare the ground for an unhealthy, dysfunctional story.
So, what kind of attachment style do you think accompanies situations like this — where the mother reflects her struggles onto the child and will likely continue to do so in the future?
Childhood Trauma And ACE
The traumatic injuries (or “crashes”) that appear in attachment styles symbolize childhood traumas.
Adverse childhood experiences harm both mental and physical health.
Chronically elevated stress can lead to direct and indirect health risks in adulthood.
This is where the ACE scale matters.
ACE stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences.
The original ACE study was published in 1998 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
The study showed that negative events before age 18 were strongly linked to serious adult health problems.
For example:
-
An ACE score of 4 or higher → risk of depression is 4.5 times greater, risk of suicide 12 times higher.
-
An ACE score of 7 or higher → risk of lung cancer 3 times greater.
Here, we are speaking of childhood traumas caused by parents.
If you experienced trauma as a child, you may have lived through what is called the “good child syndrome.”
The “good child” often stands out as overly mature — so much so that there is a striking gap between them and their peers.
The phrase “Such a mature child!” may sound familiar.
These children appear overly compliant, sensitive, unable to defend themselves, and unable to show healthy aggression.
Because of behaviors their peers find unusual, they may become targets of bullying.
Children who experience trauma often either become bullies or are bullied.
Especially when trauma enters the system during childhood — a time of deep development — it multiplies like cell division.
Parents Were Once Children Too
But weren’t parents once children themselves?
Yes — and that’s the cycle.
The adult who is now a parent was once a child, and they too can safely embrace the child within themselves.
The only way is to meet and act together.
Now you are an adult — you can do it.
You may once have been the child exposed to trauma, but now you are grown — and perhaps you are even a parent yourself.
Remember, the child had no resources:
they could not go for a walk when they were restless, they could not understand what it meant to be alone when they wanted freedom.
The adult, however, has resources — but often is not aware of them.
That adult could be you.
Meeting and reconciling with your inner child opens the possibility for a more functional life.
Sometimes disasters can lead to positive developments.
Perhaps the “parental disaster” mentioned at the beginning of this text has now evolved — what do you think?
Did we resolve the matter?
Do you feel the echo of acceptance shifting in your mind?
I hope the parent inside you safely embraces the child inside you.
This is your story.