I struggle to gentle parent my toddler. My traumatic childhood makes it difficult to stay calm during her temper tantrums.

The author, not pictured, struggles to gentle parent her toddler.

One of my first memories is running to the school bus. At a young age, I understood that school was safe and home was not. Things had gotten scary again at home, and I was running toward safety.

Now, as an adult and parent, I have to live with the effects of my traumatic childhood. I never understood how badly it has affected me until I had to parent my own child.

When my daughter was born, one thing was clear to me: I wanted to do things differently. I wanted my home to be a safe place for her, and I wanted her to have a magical childhood full of whimsy.

Unfortunately, I had to face the fact that I am still dealing with the effects of my upbringing, and it wouldn’t be easy to gentle parent.

Emotional regulation is not easy for either of us

It is really hard for me to regulate my emotions. I was raised by a parent who had no idea how to do that, and I have never been able to do it myself. What most people might call wearing my heart on my sleeve is really an inability to do anything but show what I’m feeling.

Enter a 2-year-old.

I went into this toddler stage determined to be the gentlest parent possible and explore all those big emotions. I even researched how to teach toddlers breathing techniques because they have helped me. Do those breathing techniques work? Surprisingly, yes. Do I still absolutely lose it when my toddler is in full tantrum mode? Also, yes.

I quickly learned that when it comes to gentle parenting, you can start off with all the best intentions in the world and still end up flat on your face — having made all the mistakes.

I’m trying to stand firm in my boundaries

Growing up, I had to be flexible; my life lacked stability. I couldn’t get too attached to doing anything because anything could change at a moment’s notice. I was forced to be a people pleaser just in case it might help what was going on in my home life.

I misunderstood gentle parenting to think that flexibility and people-pleasing would work in my favor. Imagine my surprise when I called our pediatric nurse practitioner about a toddler behavioral issue, and her response was, “You don’t have enough boundaries.”

We spent the rest of the phone call brainstorming boundaries I had never even considered giving my toddler, and as soon as I got off the phone, I enacted them. After a day of worse toddler tantrums than I had ever experienced and my questioning everything the nurse practitioner had told me, the behavioral issues just went away. My daughter figured out that I wasn’t bending and seemingly gave up on pushing me.

I’m still terrible at keeping those boundaries, but I’m at peace knowing that they are good for my toddler, and it’s OK if she’s upset about them. She’ll adjust and figure it out.

Being a parent is hard

What I have been doing instead of trying to be the perfect gentle parent is actually owning the mistakes I am making. I apologize if it’s called for. I tell her that I will try to do better next time. Sometimes, I even tell her I need to take a step away and reset so I can be the parent she needs.

Does she understand all of this? No. I’m more practicing for those moments when she’s older and does understand. Maybe she’ll be able to own her mistakes better and learn how to return from them. That’s the hope, anyway.

Above all else, I’m accepting that I’m still a new parent. Even without bringing my childhood trauma into it, parenting is hard. So, I have to be just as gentle with myself.

I don’t have to be the perfect parent and give her this magical childhood that seems to only exist in movies. I just have to be me. And every time she gives me a hug and says, “I love you, mama,” I know it’s enough for her.