We Will Get It Wrong at Times and That’s Ok: Why Repair Matters More Than Perfect Parenting
What I Have Come to Understand as a Trauma-Informed Therapist and Parent
Through both my lived experience as a parent and my work as a trauma-informed therapist, there is something I have come to understand deeply.
Parenting is not about getting it right.
It is about what we do when we get it wrong.
Because we will get it wrong.
There will be moments of disconnection.
Moments where we are reactive.
Moments where our own nervous system, history, and unmet needs shape how we show up.
This is what is often referred to as rupture.
And rupture is not a sign of failure.
It is a normal and inevitable part of any relationship.
What shapes a child’s sense of safety is not the absence of rupture.
It is the presence of repair.
Research in attachment science, including the work of Edward Tronick, shows that even highly attuned parents are only in sync with their children around 30 to 50% of the time in moment-to-moment interactions.
In fact, we miss each other often.
But it is not the rupture that shapes a child’s sense of safety.
It is the repair.
Secure attachment does not come from perfection.
It comes from returning.
From reconnecting.
From helping the child make sense of what they felt.
From showing them that relationships can stretch and come back together again.
This is something many of us did not experience consistently growing up.
And so, without awareness, we can find ourselves trying to create safety by avoiding discomfort.
We soften things.
We hold things in.
We avoid certain conversations.
We tell ourselves that children are too young to understand.
But what often gets missed is this.
Children do not need to understand everything to feel everything.
They are constantly reading the emotional environment around them.
The tone in your voice.
The energy in the room.
The subtle shifts between connection and disconnection.
Even when they are playing.
Even when they seem distracted.
They are taking it in.
And when something feels off, they do what children are wired to do.
They adapt.
Sometimes that looks like becoming extra helpful.
Trying to bring calm back into the space.
Trying to make things feel okay again.
Not because anyone asked them to.
But because their nervous system is deeply connected to yours.
And this is where many children begin to form a quiet belief.
That it is their job to manage how others feel.
To keep the peace.
To make things better.
A belief many adults are still untangling.
There is another layer to this that is often misunderstood.
Sometimes what we see in children after tension or disconnection is not calm adaptation.
It looks like the opposite.
Big emotions.
Meltdowns.
Sudden behaviour changes that seem out of proportion.
It can look like defiance, clinginess, hyperactivity, or complete overwhelm.
But often, this is not bad behaviour.
It is a nervous system releasing what it has taken in.
Children do not process emotional rupture the way adults do.
They do not sit and reflect or make sense of it cognitively.
Their bodies process it.
Through movement.
Through sound.
Through emotion.
Through what can look like dysregulation.
And this is where many of us, understandably, try to shut it down.
Because it feels uncomfortable.
Because it feels like things are escalating.
Because we were not held through our own emotional expression in this way.
But what is often needed in these moments is not control.
It is co regulation.
A steady presence.
A reminder, through our nervous system, that they are safe again.
This does not mean allowing everything without boundaries.
But it does mean seeing the behaviour for what it is.
A release.
Not something to fix.
When we can meet children in that space without shaming or suppressing what is moving through them, something important happens.
Their nervous system completes the cycle.
And they return to baseline.
Not because they were told to.
But because they were supported through it.
This is the work.
Not avoiding rupture.
But learning how to stay present through what follows.
It also invites us to question something many of us have been taught.
That children are too young for emotional awareness.
What if it is not that they lack emotional intelligence?
But they have not yet learned to override it.
Before we condition them.
Before we teach them to second-guess themselves.
Children are deeply connected to what they feel.
They might not always have the language for it.
But they know.
And often, they are responding to things we have not yet fully acknowledged in ourselves.
This is not about being a perfect parent.
It is about being a conscious one.
Someone who is willing to notice.
To reflect.
To repair.
To let their child know,
“I am still learning, too.”
“You are not responsible for how I feel.”
“We can come back from this.”
Because in the end, what builds safety is not perfection.
It is the experience of being met, again and again, in truth.
An Invitation to Reflect
Where might you be choosing comfort over connection in your home?
And what might shift if you trusted that repair is more powerful than perfection?
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