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Post by leavethelighton on Sept 5, 2018 1:34:36 GMT
Has anyone purposely had conversations with one's parents about one's infancy/childhood to try to get insights into why you are the way you are?
What'd you ask? Did you get insights? How'd the conversations go? Was it triggering? Etc. etc.
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Post by happyidiot on Sept 5, 2018 5:55:26 GMT
leavethelighton Well, not recently or since learning about attachment styles, but I will ask one, and I will let you know how it goes. I did have some conversations with them in the past about things that I am now paying special attention to, given what I know now. For example, one of my parents once said that they perceived me as "always running away" as a child. And also that they thought all our relationship problems stemmed from one particular incident where I wasn't comforted correctly as a baby. I definitely do not agree with that but it's very interesting. That is not the parent I plan to talk to about attachment styles. Spending time with my family is triggering to me in general, even though the family I spend time with is pretty great now. Now that I realize that it triggers me, hopefully I can mitigate that and how it spills onto the rest of my life. It's already glaringly obvious to me why I am the way I am based on my childhood and I remember it well, so I can imagine it might provide more insight to question one's parents for someone who, say, thinks they had a somewhat decent childhood. Is it something you're considering?
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Post by leavethelighton on Sept 7, 2018 0:20:31 GMT
Yes but I wonder how triggery it might be. Right now I feel like it wouldn't be, but I might be in denial. For example, when my kids were waking up a lot in the night for years and my mother said they did "cry it out" with me even as an adult, I felt hurt they would do that. This conversation was a couple years ago . I feel less prone to anger, hurt or distancing with them lately, but it's always a risk that such a conversation might be harder than I'd expect. I still want to have more conversations with them about the past anyway. I have little memory of before age 6.
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Post by epicgum on Sept 7, 2018 2:24:49 GMT
Yes but I wonder how triggery it might be. Right now I feel like it wouldn't be, but I might be in denial. For example, when my kids were waking up a lot in the night for years and my mother said they did "cry it out" with me even as an adult, I felt hurt they would do that. This conversation was a couple years ago . I feel less prone to anger, hurt or distancing with them lately, but it's always a risk that such a conversation might be harder than I'd expect. I still want to have more conversations with them about the past anyway. I have little memory of before age 6. My parents did the "cry it out" thing as well. Also locking me in my room during tantrums. My childhood was pretty good compared to how some other people on here had it though. |
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Post by leavethelighton on Sept 10, 2018 1:20:18 GMT
I think perhaps it isn't only how one's parent are, but also children's innate natures. Like we had pretty decent childhoods, but some of the things our parents did may have affected us more than they might have affected someone else. It doesn't have to be obvious abuse or neglect, sometimes it's also how commonly imperfect parenting meshes with our own innate personalities.
I think I've mostly raised my two children similarly to each other (obviously you learn some things from the experience of raising the first and so make some adjustments for the second, but they haven't been radical changes in parenting from one to the next-- for both I knew enough about child psychology and my own strengths and weakness to be focused on trying to be responsive, respectful, reliable, etc.-- I went out of my way not to do "Cry it out" or abandon them when they had/have strong feelings), and one of my children has still always seemed less securely attached than the other. My two children are just so different even with decent parenting, but they've been different pretty much since birth.
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