Parenting With Boundaries - Even If Yours Were Never Respected
If you struggle to hold consistent limits with your child… or if you find yourself either too rigid or too lenient, you’re not failing.
You’re likely parenting without a clear internal blueprint for boundaries - and that’s incredibly hard.
For many cycle breaker parents, setting boundaries feels confusing, uncomfortable, or even wrong. Especially if you grew up with emotionally immature parents, where boundaries weren’t just ignored - they were punished.
When Parenting Feels Like You’re Never Doing Enough
If you find yourself constantly second-guessing your parenting decisions, feeling guilty for losing patience, or lying awake wondering if you’ve “ruined” your child’s day… you’re not alone.
This kind of parenting guilt is common - especially if you’re trying to do things differently from the way you were raised.
But for many cycle breaker parents, it goes deeper than everyday self-doubt.
It becomes a constant internal narrative: I should have handled that better. I’m failing. I’m turning into them.
So why does the guilt feel so intense when you’re parenting after childhood trauma?
When Your Child’s Emotions Trigger Your Wounds
You’re in the kitchen, your child starts crying - and suddenly you feel it. That rising heat in your chest. The overwhelm. The urge to shut it down or walk away.
You don’t want to react. You know they’re just expressing big feelings.
But your body’s already in fight-or-flight.
If this sounds familiar, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad parent.
It means you’re a triggered parent - one who’s doing the incredibly brave work of parenting after childhood trauma.
“I Swore I’d Be Different”
If you were raised by emotionally immature parents, you didn’t get a healthy template for love, boundaries, or emotional regulation. Now, you’re trying to break that cycle while still healing from it - and that’s more than just parenting. That’s recovery work.
