Healing the Inner Child: Reparenting Yourself After Childhood Trauma

Not everyone grows up in a home that feels safe, emotionally consistent, or attuned to their needs. For many adults navigating the lasting impact of childhood trauma, there’s a lingering sense that something is still “off”- an underlying tension, hypervigilance, or fear that things could go wrong at any moment.

Many clients come to therapy after years of working hard to understand themselves, processing their past, and doing “all the right things”, yet they still feel like something essential is missing. As Kelly McDaniel describes in her book Mother Hunger, not everyone received the steady care, safety, or nurture they needed as children. In adulthood, this often shows up as a quiet longing to finally give themselves what was absent then. For many, reparenting often becomes the way forward: a conscious choice to offer yourself now what your younger self needed most.

What Is Reparenting?

Reparenting is an intentional, ongoing practice rooted in compassion and nervous system healing. It involves learning to meet your own emotional needs in adulthood with the same care and attunement you would offer to a child. It is the process of giving yourself the care, stability, and emotional presence you may not have received as a child.

Of course, reparenting yourself isn’t about erasing the pain of what you went through. The hurt of unmet needs or childhood losses doesn’t simply disappear. What reparenting offers instead is a new way of holding that pain, with compassion, steadiness, and care. It helps you build the inner safety to carry your story differently, to soothe the parts of you that still ache, and to create space for growth, joy, and connection alongside the grief.

This isn’t about blaming your parents, it's about becoming the supportive, steady presence your younger self needed, and that your adult self still deserves.

Why Reparenting Matters

When childhood experiences lack emotional safety or consistency, your nervous system adapts to survive. You might learn to shut down emotionally, stay hypervigilant, please others at your own expense, or disconnect from your body. These may have formed as protective adaptations, but in adulthood, they can leave you feeling disconnected, anxious, overwhelmed, or stuck in cycles of burnout and self-doubt.

Reparenting can help you to:

• Regulate your nervous system

• Create emotional safety

• Build self-trust and confidence

• Heal attachment wounds

• Practice self-compassion

• Establish and hold healthy boundaries

• Reconnect with joy, play, and creativity

What Reparenting Can Look Like in Practice

Reparenting is built on small, consistent acts of self-care, self-reflection, and emotional responsibility. Below are four foundational aspects of reparenting, along with ways these can be practiced in your day to day life.

 1. Guidance

Learning to listen to and trust yourself

• Taking a moment to pause and check in before making a decision

• Journaling through self-doubt instead of reacting impulsively or avoiding the issue

• Making choices that reflect your values- not just what others expect of you

2. Nurture

Offering yourself warmth, care, and emotional responsiveness

• Speaking gently to yourself during moments of distress or pain

• Resting when you’re tired, without guilt or justification

• Naming and validating your emotions

• Reaching out for co-regulation: talking to someone safe, spending time with a pet, or grounding through touch

• Nourishing your body with supportive routines: eating meals that nourish you, moving in ways that feel good, and honoring your need for regular, restorative sleep

 3. Protection

Creating boundaries and emotional safety

• Learning to say no, even if it feels uncomfortable or unfamiliar

• Limiting time with people or situations that consistently leave you feeling drained or unsafe

• Turning off your phone, setting time limits on work, or protecting rest time

• Speaking up for your needs in relationships

4. Play

Inviting joy, creativity, and spontaneity back into your life

• Dancing in your kitchen, singing loudly in the car, or being silly just because it feels good

• Making art, drawing, baking, or doing something with your hands without pressure to “get it right”

• Watching childhood movies or visiting places that spark nostalgia

• Letting go of productivity and allowing time to rest, imagine, or wander

These steps allow you to rebuild a sense of internal safety, emotional resilience, and a compassionate inner voice.

Reparenting Isn’t Linear

There will be days when you feel deeply connected to yourself, and others when old wounds resurface or you slip into familiar patterns. This is part of the work.

Reparenting invites you to show up with compassion, again and again. Not perfectly, but consistently. It’s a process of becoming your own safe place- someone you can rely on.

Therapy Can Help

Reparenting is deeply personal work, and while it’s something you can practice on your own, it doesn’t have to be a solitary process. A mentor once shared with me that therapy, at its core, can be a kind of reparenting- the steady offering of unconditional positive regard, congruence, and empathic understanding. At its best, therapy is a relationship grounded in consistency, safety, and compassion, while supporting you in cultivating those same qualities within yourself.

If you’re curious about how I might be able to support you, I offer a free 20-minute introductory call- no pressure or obligation, just a chance for you to ask any questions you may have, and get a feel for whether working together feels like the right fit for you.

Get in touch: https://www.hannahmitchelltherapy.com/contact