Reparenting is a therapeutic method as well as a general healing technique.

It’s useful when parents fail to help children form healthy self-concepts, self-monitor and regulate and have autonomy.

Domains of reparenting.

Accountability: You take responsibility for your actions. You apologize and/or make amends when you’ve harmed another. But done with positive and self-respect and without harsh criticism.

Communication: The ability to express yourself clearly and effectively. Conflict resolution and avoiding passive-aggression and similar blocks in communication.

Healthy relationships: Creating relationships with mutual respect and trust. Identifying when others are not respecting you and establishing that you deserve it and not accepting this treatment. Setting boundaries and enforcing them.

Life skills: managing finances, looking after your health, breaking habits like not sleeping or smoking you don’t want.

Regulation: The ability to manage your emotions and sensory needs. Through understanding emotions and identifying coping skills to manage them.

Self-care: The ability to identify your needs and meet them. Feeling deserving of care and comfort and the belief that your needs matter.

Self-monitoring and self-limits: Helping yourself remember to engage in healthy habits and participating in life skills.

Self-compassion: Treating yourself with loving-kindness – especially when you’re having a hard time or made a mistake. Honouring the hurt and wounded child and your hard experience. Moving away from self-blame, unhealthy guilt and shame.

Validation: Affirming your feelings and self. Promoting autonomy and self-respect. Gaining healthy core beliefs about yourself.

Overall Resiliency: The ability to overcome setbacks, to persist, and to believe in yourself.

Ways to work towards these healing principles:

• Learn about these domains of reparenting.
• Find a feelings chart to help you identify emotions
• coping skills for symptoms you have like hyperarousal, anxiety or flashbacks
• learn some models of self-regulation like DBT or others you find helpful
• Look for life skills lessons and find ways that help you maintain your living conditions like cleaning your bathroom, laundry, keeping up with your car.
• If helpful for you to learn about the psychology of these topics
• Journal about how you’re doing to help yourself keep track of your progress.
• Practice affirmations that start off as neutral statements and work to positivity.
• Offer self and your inner child comfort.
• Set a comfortable space with blankets, hot drinks, stuffed animals etc.
• Let your inner child enjoy life. Watch the kid shows/movies that offer comfort, by yourself toys/stuffed animals etc.
• Give yourself hugs! And other actions that promote feelings of safety.
• Start at the beginning for self-care you find hard.
• If all you can eat that day is toast then toast it is.
• If you keep disposable toothbrushes by the bed and that’s all you can do that day, great.
• If you keep washcloths for the bad days and you can’t take a shower then that’s fine for that day.
• All of these small steps are good, it takes time and some days this is all you have and that’s fine!
• Work on breaking away from judgmental statements about yourself and the world.
• Find ways that help you with time management. Things like ADHD can make schedules hard so look into all the ways people manage time for them and try those. Any ways, what you find are valid and important.
• Set time aside to feel your emotions. If you were never allowed to feel emotions as a child it can be hard to recognise them. Purposefully focusing on them can help allow you to do so during life in general.
• Reward and cheer for yourself when you succeed at these steps as well as for general life wins. Talk to yourself out loud that you did good!
• When you find yourself feeling poorly, let yourself feel those emotions and validate that your emotions are important.
• Start saying no to small things to practice boundaries, and work up to setting important and large boundaries.