Gia⁷

“You don’t have to understand life. You just have to live it.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“Our parents and caregivers are as much products of their own upbringings as we are; the only difference is that we live in a culture and time now that is aware of childhood trauma, so we can be the generation to break the cycle. Our parents and caregivers weren’t so lucky.”
― Sarah Ockwell-Smith, How to Be a Calm Parent: Lose the guilt, control your anger and tame the stress - for more peaceful and enjoyable parenting and calmer, happier children too

“Our inner voices and the words that ultimately leave our mouths when we respond to our children, particularly in times of heightened emotions, are often subconscious memories of the way we were spoken to as children.”
― Sarah Ockwell-Smith, How to Be a Calm Parent: Lose the guilt, control your anger and tame the stress - for more peaceful and enjoyable parenting and calmer, happier children too

“This subconscious belief can – and does – often lead to children repressing their own emotions or needs in the mistaken conviction that they are unlovable and unlikeable if they are struggling. This learned, erroneous behaviour from the past can become a huge trigger for us as adults, when our own children misbehave, because somewhere deep inside us is a lost child crying for attention, but one who has learned to repress their needs. When our own children act in a similar needy or dysregulated way, it triggers us not only because of their needs, but because of our own past needs, too.”
― Sarah Ockwell-Smith, How to Be a Calm Parent: Lose the guilt, control your anger and tame the stress - for more peaceful and enjoyable parenting and calmer, happier children too