Reflection Summary
Dr. Shefali Tsabary
Dr. Tsabary describes adults who are still, consciously or not, seeking approval or answers from their own parents decades later.
Dr. Tsabary argues that harsh or reactive parenting can sometimes be connected to a parent’s own pain, conditioning, and emotional history—often without the parent recognizing the connection.
She argues that a child’s ordinary behavior can sometimes activate feelings rooted in a parent’s own emotional history.
Dr. Tsabary points to an example comparing brain images of young children to illustrate her broader argument that early relational experiences can have developmental consequences.
Dr. Tsabary suggests that when parents are disconnected from a sense of inner wholeness, children may learn to seek their value externally, through achievement or possessions.
She invites parents to turn some attention inward rather than assuming the child is always the one who needs fixing, presenting this as a starting point for change.
Dr. Tsabary opens from her clinical practice, where client after client, no matter the presenting problem, eventually circles back to childhood. A man in his forties still quietly seeking his father’s approval decades later. Other clients tracing lifelong pain and even self-destructive habits back to early losses and painful things said to them as children. The common thread, she says, is that an early parental voice becomes internalized so deeply that it shapes how a person sees their own worth long into adulthood, resistant to being talked out of by anyone else, including a therapist.
Her central reframe is that parents rarely hurt their children out of malice or a lack of love. She argues that harsh or reactive parenting can sometimes be connected to a parent’s own pain, conditioning, and emotional history—often without the parent recognizing the connection. She acknowledges that many forces shape a child, temperament, environment, circumstances beyond any parent’s control, but argues the one place a parent holds consistent, real influence is the everyday relationship itself, the ordinary morning and bedtime moments most people barely think about.
To ground this, she points to an example comparing brain images of young children, using it to illustrate her broader argument that early relational experiences can have developmental consequences. She connects this to what she calls being triggered, a child’s ordinary behavior, such as not listening, pushing back, or being disrespectful, can sometimes stir feelings rooted in a parent’s own emotional history. A parent who lashes out, nitpicks, or feels enraged by a child’s normal behavior may, she argues, be responding to something from their own experience as well as to the child in front of them.
She closes on what children absorb from this dynamic. She suggests that when parents are themselves disconnected from a stable sense of inner worth, children may learn to look outward for their own value instead, toward achievement, approval, or possessions, rather than trusting they are already enough. Her invitation is to stop assuming the child is always the one who needs fixing and to turn some attention inward as a starting point for change, arguing that a parent’s own capacity for presence, joy, and self-acceptance becomes the model a child eventually absorbs as their own.
Next time you feel triggered by your child’s behavior, pause and ask what it might be stirring up in you, rather than reacting immediately.
See if you’re praising or valuing achievement over your child’s simple sense of being enough as they are.
If you find yourself nitpicking or comparing your child to someone else, consider what inner critic of your own might be behind it.
Spend a few minutes reflecting on your own childhood relationship with your parents, and notice what patterns you might be carrying forward.
Parenting can bring reactions to the surface that surprise us. Sometimes the intensity of a moment is entirely about what is happening with our child. At other times, the moment may also touch something we carry—an expectation, fear, sensitivity, or pattern shaped by our own experiences.
Looking inward doesn’t mean assuming every parenting difficulty is our fault. It means becoming curious about what belongs to the situation in front of us and what we may be bringing into it. That kind of reflection can create a little more space between what we feel and how we choose to respond.
There are no right or wrong answers here, just space to think about your own family.
Can you think of a moment your child’s behavior triggered a much bigger reaction in you than the moment called for? What might that have been about?
What messages did you absorb as a child about where your own worth came from?
Where do you find yourself trying to fix your child’s behavior rather than reflecting on your own response to it?
What would it look like to do your own inner work as the starting point for a change you want to see in your parenting?
Every family is different. If you’ve tried something that made a difference in your family, we’d love to hear about it.
More reflections that may help you think about this from another angle.
