You're not just handling a tantrum. You're dealing with generational trauma.
Jun 05, 2025It might look like a tantrum.
A slammed door. A disrespectful tone.
A total refusal to brush teeth, go to school, or follow rules that “should” be simple.
But sometimes, what you’re really witnessing isn’t a child misbehaving.
You’re watching trauma rise up through generations.
And land, screaming, in your kitchen.
Let me say it clearly:
This is not just about your 9-year-old. This is about what your 9-year-old inherited.
What if this behavior isn't about the behavior?
I remember the years when my son was violent at home. I was doing everything "right"—calm tone, consistency, structure, empathy—and none of it was working. I didn’t realize then what I know now: my son wasn’t just dysregulated. He was carrying pain that didn’t start with him.
My children were adopted at birth from a mother who was not able to raise them because of addiction—an addiction rooted in her own childhood trauma. Their birth mom, experienced an abusive childhood. Before that? Her mother had struggled too. It is not hard to imagine that centuries of slavery trickled down in abusive relationships long after the abolishment of it.
Trauma doesn’t skip generations.
It embeds itself in the nervous system, the blood, the stories not told.
Parenting a child with this kind of history means you’re not just the parent—you’re the pattern-breaker.
When we expect our children to respond to parenting techniques like sticker charts and time-outs, we forget that the child in front of us is carrying generations of abandonment, oppression, and survival.
If your child explodes when asked to clean up their toys, it might not be defiance.
It might be that obedience, for their ancestors, was never safe.
It might be that their nervous system doesn’t believe you’re safe yet—not because of anything you did wrong, but because they were born into a lineage where trust was broken, over and over.
You are not failing. You are standing at the fault line.
You are the one who said yes.
Yes to raising a child of a different race.
Yes to being the person who stays when trauma tells them no one will.
So when your child melts down and something deep in you also gets triggered—when you feel that helpless rage, or the need to yell, or the urge to run—it may also be your own inherited trauma whispering, “This is too much.”
But it’s not too much. It’s real. And you can handle it.
Not perfectly. Not always calmly. But with love that is bigger than behavior. With a willingness to be present to something deeper than what’s on the surface.
What helps?
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Stay curious, not controlling. Ask yourself: What’s under this behavior? What fear, what grief, what memory might this child be holding in their body?
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Break the cycle with presence. You don’t need a new strategy—you need the capacity to stay. That’s the opposite of what trauma teaches.
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Let go of perfection. You will lose it sometimes. I did. I vowed I’d never yell—and then I did. But I kept trying. I got support. I learned to hold space for pain without becoming the pain.
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Don’t do this alone. This is sacred work. You need people who get it—who won’t shame you, or your child, for what you’re carrying.
This is not your fault—but it is your responsibility.
If you are a white parent raising a Black or Brown child, you are living with the consequences of history every day. You may not have caused the trauma, but you are now the one entrusted with helping to heal it.
This is not just parenting.
This is repair.
This is resistance.
This is love, in its fiercest form.
And if you need support, you are not weak—you are wise.
At White Awake Parenting, I walk beside parents who are waking up to the truth:
Our children aren’t broken.
The system is.
And we have the power to change the story—starting in our own homes.
You’re not just raising a child. You’re raising a generation.
Let’s do it wide awake. Wanna chat about this?
xox
Marion
Founder, White Awake Parenting
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