I’m a sole parent to three teens with complex trauma. I have been on this journey of healing myself while helping my kids, atoning for my mistakes with them, and protecting them in ways I am still newly integrating since the night our abuser left our house. I have learned a few truths along the way and while the topic of parenting trauma deserves its own book, (maybe one day I’ll be so lucky), for now this is a start.

Parenting trauma isn’t like parenting kids in healthy households. True, there are enough similarities to make a person question how it might be different, however it’s important to know that there is a depth to the severity and that changes the nuance. Meaning, I’m still raising American teens in familiar societal constructs, the difference is the intensity of their behaviors, the thinking paths and perspectives that cloud their developing brains and the outcomes that alter family dynamics. In clinical terms it’s a shit show without any reprieve.

Our History
I earned my first memory of being struck by my ex-husband at the tender age of eighteen. By age twenty I was pregnant with our first child, the same year the police intervened the first time. I haven’t always understood this, but until 2017 my kids had only lived in complex trauma, they hadn’t known anything else.

This is a story my ex-husband doesn’t want revealed, it’s a very different version of the story than the one he tells. It’s still the truth.

In the summer of 2017 my son was attacked three times by his bio-donor. Family violence wasn’t new to any of us and while my kids will one day tell their own story on their own terms for now you should know that the last time he hit any of us was that night in September though the abuse continued long after that night. There are sights and sounds from that night that are forever seared in all of our minds. The sight of my son pinned to the ground in a choke hold by his father, the sound of my daughter yelling that she was going to call the police, me telling her to do it…it’s all right there as fresh as though it happened just last week. This is a trauma that doesn’t simply disappear.

When the police descended on our house that night it would be the first time in our lives none of us tried to protect our abuser. He hadn’t gotten to us first, hadn’t been able to intimidate us to bend the truth to his favor. That night the kids and I told our truth, the whole truth. He was arrested almost without question, blood streaming down his face from the one punch my brave, hurting kiddo landed. His mug shot is an image I can still close my eyes and see. He looks exactly like you’d expect an abusive man to look, hollowed and mean, vengeful. To this day he insists he took the fall for my son, that it was my 15 year old that should have been arrested.

The day after his arrest we woke to an unfamiliar calm and, though disoriented, filled our lungs deeply with a new sense of safety. Prior to that morning I don’t think any of us had been able to fully recognize just how scared we had been every day in his house. We lived in the chaos and torture of unmetered violence by the one who was supposed to protect us most, it messed us all up. When you live like that there is a persistent numbing necessary for survival. Unfortunately it doesn’t just numb the hard parts, it also numbs the good, the potential, and the discernment too.

It was also the morning I woke up a sole parent to three kids with severe trauma. In a matter of just a few hours our lives had been slammed into a new existence; we had to learn to navigate the justice system, criminal and family court, grand jury summons, child services, and intense financial insecurity. Life had always been harder than necessary, but now our suffering seemed to be doubling down. “How do I, with my own slew of complex trauma symptoms, parent them well enough?” I kept asking. I barely kept my head above water those first few years.

In early 2018 I won full legal and physical custody and a family protective order. We were finally legally free. It was then that our collective healing truly began, a messy, tearful collection of fear, trauma monsters, long nights, and the impossible aftereffects of suffering. Thankfully we didn’t stop there and have found an earned redemptive security with one another, a happy, loving, consistent home, and rest.

Parenting trauma is like being siloed into a lighthouse.

Imagine with me a lighthouse sitting high on a hill or rock, its foundation secured deep into the grounding of the earth, unshakable. A lighthouse doesn’t move and yet is constantly in motion casting out a beacon of safety. The lighthouse calls through the storm telling of the dangers that lie in the space between, guiding with confidence and giving those caught in the deep unrelenting ocean a way back to home. The lighthouse doesn’t come down off its perch, it doesn’t react; it is steady, strong, dependable. It says quietly, “I’m here. You are there. Come this way. Careful! You’ve got it. You can do this, you can figure it out. I’ll show you the way and while you’ll have to do the hard work you can be certain I won’t leave you.” This is, in my opinion, an important metaphor to keep as a vision of parenting trauma.

Kids who have experienced complex trauma, the kind of trauma that is persistent, chronic, and in many cases hard to put a finger on while it’s happening, learn to be reactive and adaptive to harmful realities. Complex traumas are relational and developmental, they alter a child’s brain and create attachment wounds. Kids in these circumstances learn all kinds of helpful although unhealthy coping skills for their survival. They numb and are confused by relationships, they struggle with identity and self worth, they are disproportionately reactive. These can be the kids who are old souls and high achievers but who never feel like they’re enough. They are the bad kids, the kids with “issues.” They are the ones often misdiagnosed with ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, and can even present with symptoms that look like high functioning autism. They have big emotions or no emotional capacity at all.

One of the lessons I had to learn in parenting trauma was about not reacting to what I call Trauma Monsters. There was one night in particular when one of my kids was in full blown trauma reactivity, (To protect their privacy, I’ll be using they/them). After a full blown meltdown, they ran away, kicking and screaming, demanding to be left alone and throwing terrible curses my direction. What they were saying landed hard on me, their words hurt. It was hard not to hear the familiar lies my abuser breathed over me. They were words meant to scare me away from them as they attacked my character and actions. Had I not been certain of my identity (gained through my own intensive therapy) it would have been hard to distinguish the trauma monster from the child, the truth from the reaction.

The whole ordeal lasted at least seven hours and they will tell you I kidnapped them in that time. When they ran away I said, “Where you go, I go” and then I followed them at a distance out the door late into the night. Eventually they got into the car and I decided to drive four hours up and over a mountain while they kicked the dashboard and screamed obscenities. I literally had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from reacting to them. When they took a breath I tried hard to validate the glimpses of truth I could agree to and give them the insight they’d been missing for the ways I’d tried so desperately to protect them when they were certain I had left them in their suffering with their abuser. At 3am they finally slumped over in exhaustion, they finally heard me. We both learned something that night: no matter what I was going to pursue them, they were safe with me, and we were going to stick out the roughest parts of our recovery together. While the trauma monster has reappeared, never again has it been so prolonged nor intense because I worked hard to “lighthouse’ through it. We changed their neurocognition that night and neither of us has forgotten that incredible moment of healing.

The key in parenting traumatized kids is learning to survive the meltdowns. Being able to look at their behaviors as symptoms of a deeper hurt rather than behaviors against you, the parent. Learning to stay grounded and knowing when to tap out will help develop the skill of understanding outbursts as potential teaching opportunities. Just like adults, kids can thrive if given the right attunement. If you learn to listen, if you’re prepared, transformation can happen when kids are in the midst of their dysregulation or overwhelm and you’ve chosen to stay steady, gentle, turned toward them. Give them some distance, get out of the way, but remain close enough by that they can feel your calm presence. They aren’t attacking you, they are attacking the trauma monster that is threatening their sense of safety, withness and security. You just happen to be in the way.

Hear me clearly, none of this is easy. It only works when we as parents are doing our own work; when we’re expanding our emotional intelligence and working consistently to gain insight and awareness of our own needs and reactions. It reminds me of a lesson I often teach: have you ever seen a halter on a horse? It’s a relatively simple contraption that wraps loosely behind a horses ears, under his chin and around his nose. We often attach a rope under the chin and use this as our way to lead these giant beasts wherever we want them to go. Now, a horse can move hundreds of pounds with their neck alone. If that horse doesn’t want to go with us, if we stand in front of him and pull? He’s just going to dig his heels in and not budge. The trick to leading him is to stand beside, to use a gentle voice, and confidently make forward movement. When you are sure and steady, and he feels safe he’ll follow you almost anywhere. Kids and their emotions are like that horse. Don’t get into a wrestling match, don’t drag them along, don’t stand in front of them. Rather, earn the right to be heard by being steadfast, open, quiet and consistent. Lead from beside and encourage them with the gentleness and curiosity that good strong boundaries allows.

They will eventually, after many dark unrelenting nights, come back to you.

We aren’t done yet, but we’re mostly out of the woods. We’re all learning to trust ourselves and place a good solid “No” wherever it belongs. We have family dinners, we bicker, we’re a team. It turns out trauma can be healed and we’re living proof.