Reparenting Yourself Sometimes Looks Like Not Pushing Yourself
For people who learned early to over-function, push through, and ignore their own limits, self-care may mean choosing the easier path rather than forcing another hard thing. This essay reframes good-enough reparenting as responsive, compassionate support that makes room for both challenge and a genuine no.
What Good-Enough Reparenting Means
Good enough re-parenting is a phrase I use to describe how we , as adults on our relational trauma recovery journeys , should aspire to show up for ourselves.
If you're the person in your family line who decided to stop the pattern, my self-paced course Parenting Past the Pattern is the practical work of doing it.
The good-enough part is derived from the concept of the “good enough mother” , a contribution by pediatrician and psychiatrist Donald Winnicott , who posited that “good enough” means attuning to, loving, and providing for a child but also “failing” them at times in developmentally appropriate ways and, critically, that this failing is beneficial for the child’s growth and development.
It’s the antidotal idea to the idea of a “perfect parent” , our flesh and blood parents couldn’t be this and we can’t be this for ourselves either.
And not only is that okay , it’s best for our overall development.
And, of course, re-parenting ourselves means treating ourselves as a good enough parent would have ideally done, consistently and constantly striving to honor our personhood and dignity, creating a safe environment for ourselves, loving us unconditionally, etc.
If you’re a parent, you know that every day you likely have to enforce boundaries and make choices that your child doesn’t love but that you know are best for them.
Good-enough parenting, a concept associated with pediatrician and psychiatrist Donald Winnicott, emphasizes responsive care rather than perfection, including manageable disappointments that support development.
In plain terms: You do not need to parent yourself perfectly; you need to respond to yourself with enough steadiness, dignity, and care.
When the Kind Choice Is Not Pushing
Choices like turning off the iPad after 30 minutes and enduring the tantrum or insisting on wearing pants and a long sleeve shirt under the flimsy Elsa Frozen dress because it’s only 55 degrees outside.
And you likely enforce boundaries and make choices that you don’t love but you know are best for you.
Choices like skipping sushi on Friday night to save the money for your other savings goals or scheduling the recommended mammogram even though you’d rather not.
Parenting our actual children and doing our re-parenting sometimes does look like doing the necessary, hard work that’s critical for our well-being.
Those are the appropriate and manageable “failings” Donald Winnicott meant , disappointments, choices, and failures to get exactly what we want , that a good enough parent sometimes causes.
But good enough re-parenting does not mean blasting through fear and terror in unmanageable ways.
The window of tolerance is the range of emotional and physical activation in which a person can stay present, think clearly, and respond rather than become overwhelmed or shut down.
In plain terms: A healthy challenge is different from being pushed so far past your capacity that your system cannot stay with you.
Honoring Fear and Limited Capacity
For many of us who grew up in relationally traumatic homes, we acclimated early to hardship.
We know what it’s like to not get our needs met, to over-function amid dysfunction, to use an endless array of creative behaviors to guard against feeling vulnerable, weak, and needy (because those feelings usually didn’t go over well in our childhood homes, did they?).
For many of us who come from relational trauma histories, doing hard things and pushing ourselves beyond our limits is not our growth edge.
Choosing what is easy and what honors our fear, vulnerability, and limited capacities is our growth edge.
And now, to support your own relational trauma recovery journey and self-inquiry process, I want to ask you:
Is there any way where you could be a better, good-enough parent for yourself by not pushing yourself? Is your growth edge , like mine , choosing the easier, more self-supporting path and honoring your fear and limited capacities? Is there any way you could extend the same support you show your child (if you have one) to yourself more in any way? What came up for you as you read today’s essay?
Q: Does reparenting always mean making myself do hard things?
A: No. The essay argues that good-enough reparenting can include necessary challenges and also permission not to push through unmanageable fear.
Q: What is good-enough reparenting?
A: It means trying to offer yourself the safety, respect, care, and realistic limits that a good-enough parent would provide.
Q: How do I know if I am avoiding or honoring a real limit?
You are not your parents. Some nights, that's the hardest thing to hold.
A focused self-paced course on intergenerational trauma and the daily practice of breaking the pattern with your own children. For the 3 AM guilt that wakes you. For the moments you almost said what was said to you. For the work of being the one who stops.
A: The essay invites attention to whether something is a manageable growth edge or whether it excessively eclipses your capacity.
Q: Why can choosing easy feel so difficult?
A: If you grew up acclimated to hardship and over-functioning, honoring fear and limited capacity may be less familiar than pushing through.
Q: Can saying no be a form of self-care?
A: Yes. A no can be a responsive, boundary-honoring act when it protects you from being overwhelmed.
EMDR-trained, trauma-informed therapy for driven women healing relational and developmental trauma.
Trauma-informed coaching for driven women navigating leadership, burnout, and identity.
Annie’s signature course for relational trauma recovery. The framework, in your own time.
Annie Wright, LMFT
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist · Relational Trauma Specialist · W.W. Norton Author
“Helping driven women finally feel as good as their résumé looks.”
Annie Wright is a licensed psychotherapist with 15,000+ clinical hours since 2013 and an EMDRIA Certified Therapist. She’s the founder and former CEO of Evergreen Counseling, a multimillion-dollar trauma-informed therapy center she successfully exited. She’s currently writing her first book, The Everything Years: Navigating the Pressure and Promise of Your Thirties, with W.W. Norton (2027). Her expert commentary has appeared in Psychology Today, Forbes, Business Insider, NBC News, and The Information.
CA LMFT95719 · CO MFT.0003236 (telehealth only) · CT 003806 · DC LMFT200001447 · FL TPMF356 (out-of-state telehealth registration) · IL 166.012270 · ME MF8600 · MD LCM1206 · NH 1030 · NJ 37FI00254800 · NY 002805 · TX 206391 · UT 14300323-3902 · VA 0717002589 · WA MFT.LF.70098096
Annie Wright, LMFT
LMFT · Relational Trauma Specialist · Author, W.W. Norton 2027
Helping driven women finally feel as good as their résumé looks.
Annie Wright is an EMDR-certified licensed psychotherapist and relational trauma specialist with over 15,000 clinical hours, and she's been in practice since 2013. Trained in EMDR, psychodynamic, and somatic modalities, she is licensed in 14 U.S. jurisdictions and registered to provide telehealth in Florida (California, Colorado (telehealth only), Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington). Annie works with driven and ambitious women from relational trauma backgrounds, and everything she writes about is field-tested across thousands of clinical sessions. She is the founder and former CEO of Evergreen Counseling, a multimillion-dollar trauma-informed therapy center she built, scaled, and successfully exited, and is currently writing her first book, The Everything Years: Navigating the Pressure and Promise of Your Thirties, with W.W. Norton (2027). A regular contributor to Psychology Today, her expert commentary has appeared in USA Today, Forbes, Business Insider, Inc., NBC, and The Information.
Work With Annie