signiɹcantly impacts your child’s future. Research studies have
consistently shown that when parents oʃer repeated,
predictable experiences in which they see and sensitively
respond to their children’s emotions and needs, their children
will thrive—socially, emotionally, physically, and even
academically. While it’s not exactly a revelation that kids do
better when they enjoy strong relationships with their parents,
what may surprise you is what produces this kind of parent-
child connection. It’s not how our parents raised us, or how
many parenting books we’ve read. It’s actually how well
we’ve made sense of our experiences with our own parents
and how sensitive we are to our children that most powerfully
inɻuence our relationship with our kids, and therefore how
well they thrive.
It all comes down to what we call our life narrative, thestory we tell when we look at who we are and how we’ve
become the person that we are. Our life narrative determines
our feelings about our past, our understanding of why people
(like our parents) behaved as they did, and our awareness of
the way those events have impacted our development into
adulthood. When we have a coherent life narrative, we have
made sense of how the past has contributed to who we are and
what we do.
A life narrative that hasn’t been examined and made senseof may limit us in the present, and may also cause us to parent
reactively and pass down to our children the same painful
legacy that negatively aʃected our own early days. For
instance, imagine that your father had a diɽcult childhood.
Perhaps his home was an emotional desert, where his parents