Why Trauma-Aware Parenting Matters

Gentle parenting has gained visibility in recent years, and with it, a wave of misunderstanding.
Some now claim it lacks boundaries, undermines authority, or creates children who “run the house”.

Many people equate gentle parenting with:
• no boundaries
• no authority
• parents who “give in”
• children who control the environment

But this isn’t gentle parenting.

This is submissive parenting, and the distinction matters.

When we blur these concepts, we don’t just confuse language.
We confuse nervous systems, expectations, and children’s developmental needs.

So let’s slow this down and clarify.
 

Submissive Parenting: When Fear Leads the Parent

Submissive parenting isn’t about loving too much or wanting children to be happy.
It’s about a parent’s nervous system being driven by fear, guilt, or unresolved patterns, rather than grounded leadership.

This fear can look like fear of:
• upsetting the child
• being disliked
• repeating past harshness
• causing emotional harm
• conflict or emotional intensity

In submissive parenting:
• the child’s emotions begin to control the environment
• boundaries are avoided or become inconsistent
• parents override their own needs to keep peace
• behaviour is managed through appeasement rather than guidance
• adults often feel depleted, resentful, or invisible

Over time, the family rhythm becomes organised around avoiding the child’s distress rather than meeting shared needs.
It can genuinely look, and feel, as though the child is running the show.

 HAVE YOU GOT THE ULTIMATE TRAUMA THERAPY CHECKLIST YET??--

Why This Isn’t Empowering for Children

Children in these dynamics are not actually empowered. They become over-responsibilised.

Without clear containment, children may feel:
• anxious
• unsure
• unsafe in the absence of structure
• burdened by too much influence
• unclear about limits
• unable to respect others’ “no”

Without consistent boundaries, children don’t learn where they end and others begin.
They’re left to figure out limits on their own before their nervous systems are ready.

Boundaries provide:
• safety and predictability
• guidance around acceptable behaviour
• relief from managing adult emotions
• a framework for self-control to develop over time
• respect for others

When boundaries are consistently missing, children may grow into adults who:
• struggle to recognise or hold their own limits
• feel responsible for others’ emotions
• oscillate between people-pleasing and resentment
• avoid conflict or fear emotional expression
• confuse love with appeasement
 

What This Does and Does Not Create

Protecting children from all limits, frustration, or shared responsibility does not create narcissism.

But it can contribute to traits such as:
• low frustration tolerance
• difficulty considering others’ needs
• entitlement without relational awareness
• expecting accommodation rather than collaboration
• distress when the world doesn’t revolve around them

These patterns aren’t the result of being “too loved”.
They’re the result of missing containment, guidance, and embodied leadership.

Children need to know that someone is in charge.
 

Gentle Parenting: Kindness With Boundaries

True gentle parenting is not passive.

It is intentional, respectful, and grounded in an understanding of child development.

Gentle parenting recognises that children need both empathy and leadership.
It does not avoid boundaries. It delivers them with calmness, clarity, and consistency.

The goal is not to eliminate discomfort, but to support children through it without shame, fear, or punishment.

In gentle parenting:
• the adult remains the guide
• feelings are welcomed, but they do not dictate the structure of the environment
• connection is preserved without collapsing authority

Gentleness here is not softness without structure.
It is strength expressed through steadiness, presence, and repair.

Gentle parenting includes:
• clear boundaries
• predictable responses
• calm, firm leadership
• repair after rupture
• empathy without indulgence

A gentle parent can say:
“I won’t let you hit.”
“I hear you’re angry.”
“We’re leaving now.”
“I’m here with you through this.”

The gentleness is in how the boundary is held, not whether one exists.
 

Boundaries, Anger, and Embodied Leadership

A question that often goes unspoken in gentle parenting spaces is this:

If boundaries are always delivered calmly, where do children learn what healthy, integrated anger looks like?

Anger is a natural, biological emotion.
It is a signal of crossed boundaries, threatened values, or a need for protection.

Children are born expressing anger freely.
They do not come into the world suppressing it. That is learned.

Gentle parenting is not meant to teach children that anger is unsafe, unacceptable, or something that must be hidden in order to be loved.

And yet, when gentleness is misunderstood as constant calmness, an unintended message can form.
That anger should be swallowed rather than felt.

This is not regulation.

Want to work with us?
If you're a Coach, Therapist, Healer or Someone in the Industry CLICK HERE
Want to Deepen your own Healing Journey or become a Practitioner CLICK HERE

Anger Is Not the Problem. Unfelt Anger Is.

There is an important distinction trauma-aware parenting must hold.

Feeling anger is not the same as discharging it onto a child.

Anger that belongs to the present moment, such as when a boundary is being crossed, is different from anger that is actually an old wound being reactivated.

For example, a parent exploding when a child spills a drink may not be responding to the spill at all, but to unresolved experiences of punishment, shame, or control from their own childhood.

That is not present-moment anger.
That is unintegrated past emotion.

Trauma-aware parenting does not ask parents to act from this place.

But it also does not ask parents to pretend anger doesn’t exist.
 

LEARN ABOUT THE TRAUMA-AWARE PARENTING COURSE HERE

What Children Actually Learn From Us

Children learn primarily through embodied experience, not instruction.

They are constantly reading tone, posture, breath, pacing, and presence, long before they understand words.

When a parent can feel anger internally, stay connected to their body, and still hold a boundary firmly, the child learns something essential.

That anger can exist without destroying connection.
That boundaries can be held with strength, not fear.
That emotions do not need to be suppressed to maintain safety.

Children learn:
• how to hold anger by watching how we hold ours
• how to navigate limits by feeling our certainty
• how to return to calm by sensing our capacity to do so

This might sound like:
“I know you’re angry, and I won’t let you hurt someone.”
“I’m feeling frustrated, and I’m still here.”
“Your feelings matter, and so do other people’s.”

The emotion is allowed.
The boundary is clear.
The leadership remains intact.
 

Trauma-Aware Parenting: Returning to Instinct and Embodied Leadership

Trauma-aware parenting is not another strategy layered on top of gentle parenting.
It is a return back into the body, back into instinct, back into truth.

Rather than asking, “What technique should I use right now?”
Trauma-aware parenting asks, “What is happening in my body, and what is my child responding to in me?”

Children do not respond to strategies.
They respond to nervous systems.

They respond to tone, posture, breath, pace, and presence.
They respond to whether leadership feels real or performative.

This is why scripts fail when the nervous system is dysregulated.

Trauma-aware parenting recognises that humans are wired for instinct and intuition before logic.
Long before children understand rules, they sense safety or threat, steadiness or collapse, confidence or fear.

Leadership is felt, not explained.
 

Regulation Over Performance

Trauma-aware parenting does not ask parents to override their instincts in the name of calmness.

It asks parents to listen to their bodies, integrate their emotions, and respond from regulation rather than suppression.

This means:
• anger is felt, not bypassed
• fear is acknowledged, not acted out
• boundaries are held from inner certainty, not guilt
• calm is genuine, not forced

Children do not need parents who are perfectly calm.
They need parents who are honest, regulated, and embodied.
 

Leadership Comes From the Body

In trauma-aware parenting:
• boundaries are embodied, not imposed
• authority comes from safety, not control
• guidance is grounded, not rigid
• strength is present without domination

The parent does not collapse under emotion.
The parent does not overpower it.

They stay.

This is what allows children to feel held rather than managed, guided rather than controlled.
 

What Nature Shows Us

In the natural world, we do not see constant gentleness.
We see clarity.

Animals:
• signal when a line is crossed
• guide their young firmly
• protect without apology
• respond proportionately
• return to calm once safety is restored

There is no shame, only regulation through completion.

Trauma-aware parenting mirrors this wisdom through embodied authority, not aggression.
 

The Truth Most Parenting Conversations Miss

Children don’t need parents who are soft or strict.

They need parents who are regulated, embodied, and consistent.

Gentle parenting without regulation can become submissive.
Authority without empathy becomes fear-based.

Trauma-aware parenting holds both.

It doesn’t ask parents to be perfect,
only present, reflective, and willing to heal.

And when parents feel safer in their own bodies, children do too.

Kind regards,
Tara Russell

 Co-Creator of Trauma-Aware Parenting

Explore our courses and trainings at The Centre for Healing HERE