Breaking Generational Cycles of Pain

Thomas really wanted to help make breakfast. He was 4 and I was just plain tired. I had been up all night with the baby, and had just about enough energy to feed him. Whilst my back was turned, he picked up the milk carton and proceeded to pour its contents all over the counter and onto the floor! A scream left my mouth and my hand went up to hit him. Before my hand connected with his body, I froze. "You’re just like dad." Suddenly, flashbacks of my own childhood flooded my mind, and I remember thinking that this was not what I wanted for my own children. I saw how much of my parenting was inherited, not chosen. And with that awareness came a powerful truth. What’s passed down can also be transformed.

There is a lot of evidence that we parent in the way that we have been parented. It's called the intergenerational transmission of parenting.

There have been lots of research studies into this. People like Baumrind, John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth, Van Ijzendoorn, and Bandura. As well as studies looking into neuroscience and epigenetics (how our brain responds to our environment) and looking at the correlation between adverse childhood experiences and parenting. Research shows that individuals who were abused or neglected are more likely to repeat those behaviours. Conversely, those who were raised with warmth and responsiveness often replicate those positive patterns in their own parenting journey. The Minnesota Parent-Child Project showed this in a tangible way as they tracked parents and children over decades, showing how early parenting experiences shape parenting approaches later in life.

So is there any hope for Thomas and the parent in the first example? Should we just shrug our shoulders and accept that it’s just nature versus nurture? No, not at all. We believe in a God that can heal and restore. He can break cycles of generational trauma and set people free from the baggage of the past. Amen! But how do we even start to unpick the hurts of the past so that we can walk into the parenting freedom journey that God has intended for us?

I was born into a family that has a long line of trauma. Trauma is a word that is used so often nowadays that I feel sometimes its meaning has been lost. Culturally, we might use the word trauma to describe an event that we really didn’t want to do, like take a cold shower. 

Betsy de Thierry, a trauma specialist, describes it as “any experience or repeated experience where the person feels terrified, powerless and overwhelmed, to the extent that it challenges their capacity to cope. It can leave an imprint on the person’s nervous system, emotions, body, behaviours, learning and relationship”. 

Gabor Mate explains that “trauma is not the event that inflicted the wound. So, the trauma is not the sexual abuse, the trauma is not the war. Trauma is not the abandonment. The trauma is not the inability of your parents to see you for who you were. Trauma is the wound that you sustained as a result”.

Sometimes, we can be so used to trauma, that our bodies' response to it can just be felt as normal. For example, digestive complications such as IBS, can be an outworking of trauma through our gut-brain axis or a result of our bodies being in a constant chronic state of hypervigilance.

The Bible is full of stories of people who have lived through traumatic circumstances. Tamar was raped by her brother. Hagar was sent to die in the desert as a solo parent with her young son, Ishamel. Joseph was beaten up, stripped, thrown into a pit and sold as a slave by his brothers. Job lost everything, but his faith in God. You don’t have to dig very deep to find stories of pain that were felt by both individuals and also communities. The link to intergenerational transmission of parenting is also evidently clear in places like Kings, where we are told that a new King was as evil as “his father was before”. But the thread of salvation and God’s grace, and his restoration plan for us all is also seen as a golden thread that is woven through the pages of our Bible.

So how do we break the chain of generational harmful parenting? You might find this illustration helpful. Imagine a long line of people all holding hands. Four or five generations in length. 

The Great Grandma is bearing the trauma of the impact of having nothing after a world war decimated infrastructures. She wonders why she survived and not her friends. This is compounded by her mum, who is deeply wounded by the death of her husband. 

The Grandma is bearing the trauma of being raised in a household that was under the strict rule of her father. Her own mum didn’t have a father and so has no direct experience of what her role should be next to her husband, and so allows the regime to continue in the house. 

The mum is bearing the trauma of a divorce. She chose to marry a man like her own father; angry, bitter and violent. Now raising children on her own and trying her best to cover the deep wounds that the trauma has made in her own life. She now holds her child. With the pain of the generations before her, mingled with her own trauma, she passes the generational parenting batten over.

But what if the mum stops? What if instead of ignoring the pain, she chooses to face it? What if she seeks help through professional places like counselling, drama therapy, CBT, or parenting courses?

Imagine the picture now. Instead of holding hands with the generations gone before her, she chooses to stand and turn her back on them. Not to forget the struggles and pain that went before her, but to shield the generations that are coming. To be the generational breaker. The process takes courage, support, and self-compassion, but many people have walked this path and found deep transformation.

1. Acknowledge the trauma

You cannot heal what you cannot name. Have a look at your family history. What do you think has been passed down? Fear, silence, shame, control, anger, people-pleasing. What are you carrying? Divorce, abandonment, shame. Name it.

2. Educate yourself

Knowledge is power. There are some great books that will help deepen your understanding. ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ by Bessel van der Kolk is a great starting point. There are some great online courses that can help you understand about generational trauma and how to break the cycle.

3. Speak the unspoken

Find trusted people around you, and talk about your story. This will probably start with a trusted counsellor, who can help you process your past and give you goals for the future.

4. Work with your body

Trauma isn’t just in your mind, it lives in your nervous system as explained above. There are some wonderful trauma-informed exercise coaches out there like Roar Coaching that will help you release what’s stored physically. 

5. Seek healing

Trauma-informed therapy can be really helpful. Look for therapists who understand intergenerational or cultural trauma. Group work can be especially powerful. ParentFuel offers community-built, trauma-informed group sessions that can help dig up some of the roots of generational trauma.

6. Create new patterns

You may not have created the wound, but you can choose not to pass it on. Practice re-parenting yourself and offer the care, safety, and affirmation you may not have received. This comes with positive self talk, speaking Scripture over ourselves and really learning to look after our bodies and mind. Set new boundaries, communicate differently, parent more consciously. Build rituals of healing, joy, and connection through family storytelling, journaling, finding Jesus as a family.

7. Extend yourself grace

Healing is not linear. You’ll have setbacks, but that doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you’re human.

8. Lean on Jesus

Isaiah 58:6 says that the Lord wants to remove the chains that bind people. That excites me. To be able to move into a future that is free of the past, and bring up a new generation of people who will love the Lord, chase after him, find his promises and purposes for their own lives. What better legacy than that?

I’m not going to lie. Deciding to break the chain of generational trauma is hard. It can hurt. It can mean that you are misunderstood and you may end up losing contact with some family members who have not yet been brave enough to stand and feel the past. But God fights for you. His promises are true. He wants you to walk in the freedom that he always intended for you. You were born to be the one who turns the page and with God beside you, freedom isn’t just possible, it’s promised.