Do you want your children to understand traumas you've faced in your past?

[somuchtea]

Just interested in others' views on this one.

If you've been through some sort of major trauma in the past - say abusive relationships, sexual abuse, alcoholism, traumatic experiences, mental health issues etc etc - do you expect to talk to your kids about that, and how it's shaped you?
Is it important to you that they don't just know, but have an indepth understanding of what you experienced?
Or do you prefer to keep it from them?

Don't feel you have to divulge any personal details, just really interested in how people think about what they tell their kids.

And also just a bucket of love to everyone on this thread (everyone) who is parenting lovingly and well despite everything. It sounds like you are all doing a bloody brilliant job & i’ve found reading through the responses inspiring.

@colouringindoors I too tried to share snippets at appropriate times (similar wandering hands stories and others).
I thought my experiences were important as they shaped some of my parenting decision making etc.
But most fell on deaf ears now as they are in their mid 30’s they seem more aware.

Only if my child faced a similar trauma.

I come from a family with secrets and trauma that are poorly hidden but cause great pain. There is a lot of mental health issues in my family and I truly believe that by sharing these secrets and having a little understanding of the stories of those who have gone before us, we can prevent those stories having impact and power over the lives that come afterwards.

I have always known that there was significant hurt in my mother's history and that it had a significant impact on her life and consequently on ours as her children. I see a lot of repeated patterns in families and I think that knowing the stories of our ancestors helps us to break these patterns.

I hear the logic in why it is good to protect children from past trauma and not burdening them with guilt and fear but as someone who felt burdened by grief that wasn't mine and was never spoken about, knowing the stories has been beneficial to me. Perhaps, my relatives failed to protect me by not keeping their histories secret enough but I firmly believe that sharing stories is important. Obviously, how history is shared is important.

I work with families in a safeguarding capacity and IME it can be very damaging for children and teens to be burdened by adult problems. I have worked with many children and young people whose parents have felt the need to disclose everything from childhood Trauma, to infidelity in relationships, to financial problems, to past sexual abuse to their DC and could not (or would not) recognise the anxiety this was causing. The Parent will generally justify it to themselves on the basis of "they need to understand X" but that they actually mean is "I need to feel understood" or "I need to talk about X". We all need validation and to make sense of difficult things that have happened to us, but we shouldn't be seeking this through our children. When adults lean on their children emotionally it means that their children are cast in the role of parent and it's not a role they are emotionally equipped to take on, however mature they are.

Honestly, I've not really had any major traumas that I'd think my children needed to know about. But I've been lucky.

However, in the last year of my dad's life, a lot of stuff came out about things he went through as a child, including sexual abuse from a teacher, which informed us a lot about why he did a lot of stuff, and why he was how he was. While he was a great dad, and honestly did his best, he was far from perfect. But looking back now, it's clear now why he was like that (very emotional/dramatic/prone to angry, unreasonable outbursts). Luckily, our mum was, and is, emotionally steady as a rock, and completely unflappable, so she balanced him out.

Knowing some more about his early life might have made things easier in some ways, but... I don't know. I don't think it would really have made any difference to our day to day lives as children.

I wanted to add that I agree with the statements that children are not their parents therapists and that overhearing or expecting children to take emotional responsibility for their parents is harmful and does not fit within my thoughts about sharing the story of past trauma with children.

No. I won't do it to my own child. My mother suffered traumatic events too but her choice was to tell us children about it all the time. Really affected our world view and not in a good 'eyes open way'.

It depends. My children (10 and under) know I have OCD, but they don’t understand it. I had to tell them as they were worrying but I explained it in the sense that “I’m worried about you opening that window on the catch because I’ve got something called OCD. It’s nothing to worry about, the doctors taking care of it, I’m going to be just fine but it makes me worry a lot about xyz”. So now if I snap/shout/repeatedly check something they ask if something’s wrong or if it’s my letters problem. 9 time’s out of 10 it’s the letter problem, eldest will usually just say “mum I’m fine, stop worrying” now. And she has a point

But I’d not go in depth on what OCD actually means and how dramatically it impacted my life at the start or how I spent every day for 3 years wishing I could blow my brains out just to make it stop. I’d not tell them how it’s shaped me as a person UNLESS they were to experience similar. It would be cruel and unfair on them dumping my mental load on them and I genuinely don’t understand parents that would do that to a child.

I’m sure there are exceptions where sharing could be beneficial (for the child) but for me it’s a no, no and NO! I can’t see how it’d be helpful in the slightest other than possibly understanding me better.

I think handled properly and discussed sensitively yes. My partner’s mother hasn’t had a great life and has sadly had a couple of stillbirths and lost a child (a type of pain I hope I will never know). She wants to talk about it a lot and I always listen and talk about it with her because I’m one step removed from it all - she’s crying out to talk about it but never had therapy etc at the time. However my partner is a bit traumatised by it all as he remembers all the losses and obviously his sister dying and doesn’t like to discuss it. He told me she used to bring it up a lot to him and his brother when he was a child and he found it very traumatic as he didn’t really know what to do or say. Very sad situation.

My DCs know that I had a difficult childhood and hence no contact with DM but they don’t know the details. There are lots of elements about my past that I don’t want to share with Dh or DC and have no need to

My mum massively overshared with me the abuse she received from my dad. I found it confusing and a burden and it made me very cynical about relationships. As a younger girl/woman I always felt I wasn't really supposed to have been born as it caused my mum such trauma. I'm over that now though, am fairly resilient I suppose. It affected my relationship with my mum negatively; she always seemed so vulnerable and childlike sadly, even though she was a strong woman in many ways.
I don't overshare with my DC.

I agree with ChateauMargaux

I had a traumatic upbringing in a family where secrecy and covering things up was the norm, so I'm open about things if asked, eg parental alcoholism, which I might mention or briefly discuss in context eg wider discussion about drinking. There's a difference between that and burdening them with problems.

In my case, I've processed it all in therapy and I think that helps to discuss things without the emotional charge, more in a factual way because it's part of their family background.

So it depends how and why it's said, and should be age appropriate. But big things unspoken in families can lead to feelings of unease in kids, so it's a difficult line to tread.

Thanks all! this is super helpful - sometimes you just have to recalibrate what is acceptable don't you. Really sorry to hear how many people have had to struggle with these things too, and how much to share/not share, but lovely to hear how much everyone is trying to do the right thing by their own kids too. Thank you for sharing your experiences and thoughts with me

I have discussed me being abused with my daughter, but not gone into detail about what my exes did. Partly because one of them is her father, and partly because she doesn't need to know to that extent; it would just upset her.

This is mainly so I can explain what a healthy relationship looks like, i.e. not how her dad treats/has treated me, as I don't want her to think it is normal when she observes it. And partly to explain why I minimise my interaction with him.

My mother told me at about 8 or 9 and afterwards about her trauma.

I hated hearing it. I'm a naturally empathetic person but I couldn't feel it for her - I don't know why - she was my Mum and she expected me to support her when I didn't have the emotional devices to do such a thing.

As a poster put it at the very start, our children aren't our counsellors. That really struck a chord with me.

I had a harsh upbringing, DV, sexual abuse, physical and emotional abuse from Mother and older sibling. I will never tell my DD's. Never. I'm their Mum, not their victim.

This may change as they grow into adults - I don't know yet.

RTFT now - I also agree with @ChateauMargaux too.

I don't think I carry the grief with me anymore. I had much counselling in my 20's after the death of someone's very significant in my life led me to a really dark time and I had an emotional break-down. I was assigned a community mental health nurse who was incredible. We unpicked a lot. I feel that I don't need to talk about things any more and I certainly don't carry the burden.

I think I disagree with most on here. I heard about my DM horrific past from quite early on and it made me more compassionate about some of the questionable decisions she had made. A bit like growing up in extreme poverty but making a massive success of your life so your children never understand real hardship, I think you do them a disservice only showing life from a perspective of a very expensive private school for example.

No. My DC doesn’t need to know. There’s things I haven’t told anyone, I wouldn’t want to burden them with it.

My mum was very open about her earlier divorce and consequent stress induced illness (not abusive but adulterous) which i think has been the biggest trauma in her life.

To be honest she has always talked about her ex regularly and in good humoured terms which thinking about it is probably not ideal for my dad. I suppose quite a useful lesson though in not tolerating that kind of treatment but also not remaining bitter about it.

She also told me everything from a young age about his similar previous marriage and mental health issues from work later on, when he chose not to.

I think it was probably healthy for us to know about the MH stuff as it affected his behaviour but it wasn't really for her to talk openly about someone else's divorce when they didn't.

Nope. Because i like to maintain my kids innocence and let them be kids. Why would i dump my childhood nightmares on them. It would only burden them and not help me in the slightest

In age appropriate context yes.

I was brought up from the age of 7 by my grandparents because my parents were abusive, neglectful alcoholic drug-addicts. So, when my children started learning about families and realised that their Nan was my Nana rather than my Mum there were questions.

When they were very young it was as simple as them being told I lived with my Grandparents because my parents weren't very nice people and couldn't manage with children. Then that became more detailed if and when they asked questions about it.

In the last few years because of circumstances with my siblings (I'm now NC) my elder children - 19, 17 & 17 - know a fair bit of the detail of the abuse from when I was a child, how I dealt with that through counselling and why I made certain decisions in my life. Always because they asked questions and wanted to discuss it and not in a 'using them for therapy' way. That I don't think would be remotely fair or healthy.

All 3 of the elder ones have said they can see where it has had an ongoing impact on my personality and parenting; in both positive and negative ways.

My rule is why would I be sharing it ? For me or them? 99% of the time I believe that when people over share it is for them entirely and they fake it as wanting the DC to "know " them or "honesty" it rarely is.

The reality is I am not shiny to my DC I am mum and mum needs to an extent to be a role. Of course it's me but they don't need to know somethings even as adults. It won't help them.

The only difference might be if it was something they were going through and I genuinely thought experience might be of benefit , however and this is an important point it needs to be helpful and not just making the situation all about you. Hope that makes sense ? I've seen it a lot professionally where the parent has massively overshared and the whole issue has become about their previous experience rather than what the DC is going through.

So it's a rare occurrence that it may be helpful, mostly it seems to be shared for the parents needs and that is absolutely not ok. My DC do not ever need to manage my emotions or trauma.

Yes. Both my sons (now young adults) know I had MH issues. It would have been a bit hard to hide the fact, since my eldest spent time in the same mental health unit that I had frequented, and my youngest experienced exactly the same MH disorder that I had.

I do not go into all the detail, there is no need. However, I do share coping strategies that have worked for me.

Our experiences can give us strength and I think it is important for young people to know that adversity can lead to resilience and strength.

That said, there are certain things that I may feel I could not tell my sons. These would relate to issues in the past that involved other people, and which had been resolved.