How to not be a toxic parent in a long line of toxic parents?

[Lollipop30]

Today my mother told me I am just like my grandmother.
What scares me is I might be? I have spent my whole adulthood actively trying to be nothing like my mother that I’m concerned I’ve gone the other way. My grandmother was also a shit parent and not someone I want to be like.
Are we predestined to follow the same cycle? How do I break it?
I don’t even know what a normal parent-child relationship looks like I guess as I’ve only got mine to compare with. I don’t think I’m doing it right and I don’t want my children to resent me but I don’t know what I should be doing differently.

Right now I just want to leave. I think they’d probably be better being brought up by someone with a less skewed view of parenting. I don’t want to be the role model in case I’m the same as the women before me. I have three daughters and I’d like to have the sort of relationship I see others having with their mothers.

Basically, I am the parent I wanted and feel I deserved.

Perfectly put. This.

One PP has said they know what they don’t want to do but are not quite sure what they should do In my case, I think to myself "what would I have needed my mum to do for me at that age" regardless of scenario.

The cafe issue - your child needed you to take charge, and lead the way. You did the right thing, you told your child what was expected and followed through.

I think my top advice would be, don't over think it. You don't sound as if you are going the same way as your mother. I think you need to rethink your relationship with her (I am not saying go NC) if she makes you feel like that! She is STILL toxic, and is happy to expose your dc to it too. Do you want that for them?

I've experienced this and stood in your shoes . My children are teens now and I had begun to distance myself from them in the fear I might repeat my mothers mistakes .
It was only after my mother passed last year that I was able to see what she had done to me and how only now was I free of her toxic ways . I wish I'd gone NC with her years ago .
Whilst your mother is in your life you might always be living under the shadow of her toxicity .

Look into seeing a psychologist who offers therapy specialising in attachment, it could be very helpful in identifying your triggers and looking at your reactions. Often we aren't even aware of our reactions let alone what causes them. For example, children who aren't listened to often become parents who are triggered by what they perceive as not being respected by their own children (think toddler refusing to put coat on and mother shouting and punishing). If you're unable to get into your child's shoes and see how they feel, what they think and what response from you would help them to learn to resolve their difficulty, then seeking support could be of great benefit. It's a non situation but if you take your example, you could consider if being punished for being indecisive will have helped to treat the root cause of your child's inability to make a decision and if it's empowered them to make more confident decisions in future. Or if your choice was more of a reaction to how you were feeling in the situation.

There are many articles and books about how we develop our thinking and behaviours, and about positive parenting, but interacting with someone face to face will help you to dig a bit deeper into things you might not enjoy consider and give you a different perspective and tools to use in future. Discussing your relationship with your mother might be of value too.

*might not even consider

Now tbh if I’d been on my own we’d have probably just gone outside I could have explained and she’d have calmed down and we could have gone back and eaten.
Nothing wrong with this. And nothing wrong with doing this whist with other people. Also nothing wrong with the way that you did it.

Your mum will say something belittling whatever you do. Because she is toxic. It doesn't mean that you are.

It’s not genetic but how do you stop yourself repeating it

I always think what would my dm do then d the opposite.

It helps that she hasn't been in my life since my teens.

Like others have said, the fact you have insight and desire to improve shows that you will not just blindly repeat the unpleasant parenting you experienced from your mum/ gran.

However it is important to recognise that a great deal of research supports the idea that we learn about parenting from how we are patented. This is not absolute and definitely does not mean that we can't change, but like you have said, when we don't have a model other than the negative we experienced, it is hard to know what to do for the best sometimes. The main barrier to changing is insight into what has gone wrong so you definitely have the capacity to be the parent you wished you'd had.

Courses like triple p etc have their place but are very behavioural and supernanny esque, essentially viewing the child as the problem and how to modify their behaviour. Imo attachment based models are much more effective as they support parents to look at what they have experienced and also what their child needs. Have a look at this website - www.circleofsecurityinternational.com - if you live anywhere near a course I would highly highly recommend it. I was trained in it last year and it made such a difference to my parenting approach.