Breaking the Cycle: My Journey from Pain to Empowered Parenting

Maggie Pouplis • September 5, 2024

Growing up as a child of parents who struggled with their own emotional baggage, my childhood was a battlefield of inner conflicts. My father, a man who believed in “tough love,” was repeating his childhood with the firm belief that harsh discipline was the path to strength. My mother, overwhelmed and burdened by the demands of motherhood, was distant and emotionally unavailable. She adored my older sibling but became increasingly overwhelmed by the time I arrived, leaving me feeling like an afterthought. I constantly sought their approval, chasing validation in any form I could find. Yet, no matter how hard I tried, I could never seem to measure up.

In public, my parents were the epitome of perfection. They spoke kindly about me to others, painting a picture of a loving family. But behind closed doors, their words cut deep, filled with criticism, undermining remarks, and sometimes, physical discipline that, while not overtly abusive, left its scars. The inconsistency between their public personas and private behavior left me confused, angry, and battling inner demons that threatened to consume me.

As I grew older, the quest for external validation became a pattern that seeped into every aspect of my life. I was always trying to please others, to prove my worth, to be "good enough." But no amount of praise or acknowledgment from the outside world could fill the void left by my parents' mixed messages. I felt trapped in a cycle that seemed impossible to break.

It wasn't until I became a parent myself that the true impact of my upbringing became painfully clear. I found myself slipping into old patterns, repeating behaviors I had sworn I would never inflict on my child. The fear of becoming my parents haunted me, and I realized that if I didn’t confront my past, I would pass these wounds on to my son.

I decided that I was too old to blame my parents anymore. The work needed to be done, not for them but for me and my child. I needed to heal, rewire my brain, and reparent myself before I could be the parent my son deserved. The journey was long, painful, and often lonely, but it was also incredibly rewarding.

The first steps of my healing began through therapy, but when I enrolled in the Jai Institute for Parenting coaching certification program, what I thought would be a simple educational process turned into a deep and transformative healing journey. The program forced me to confront the trauma and pain once again, and everything came to the surface. The first weeks were a deep healing journey that I will never forget. It helped me see how I had internalized my parents' toxic behaviors and how they were influencing my parenting.

Through the process of reparenting myself, I learned to give my inner child the love, respect, and validation that I had always sought from my parents.I learned to set boundaries—firm, unwavering boundaries that protected not just me but my child as well. And most importantly, I learned to parent from a place of love, connection, and respect rather than fear and control. But I learned how to do that by educating myself. Learning about the nervous system, the brain, and how it works was so exciting and it also gave me more knowledge for those tough days when everything is pulling you down to old patterns.

Empowered parenting is about breaking free from the chains of the past and creating a new legacy for our children. It's about healing the wounds that were inflicted on us so that we don't pass them on to the next generation. My journey hasn't been easy, and it still isn't. There are days when the old demons resurface when the urge to revert to familiar patterns is strong. But now, I have the tools and the strength to choose a different path—a path of love, respect, and empowerment.

Today, my son gets to be raised by the new me—a mother who is strong, loving, and confident. A mother who knows her worth and doesn't seek validation from others. A mother who has learned to embrace her past, not as a source of pain but as a testament to her strength and resilience. My boundaries are firm, and my love is unconditional, both for myself and for my child. This is the gift I give to him, and it’s the greatest act of love I could ever offer.

The journey to healing and breaking the cycle of toxic parenting is ongoing. It’s a path filled with challenges, but it’s also one of the most rewarding journeys you can undertake. If you’re on this path, too, know that you’re not alone. It’s okay to take it one step at a time. Your past does not define your future.

You have the power to create a new story for yourself and your children. You have the power to embrace empowered parenting. You also have the power to forgive your parents for what they didn’t know or didn’t want to change and still not allow them to spread their ways toward your family. You have the power to be the parent your child needs and simultaneously be the parent your inner child was always seeking.

Be brave and find other brave parents to create the right circle for you. Educating ourselves for the rollercoaster journey of parenting is the best thing we can do for our family and for the future. Let’s not forget that our children are the future. We have the gift of raising the future.

Meet Your Author, Maggie Pouplis

Website: bondingnest.com

Instagram & Threads: @bondingnest

Facebook: Bonding Nest - Maggie Pouplis

With over two decades immersed in the realm of communication, Maggie brings a unique blend of experiences to the world of parenting as a coach. As a devoted parent, she has personally witnessed the transformative power of empowered parenting, breaking cycles, and nurturing authentic connections. Her belief that every child deserves to thrive fuels her passion for coaching. She finds profound joy in guiding parents toward creating bonds that last a lifetime.

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What’s Actually Happening Inside Your Child’s Developing Brain

By Maggie Pouplis • June 3, 2026

Almost every parent experiences this more than once. Your child changes, and suddenly, you feel like you no longer fully understand them. The toddler who melts down over the “wrong” cup. The once easygoing school-aged child who suddenly becomes more sensitive, withdrawn, or reactive. The teenager who pulls away just when you feel the strongest urge to protect them. And somewhere in those moments, most parents begin searching for explanations. “Something changed.” “Someone is influencing them.” “They’ve become difficult.” “Social media is ruining this generation.” As parents, we naturally try to make sense of behavior. We look for causes because uncertainty feels uncomfortable, especially when it involves someone we love so deeply. But many times, what changes first is not the child’s character. It is the child’s developing brain. One of the most important things I learned during my training with the Jai Institute for Parenting was that behavior cannot be fully understood outside the context of relationship, nervous system development, and emotional safety. That perspective stayed with me and eventually led me to dive even deeper into developmental neuroscience and brain development. Because once you begin to understand how the brain develops, it stops looking like defiance, manipulation, laziness, or attitude. The behavior begins to look like development. In the early years of life, especially between ages two and four, children experience emotions intensely while still lacking the neurological maturity to regulate them independently. The areas of the brain responsible for impulse control, emotional regulation, planning, and perspective taking are still under construction. In other words, young children often feel enormous emotions inside very small nervous systems. This is why a toddler can completely fall apart because their banana broke in half or because you gave them the “wrong” spoon. To the adult brain, the reaction may seem dramatic. To the child’s nervous system, however, the distress is real. This does not mean children should grow up without boundaries . It means that in moments of emotional flooding, connection and regulation often need to come before teaching. As Dr. Daniel Siegel often explains, an overwhelmed brain cannot effectively access logic, learning, or problem-solving. The nervous system must first return to a state of safety before true learning can happen. This is where co-regulation becomes incredibly important. Children borrow our nervous systems long before they can consistently regulate themselves. They learn emotional regulation through repeated relational experiences with calm, connected adults. Of course, this does not mean parents must remain perfectly calm all the time. Parents are human beings with limits, stress, exhaustion, responsibilities, and their own nervous systems. What matters most is not perfection but repair, awareness, and the overall emotional climate of the relationship. As children move into the school-age years, something else begins to happen. Around ages five to seven, the social brain expands significantly. Children become increasingly aware of how others see them. Acceptance, belonging, comparison, fairness, and peer relationships begin carrying much more emotional weight. This is often the age when parents say things like: “They suddenly became more sensitive.” “They take everything personally now.” “They worry more than before.” And they are usually right. At this stage, children are not simply reacting emotionally. They are beginning to build a deeper social identity. Their brains are becoming more aware of social evaluation and emotional meaning within relationships. Then comes a stage I personally believe is one of the most misunderstood of all: roughly ages eight to ten. Many parents expect things to stabilize by this point. Instead, some children become quieter, more introspective, more emotionally reactive, or seemingly disconnected. Others become easily bored, frustrated, or emotionally overwhelmed. And naturally, adults begin creating narratives around those changes. “They’re lazy.” “They’ve changed.” “They don’t care anymore.” But very often, what we are witnessing is neurological reorganization rather than deterioration. During this period, the brain begins a major process called synaptic pruning. Neural connections that are not frequently used begin to weaken, while frequently used pathways become stronger and more efficient. At the same time, children develop more complex emotional awareness, deeper thinking, and a richer internal world. Many children at this age begin asking bigger questions about themselves, relationships, fairness, identity, and belonging, even if they cannot fully articulate those thoughts yet. Sometimes what adults interpret as withdrawal is actually cognitive and emotional expansion happening internally. And then adolescence arrives, perhaps the stage that activates the most fear in parents. Teenagers begin separating psychologically from their parents as part of healthy development. Their need for autonomy increases while the emotional and reward systems of the brain become highly sensitive. Peer relationships become deeply important, emotions intensify, and risk-taking often increases. To many parents, this can feel frightening or even personal. But adolescence is not a broken relationship. It is a developmental transition. Teenagers still need boundaries, guidance, and emotional safety. Perhaps more than ever. But they also need space to develop identity, autonomy, and a sense of self outside the parent-child dynamic. And maybe this is one of the biggest challenges of parenting today: learning how to remain emotionally available without trying to control every stage of development out of fear. Modern parenting often places enormous pressure on parents to react perfectly at every moment. But children do not need perfect parents. They need regulated enough adults who are willing to stay curious about what behavior may actually be communicating. Because many times, children are not trying to give us a hard time. They are trying to organize a developing brain and nervous system inside a very overstimulating world. And perhaps the question we need to ask more often is not “How do I stop this behavior?” , but “What might this developing brain be trying to communicate through it?”