How Can We Avoid Passing On Our Childhood Traumas?

If you’re drawn to self-knowledge, you’ve likely heard that we don’t just inherit physical traits or certain illnesses from our parents and grandparents—we may also carry emotional patterns and experiences. Surprising as it sounds, the hurts we’ve suffered can echo into the next generation, much as our ancestors’ experiences echo in us.

Although research into transgenerational effects has accelerated in recent years, therapists and clinicians have long observed them. In the first part of this article, we look at what these traumas are; then we’ll ask how we can spare our children from the imprint of our own experiences. It helps to remember: our reactions to trauma are natural survival responses.

Trauma grows out of our deepest wounds. It quietly shapes our lives, feelings and worldview. We can’t undo what happened, but we can work with its behavioural, neurological and immune effects.

Transgenerational trauma can pass through families

Transgenerational trauma is a felt or adopted burden that often travels, sometimes unconsciously, across several generations. The pains our parents or grandparents endured may colour their parenting and, in turn, how we relate to our own children. These patterns can lie encoded until the right circumstances activate them. Naturally, we want to break the chain so our children can thrive emotionally.

How do we tend to handle trauma?

All too often, with silence. Denial can be a normal, short-term defence — buying time before we face what hurts. We “bury” experiences we can’t tackle alone. We might think we’ve moved on, only to find old echoes surfacing when something triggers the memory.

In past generations, community life made it easier to share and process painful events. Today, many families live more privately, with fewer conversations and support networks. That isolation can make it harder to join a group or seek professional help — even when we’d really benefit.

Source acknowledged in original: Habis Melinda, psychologist.

We rarely ask for help

Pushing pain away can feel easier than processing it. But the weight remains. Healing work won’t erase what happened; it brings understanding and helps us place the memories differently, so they no longer drive our reactions or our parenting. Reaching out to a qualified professional is the route to relief; it can be hard, and also deeply cathartic.

What can cause trauma?

In our society, there are links between anxiety, addictions and chronic illness. Life can bring sudden shocks: bereavement, childhood abuse, violence, wartime terror (e.g. the Holocaust), accidents, financial loss, a sense of hopelessness. Trauma can be a single event or a long build-up. Childhood neglect - emotional or physical - is also a major trauma. Some populations carry higher risk because of histories of racism, poverty or exploitation.

Key psychological features of trauma often include:

• events that overwhelm coping, involve severe distress, or witnessing others’ suffering

• a collapse of trust in a reliable world

• threat and helplessness

• loss of control

• a sense that self, relationships and world no longer cohere

What traumatises one person may not traumatise another — our state of mind, coping style, sensitivity and past experiences all differ.

How might we recognise that we carry trauma?

There’s no single diagnostic label for transgenerational trauma — it can show up as constellations of symptoms, and many get masked by today’s common conditions or by learned beliefs.

Possible signs include:

• shock

• anxiety, fear, palpitations

• sadness, hopelessness

• irritability, mood swings, anger

• social withdrawal

• poor concentration, brain fog

• guilt, shame, self-blame

• intrusive painful memories

• nightmares, insomnia

• patchy memory for parts of the event

Other indicators:

• hyper-vigilance, distrust

• isolation or emotional numbing

• intense anxiety, low mood, panic attacks

• sleep disturbance

• disproportionate fear of injury or death

Trauma can affect immune activity in the brain, raising risks of later depression, anxiety or cognitive decline. These shifts can be linked with heritable changes. Families may also repeat patterns  for example, abuse, across generations. PTSD can arise at individual or intergenerational levels.

What does healing look like?

Healing moves us toward peace. Our wounds can become strength. Trauma isn’t the event itself but our internal response to it. What starts the journey?

• Choose a qualified professional (for example, a psychologist) and begin the inner work in a safe, appropriate setting. Where needed, a psychiatrist can support with medication. Transgenerational work often benefits from EMDR, schema therapy, CBT or family therapy.

• Image: haromgeneracios-csalad.jpg
  Alt: Three generations celebrating the newest family member

• Regulate the nervous system with meditation, relaxation, rhythmic movement, dance, singing, music, or creative arts. These practices reconnect us with feelings we may have distanced from.

• Seek community: shared stories show we’re not alone.

• Learn the history: understand national and family traumas that shaped your ancestors — spot inherited patterns.

• Teach children simple tools for stress regulation, self-soothing and reflection. Show them how to tackle what can be changed and accept what cannot.

References:
NHS: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD

Mind (UK): What is trauma?