Religious Trauma: A Parent's Perspective

A seven-part series for Spiritual Abuse Awareness Month

January is Spiritual Abuse Awareness Month and while I have written extensively on this topic (see posts in the section: Religious Trauma), I have not specifically addressed the seven perspectives on religious trauma that inform my writing. That is what I hope to accomplish through this seven-part series that includes my perspectives as a child, survivor, woman leader, parent, educator, ministry leader, and trauma-informed advocate. While I sat in all six chairs at one time or another, not all share my story. I hope this series will be helpful to those who have not sat in particular chairs—and affirming to those who have.

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A Parent’s Perspective on Religious Trauma

Most of my writing on the topic of Religious Trauma addresses the personal impact of being raised in or attending churches where intentional or unintentional harm was caused—physically, emotionally, or spiritually. Inevitably, as parents begin to understand the impact, they realize their children were impacted also.

This was one of the more unsettling parts of healing.

I was a grandma by the time I began my healing journey. Like many who reached out to me, I realized too late how my trauma had impacted my parenting. This was in part because of my childhood trauma, but it also involved religious trauma to which I, in turn, unknowingly exposed my children. This does not mean I was a bad parent! It also doesn’t mean that my children did not have positive experiences in the church.

In Trauma in the Pews, I discussed many of the ways that common church practices and teachings were harmful to me as a survivor. Most of the harm was unintentional—not all, just most. In the same way, there were church practices and teachings that harmed my children—again, these were mostly unintentional. I discussed several ways this occurred in this post: Can Beliefs about Children Cause Religious Trauma?

I was part of the conservative church generation that was told not to trust Dr. Spock and was deep into raising my children when Christian parenting books became popular. The adults who now sit in the pews of the churches are still highly influenced by some of the same Christian parenting experts. Not all they taught was harmful.

I did follow some of what I was told to do as a parent (spanking in particular). I was never comfortable, probably due to my child development college degree. I had dreams where I was wielding a wooden spoon over one of my children and my arm became paralyzed. I never allowed any other adult to spank my children and refused to sign a release for this to happen in the Christian school my daughter attended. Despite this, the pressure of “not sparing the rod” was immense, but more importantly, no one offered any other alternatives for difficult behavior.

“Much pain has resulted from an incorrect interpretation of “the rod.” No shepherd ever beats the sheep. The rod was used as a guide for the protection of the sheep. The idea that we must harm the sheep to protect them makes no sense. Does it work? Yes, through shame and fear that result in lifelong ramifications. Strong relationships based in unconditional love do counteract this, but there are better methods for discipline.” -Trauma in the Pews

What I wished I had understood was that behavior was communication of a need. Beyond children being children (which should never result in punishment), my children often had unmet needs that I did not understand. Why do children (and sometimes pets) do mischievous things while we are talking on our phones? They need our attention. Needing attention is a normal human need, not a sinful behavior. I punished far too often without understanding my children’s emotional needs.

Church teachings and Christian parenting books may have acknowledged emotions but not in any way that would have helped me focus on relationships. I recently published the following article on the Religious Trauma Network blog that unpacks some of the harmful teachings about anger: The Shaming of Anger: How Christian parenting books harmed generations of children.

It was not until I began to understand the neuroscience behind co-regulation and how that leads to self-regulation that I realized how ill-prepared we were as parents to do the work of raising emotionally healthy children. All three generations of our family have had to navigate developing these skills.

One of the most difficult parts for me was admitting that as hard as I tried, I made significant parenting missteps. Realizing that I often listened to church teachings instead of my gut feelings about my role as a parent was difficult. I have embraced honest conversations with my children. They love me and tell me I was a great mom. They also never disagree when I apologize for my missteps. It is humbling—and freeing.

I am saddened by the rifts in relationships between many adult children and their parents who trusted the church to tell them how to parent. One of the hardest things to do is walk through feelings of shame when confronted and accept that we didn’t do our best—intentionally or unintentionally.

One of the best resources I have seen for taking this relational leap is the book, What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing which is one of the readings for a class I teach in the M.Ed. program in Neuroscience and Trauma at Tabor College. The students in the class often share how they decided to share the book with their parents. This often resulted in conversations in which the parent told parts of their story that the adult child never knew. It was often the path to relational healing.

Many of us had our own stories that we never had the necessary support to heal. Without healing, shame kept us silent. This caused us to feel like we could never back down, always needed to be in control, and never doubt that we were doing parenting right. We actually knew none of that was true and this made us even more rigid in our parenting choices. Being robbed of healthy relationships with our adult children is a form of religious trauma. Every day we are alive allows us to heal, repair, and change.