Why You Still Feel Like a Kid Around Your Parents: The Psychology of Reparenting Yourself
You’re an Adult, but Suddenly You’re Back in Your Childhood Bedroom Crying Over a Spoon
You’ve been journaling, setting boundaries, drinking oat milk lattes like an adult, then you visit your parents and boom: you're emotionally 12, arguing about dishes and questioning your life choices over a passive-aggressive comment about your job.
If that sounds familiar, you’re not broken. You’re triggered. And there's a psychological explanation for it.
What’s Actually Happening: Emotional Regression & Schema Activation
When you’re around caregivers who shaped your core emotional development, your nervous system often reverts to the survival strategies you learned as a child. Schema therapy calls this a “mode shift”, specifically, often into the Vulnerable Child Mode, Compliant Surrenderer, or Detached Protector.
This can look like:
Feeling helpless, small, or desperate for approval
Shutting down emotionally or mentally “checking out”
Becoming defensive, passive-aggressive, or people-pleasing
You're not just remembering your childhood, you’re reliving the emotional state it put you in.
Why Your Brain Does This: It’s a Safety Mechanism
According to trauma theory and attachment research, the amygdala (fear center) and limbic system retain emotional memories from childhood interactions. When you return to that environment, the implicit memory system activates, not your logical, adult brain, but your emotional body map of “how to survive Mom.”
Cue: reverting to old coping mechanisms faster than you can say “inner child.”
Common Schemas That Reactivate Around Family
Defectiveness/Shame: Feeling like a disappointment or burden
Subjugation: Silencing your needs to avoid conflict
Approval-Seeking: Needing validation to feel okay
Emotional Deprivation: Expecting your needs won’t be met or understood
These schemas are often laid down in childhood and get reactivated by even minor triggers, like a sigh, a tone, or a side-eye about your career or outfit.
So… What Is Reparenting?
Reparenting is the process of offering yourself the validation, boundaries, emotional care, and security you didn’t receive consistently as a child. In schema therapy, this is done by strengthening the Healthy Adult Mode, a grounded, compassionate part of you that can care for your inner child and manage critical or avoidant parts.
It’s not about blaming your parents for everything (although let’s be real, some things are their fault). It’s about giving yourself what they couldn’t.
How to Start Reparenting Yourself
Name the Triggered Part
“This feels like my 8-year-old self who always wanted to be heard.”
Pause and Ground
Use breathing, touch, or sensory tools to remind yourself you’re in the present.
Validate Yourself
“It makes sense I feel this way. This reaction is old and protective.”
Respond as a Healthy Adult
Set boundaries, take space, or even leave the room without guilt.
Practice Outside the Family Context
The more you strengthen your Healthy Adult elsewhere, the more accessible it is when things get messy at home.
Therapy Can Help You Learn to Reparent
Working with a schema-informed or trauma-informed therapist helps you:
Identify your schemas and modes
Learn to recognize emotional flashbacks
Develop the tools to soothe your nervous system
Build an internal parent who doesn’t abandon you when things get hard
Final Thoughts: You’re Not Immature. You’re Triggered.
The next time you find yourself whisper-screaming in your childhood bathroom about being “fine,” pause. You’re not crazy, regressing, or failing adulthood, you’re having a perfectly logical nervous system reaction to a familiar environment.
Healing isn’t about never getting triggered. It’s about knowing who you are, what you need, and how to take care of yourself, even when your mom says, “So… are you still doing that therapy thing?”
At Studio Therapeia, we help adults reconnect with their inner child, build a strong internal parent, and finally feel like real adults, not just emotionally sophisticated teenagers with trauma. Book a session today to start reparenting yourself, for real.