Reparenting yourself includes acknowledging bad nurturing your inner child
One of the biggest killers of childhood is behaving like a mature person when it’s not yet time. Be it society, our schoolmates, friends, inner circle, family, in one way or another influence you to grow up abruptly.
In other cases, life happenings force you.
I once read something online that pinpointed that a kid has a short time to be a kid and the rest of their life to be adults.
So whenever I saw kids acting grown, I’d fight the urge to judge them. Simply because they don’t know what they’re getting themselves into — yet.
As kids, once you force yourself to mature earlier than necessary, you’re treated less of a kid and more of an adult. This can be traumatic.
This is also the reason you might see young teenagers impregnating or becoming pregnant at a very young age before they’ve even fully mastered their bodies — or indulging in several other “adult-ish” lifestyles. The sort that can ultimately get them in even bigger troubles like going to the juvenile cells.
Whereas adults like us on the other hand somewhat crave to be childish again in certain situations.
This, of course, gave rise to reasons why embracing some childish acts now as adults are worth it and why it’d help us bloom in the process.
Sometimes, the only way to get what you want is by behaving childishly
Kids throw tantrums, but adults negotiate or slack in the bid to get what they want.
Kids tell you outrightly what they want and naggingly wish you’d oblige them. But as adults, we tend to shy away from asking for things we want or going for them.
As a result, we delay the necessary feats/ progress we ought to be getting in different stages and areas of our life due to trying to meet up societal expectations to avoid getting judged — for instance. We resort to giving up our dreams or who we are (supposed to be) to fit in — which is unlike what a kid would do.
A kid doesn’t care about society or what anyone else has to say about wanting what they want and fighting tooth and nail to get it.
Kids throw tantrums, but adults negotiate or slack in their bid to get what they want. But when I talk about what we want I don’t mean toys or the likes, but grown-up needs/desires — such as a good job, utilizing one’s talent or skills efficiently, becoming an entrepreneur, freedom, financial stability, sustained growth, and development, and the likes.
Kids express themself explicitly
I read a write-up on quora about envying the way a kid screams in your face when they don’t like you and run.
As extremely rude as that may appear for an adult to exhibit thus, it’s noteworthy that adults conceal their true feelings. Feelings that will open up their personalities and souls — and enable others to connect to them.
We tend to hide our feelings to soothe others or fit in merely to avoid judgments or criticisms, especially from our loved ones.
We suppress our feelings rather than express them as rawly as they come since our feelings are part of who we are, the very aspect that makes us humane.
We assume that only kids cry, shout, scream, wail, grieve, moan, grunt, and so on, whereas most of us all have the same abilities.
If we can emulate, rather than envy the kids we see around, that is when we start to embrace our inner child.
Instead of separating that part of us or being ashamed of expressing it, let us can begin to utilize every opportunity to re-groom ourselves as parents to our inner child we abandoned.
It’s when you act childish that you reveal the true you
As stipulated earlier, we hold back a lot from things as adults compared to kids hence, live an inauthentic life.
My personal mantra has always been:
It is in acting childish that we reveal our true selves.
Because childish acts let you be free. You can be mad at someone and “fight dirty” with them to your heart’s content without caring if how you fought with words or hands matched the status quo. This is not to promote or encourage violence or grudge in any way but is more of an example to point out how to hold back our true nature under the guise of childishness. Which on its own, is a thing to embrace rather than evade. Since it brings out our true nature.
In essence, when we think we’re behaving like kids, we’re ultimately revealing our true nature. So, even if it’s a bad trait, being accepting of what we actually show can lead to its correction — rather than hiding from them.
Being called childish when you’re expressing your true self is a gaslighting ploy. To get you to act a different way that would soothe the gaslighter.
But a child doesn’t care how you see them or what you say. They have no staunch status quo to meet up with. Even if they do, it’s the caregiver's lenses working through them.
Therefore, they go for what they want unapologetically. Sing, dance, play, compete, etcetera.
They cry their hearts out as and when due. That is, express themselves explicitly.
They reveal their true nature through several other means we now consider unhealthy simply because we don’t have that same courage.
But acknowledging this truth goes a long way to embrace your inner child, which in turn nudges you toward an authentic lifestyle, and hence, live up to it.
But this process won’t be complete if you didn’t prepare to reparent yourself during so.
