You Didn’t Get the Manual. You’re Writing It.

What it means to be the generation that breaks the cycle of intergenerational parenting harm

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There is a particular kind of exhaustion that belongs to the parent who is trying to do it differently. You know the one. You grew up in a house where feelings were a problem to be solved, or silenced, or punished. Maybe anger meant you were sent to your room. Maybe crying was met with “stop that” or “you’re fine.” Maybe the emotional temperature at home was set to unpredictable, and you learned early that the safest option was to make yourself small and quiet.

And now here you are, thirty-something or forty-something, kneeling on the kitchen floor at 6:47 pm, trying to validate your four-year-old’s feelings about the wrong colour cup while your entire nervous system is screaming at you to just make it stop.

You are what the research calls a cycle-breaker. You are also, quite possibly, running on fumes.

What went wrong with the old way

For most of the twentieth century, the dominant parenting paradigm in Western cultures valued compliance over connection. Children were expected to be seen and not heard. Emotional expression was treated as a discipline issue. Physical punishment was routine and culturally sanctioned. Parents who struggled were told to try harder, not offered help.

The consequences of this approach are now well documented. In 1998, Felitti, Anda, and colleagues at the CDC and Kaiser Permanente published what became the single most cited study in trauma research. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study surveyed over 9,500 adults and established a dose-response relationship between the number of adverse childhood experiences a person reported and their risk of mental illness, addiction, chronic disease, and early death decades later. The more categories of adversity, the worse the outcomes.

Adverse experiences in the original study included emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, along with household dysfunction such as domestic violence, parental mental illness, substance misuse, and parental separation. Many of these experiences were, in earlier decades, considered ordinary parts of childhood. They were not. They were harmful, and the harm accumulated.

Trauma does not stay in the generation that experienced it

One of the more confronting findings in the past two decades of research is that the effects of adverse childhood experiences do not stop with the person who experienced them. They transmit.

The transmission happens through multiple pathways. The behavioural route is the most intuitive: parents who were raised with punitive, dismissive, or chaotic parenting are more likely to replicate those patterns under stress, because the brain defaults to what it learned earliest. Research has repeatedly confirmed that parental distress, including depression, anxiety, and PTSD, mediates the relationship between a parent’s own childhood adversity and their child’s emotional and behavioural difficulties.

There is also a physiological component. During infancy and toddlerhood, the caregiving relationship plays a central role in shaping the child’s stress response system. When caregiving is predictable and warm, the child’s hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis develops in a healthy, regulated way. When caregiving is inconsistent, frightening, or emotionally absent, that system can become chronically dysregulated, and the effects can persist well into adulthood.

Yehuda and Lehrner’s research programme, published in World Psychiatry in 2018, has gone further, examining whether the biological effects of trauma can be passed through epigenetic mechanisms, specifically changes in gene expression that do not alter the DNA sequence itself. Their work with Holocaust survivors and their adult offspring found altered patterns of cortisol metabolism and DNA methylation at genes involved in the stress response.

A note on the science. The epigenetic transmission findings, particularly the FKBP5 methylation work, remain an area of active scientific debate. The most rigorous controlled evidence currently comes from animal models. The human findings are suggestive and growing, but researchers are appropriately cautious about attributing intergenerational effects to a single biological mechanism. The behavioural and psychological pathways, the way parents actually interact with their children, have the strongest evidence base.

What the new science of emotion regulation tells us

The past two decades have also seen a major expansion in our understanding of how children develop the capacity to regulate their emotions, and the role that parents play in that process.

A meta-analysis of 53 studies by Zimmer-Gembeck and colleagues (2022) found that parents’ own emotion regulation is directly linked to the quality of their parenting and to their children’s emotional development. Parents who can recognise, sit with, and manage their own difficult feelings are better able to respond with support rather than reactivity when their children are struggling.

Earlier longitudinal research by Gottman, Katz, and Hooven (1996) showed that children whose parents were aware of, accepted, and actively engaged with their children’s negative emotions had better outcomes across multiple domains. These children showed stronger self-control, better relationships with peers, higher academic performance, and better physical health. The parents did not ignore the emotions, minimise them, or try to fix them. They stayed present with them.

The tripartite model of emotion socialisation, developed by Morris and colleagues in 2007, provides a useful framework. It identifies three ways that family environments shape children’s regulatory development: the overall emotional climate of the family, how parents respond to children’s emotions when they arise, and the parent’s own capacity for regulation. When these three elements are positive, children develop the internal resources to manage their own emotional lives. When they are not, children may develop reactive, avoidant, or dysregulated patterns that persist into adulthood.

The old parenting paradigm got all three wrong. It created emotionally suppressive family climates. It responded to children’s emotions with punishment or dismissal. And it expected parents to suppress their own feelings rather than manage them. The new science says the opposite is needed at every level.

The cost of being the one who changes

Here is the part that tends to get left out of the inspirational social media posts about “breaking generational trauma.” The work is relentless, and it falls disproportionately on the person doing it.

If you are a cycle-breaker, you are trying to teach your children skills in emotional regulation, conflict resolution, and self-awareness that you yourself were never taught. You are building these capacities in real time, often while managing the activation of your own trauma responses. Every decision to respond with intention rather than reaction takes effort. Every moment of staying calm when your child is dysregulated, when your own childhood self would have been punished for the same behaviour, requires you to override deeply wired patterns.

You are parenting without a map. When you grew up being yelled at, there is no internal template for what a calm, firm, attuned response looks like. You have to construct it from scratch, every time, until it eventually becomes a new default. That process is slow and imperfect.

Under stress, most people revert to what was modelled for them in childhood. You will, at some point, hear your parent’s voice come out of your mouth. This is not failure. It is the predictable consequence of trying to override years of conditioning. The difference between you and the previous generation is that you notice it, you feel terrible about it, and you try again.

Guilt, grief, and alienation

Guilt is common. Many cycle-breakers report feeling disloyal for doing better than those who came before. There can be a sense that growth is a betrayal of the people who raised you, as though choosing differently is an implicit accusation. Some cycle-breakers experience significant grief: for the childhood they did not have, for the relationship they wish they could have with their parents now, for the version of themselves that might have existed if things had been different.

Family alienation is another common experience. When one person in a family system starts setting boundaries, communicating directly, or refusing to participate in old dynamics, it disrupts the equilibrium. The system often pushes back. You may be labelled as difficult, oversensitive, or the source of the problem. The people who were supposed to be your support network may become part of what you are protecting your children from.

The pendulum swing

And then there is the pendulum swing. If you grew up with rigid, authoritarian parents, you may overcorrect toward permissiveness and then feel walked over by your three-year-old. If you experienced emotional neglect, you might find yourself over-explaining, micromanaging, or anxiously hovering. Finding a centre point between the extremes of your own experience and an idealised alternative takes time, and it almost always involves overcorrecting before you find your balance.

The evidence says it works

An 18-year longitudinal study published in 2025 by Supke and colleagues tracked families across generations and found that approximately half of emerging adults remained in the same ACE risk group as their parents, while the other half showed improvement. Among children of high-risk parents (those reporting four or more ACEs), many reported fewer ACEs themselves. Lower levels of harsh or dysfunctional parenting in early childhood were consistently associated with better outcomes.

A 2025 systematic review by Reese and colleagues, examining 18 studies of trauma-informed parenting interventions, found strong evidence that these programmes improve parenting practices, reduce parental distress, and protect children from the effects of intergenerational trauma. The most effective interventions were those grounded in attachment theory and embedded within supportive community systems.

The cycle can be broken. It is being broken, right now, by people who are doing the hardest kind of work there is: learning to be something they were never shown.

What helps

Therapy that works with both your past and your present

Trauma-informed approaches such as EMDR, schema therapy, and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) can help you process your own childhood experiences while building the practical skills you need for a different kind of parenting. If you find yourself constantly triggered by your child’s behaviour, that is worth exploring with a psychologist who understands developmental trauma.

Self-compassion as a daily practice

This is not about being easy on yourself. It is about recognising that you are attempting something extraordinarily difficult, that setbacks are part of the process, and that your effort is meaningful even when the results are imperfect. Research links self-compassion with better emotional regulation and lower parenting stress.

Understanding your own nervous system

Learning about the autonomic nervous system, the window of tolerance, and co-regulation can give you a practical framework for understanding why you react the way you do, and what brings you back to a regulated state.

Connection with others doing the same work

Cycle-breaking can be isolating, particularly when your family of origin does not understand or support what you are doing. Finding community, whether through parenting groups, peer support, or therapeutic groups, reduces the weight of doing this work alone.

You did not get the manual

You are writing it. For your children, for your future grandchildren, and for the version of yourself that never got what they needed. The research confirms that what you are doing changes outcomes across generations. It also confirms that the cost is real and the work is ongoing.

You do not need to do it perfectly. You need to keep going.

Frequently asked questions

What is a cycle-breaker parent?

A cycle-breaker is a parent who consciously chooses to parent differently from the way they were raised, often after recognising the effects of their own adverse childhood experiences. Cycle-breaker parents work to interrupt the transmission of intergenerational trauma by building skills in emotional regulation, attunement, and repair that they were never taught themselves. The term has become widely used in both clinical and popular psychology to describe this growing cohort of parents.

How does intergenerational trauma pass from parent to child?

The transmission happens through several pathways. The behavioural route is the most direct: parents raised with punitive or chaotic caregiving tend to replicate those patterns under stress, because the brain defaults to what it learned earliest. There is also a physiological pathway, where disrupted caregiving during infancy shapes the child's stress response system in lasting ways. Emerging research in epigenetics suggests that trauma may also affect gene expression patterns that are passed between generations, though the human evidence for this pathway is still being established.

Can you actually break the cycle of generational trauma?

Yes, and recent longitudinal research supports this. An 18-year study by Supke and colleagues (2025) found that among children of high-risk parents (those reporting four or more ACEs), many reported fewer adverse childhood experiences themselves. A 2025 systematic review by Reese and colleagues found strong evidence that trauma-informed parenting interventions improve parenting practices, reduce parental distress, and protect children from the effects of intergenerational trauma. The cycle can be broken, though the work is ongoing and the process is rarely linear.

What therapy is most helpful for cycle-breaker parents?

Trauma-informed approaches such as EMDR, schema therapy, and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) are well suited to this work. These approaches address both the parent's own unprocessed childhood experiences and the practical skills needed for a different kind of parenting. If you find yourself frequently triggered by your child's behaviour, that pattern is worth exploring with a psychologist who understands developmental trauma and can work with both your past and your present.

What is the ACE study and why does it matter for parents?

The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, published by Felitti, Anda, and colleagues in 1998, surveyed over 9,500 adults and found a dose-response relationship between the number of adverse childhood experiences a person reported and their risk of mental illness, addiction, chronic disease, and early death decades later. The study demonstrated that experiences once considered ordinary parts of childhood, including emotional neglect, parental conflict, and harsh discipline, were in fact harmful and cumulative. It remains the foundational research for understanding why intergenerational patterns of harm matter.

References

• England-Mason, G., et al. (2023). Emotion socialization parenting interventions targeting emotional competence in young children: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Clinical Psychology Review.

• Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., Koss, M. P., & Marks, J. S. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245–258.

• Gottman, J. M., Katz, L. F., & Hooven, C. (1996). Parental meta-emotion philosophy and the emotional life of families: Theoretical models and preliminary data. Journal of Family Psychology, 10(3), 243–268.

• Morris, A. S., Silk, J. S., Steinberg, L., Myers, S. S., & Robinson, L. R. (2007). The role of the family context in the development of emotion regulation. Social Development, 16(2), 361–388.

• Reese, E. M., et al. (2025). Breaking the cycle: A systematic review of intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment and preventive parenting interventions. Child Abuse & Neglect.

• Supke, M., et al. (2025). The transgenerational cycle of adverse childhood experiences: Transmission and familial factors for intervention. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

• Yehuda, R., & Lehrner, A. (2018). Intergenerational transmission of trauma effects: Putative role of epigenetic mechanisms. World Psychiatry, 17(3), 243–257.

• Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J., Rudolph, J., Kerin, J., & Bohadana-Brown, G. (2022). Parent emotional regulation: A meta-analytic review of its association with parenting and child adjustment. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 46(1), 63–82.

Dr Sarah Fischer is the Principal Psychologist and CEO of Behavioural Edge Psychology, with locations in Caulfield South and St Kilda, Melbourne. She holds a PhD and M.Psych, is AHPRA-endorsed in organisational psychology, and works with adults across individual therapy, workplace psychology, neurodivergent assessments, and the legal sector. Learn more about Dr Sarah Fischer.

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