Breaking the cycle.

I’ve learned a lot over the past couple of months and absolutely none of it was about parenting.

Not directly, anyways. Because even though I’ve yet to scratch the surface of my parent coaching curriculum, I’ve improved leaps and in bounds as a father. Which, as I mentioned previously, was all I ever wanted out of this certification course.

The work I’ve had to do over these past six weeks has forced me to face harsh realities about myself and the way I was raised. I’ve had to revisit my childhood and examine my relationship with my parents. I’ve run through the whole gamut of emotions: Sadness, frustration, anger, embarrassment - You name it, I’ve felt it. For better or worse, this process went a long way to explain why I am the way I am as a father. Or more appropriately: How I used to be.

Before I go further, I want to stress that this in no way a hit piece about my parents. They are amazing people and they’ve given me a better life than most, full of love and great memories. They did the best they could with what they knew and I can never fault them for that. Still, if it’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this - When it comes to parenting, the apple never falls far from the tree.

It’s really easy to repeat the mistakes of the past. So many fathers just throw up and their hands and say “Well, that’s the way my Dad was an I turned out fine!”. I refuse to do that. I expect better of myself. My children deserve the best version of me. So I’m going to do everything in my power to be better. I have something my dad didn’t have: A wealth of resources and scientific research that shows us how to connect to our children in ways past generations never even knew they could.

I could spend all day writing about the thing I’ve learned about children's nervous systems, mindsight, emotional regulation, etc but instead, I want to address my biggest hurdle as a father and how I’ve overcome it.

I’m a yeller.

My dad was a yeller. He wasn’t abusive, he just yelled whenever he got upset. Dog eat some of his food off the table? He’d yell. Somebody cut him off in traffic? He’d yell. If my sister and I were fighting? He’d yell. His father was a verbally abusive alcoholic who regularly yelled at him, his siblings, and his mother, so it’s not surprising that he ended up being a yeller himself.

In my first couple of years as a father, I don’t remember a single instance of losing my temper or raising my voice. The infant stage is largely smooth sailing in terms of behavior, as the majority of men stress came from sleep schedule fluctuations or time management issues. Once we had Brooklyn, everything changed.

Cameron, now 2 years old, began acting out. Sometimes it was just tantrums but more often than not, things turned physical. He’d randomly hit, kick, or even headbutt Brooklyn and we were completely unpreprapred to deal with this change in his behavior. Because I never had proper emotional regulation modeled for me, I reacted in the only way I knew how. I’d yell.

I have a lot of shame about those days. I can only imagine how confusing and scary it must have been for Cam. He was just a baby! He wasn't acting out of malice, he was just communicating in the only way he knew how. For two years he was the only other human in the house besides his parents and then suddenly there’s this baby and she’s taking attention away from him. His whole life was turned upside down and he didn’t know how to deal with it. My job as a father was to help him navigate this tumultuous time and make him feel safe. Instead, I made him feel like there was something wrong with him.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been able to forgive myself in the same way that I forgave my parents. Did I do a good job? No. But I was doing the best I could with what I knew. If Cam somehow remembers these days and brings them up to me when he’s older, I’ll take full accountability and apologize to him for the way I was. He deserved better.

I’ve learned that communication is vital, even if your child is still too young to hold full conversations. What am I telling my toddler by yelling at him when he does something “wrong”? He doesn’t understand the words I’m saying, he just sees his dad getting really loud and using aggressive body language. He certainly doesn’t interpret that as “I’m safe!” Because I failed to regulate my emotions, I sent his nervous system into high alert. Even worse, I’d often put him in his room on “time out”. Isolating a frightened and anxious child only exacerbates their state, so not only was I not helping him - I was actively making him worse.

I’m happy to say that we are now a “No Yelling Household”. With my dedication to change, my wife has held herself more accountable as well. We don’t yell. The kids are still kids, so they yell from time to time. Cameron is still the biggest repeat offender but we’re working on it every day. I know that he’s a product of his environment and I take accountability for that. It’s never too late to change so I’ve made a concerted effort to co-regulate his emotions when he gets upset.

It took me eight years but I finally decided to take steps in order to become the father my children deserve. I’m going to break the cycle that was set in motion hundreds of years ago. I am not the last male in my bloodline but I’m going to be the last one that yells at my kids. I refuse to raise another Koenreich man that thinks it’s okay to yell when they’re upset. Furthermore, I refuse to raise women who are conditioned to being yelled at. I don’t want my son yelling at his partners and I don’t want my daughters thinking it’s okay to be yelled at by theirs.

I read a quote during my studies that has stuck with me ever since:

”Your history is not your destiny.”

The way you were raised and the things you experienced matter. Your feelings are valid. Even so, who you are as a parent is not set in stone. You can change. You don’t have to be your father. The apple doesn’t have to fall far from the tree. It can be from a completely different orchard if you want it to be.

You just have to take the steps to change, no matter how hard they may be.

-Eric