When You Feel Like You Are Failing Your Child

Shame, guilt, judgement. I know these feelings. Reminding me that I should know better, should have done better, I mean come on I am a somatic therapist and meditation teacher for crying out loud!

I’m guessing you might resonate with this feeling too. I think most mothers who are on a journey of cycle breaking outdated familial patterns get it. You know the “right” things to say. You have read the books, listened to the podcasts, scrolled the posts on co-regulation and emotional safety. You care so deeply about your child’s inner world that it feels like you are doing an unacknowledged PHD.

Yet in the heat of the moment, when you kid/s have the upteenth meltdown or tantrum of the day something else takes over. You snap, shut down or withdraw, then lie awake promising that tomorrow you will be more patient, more playful and more present.

As I have mentioned before, many Millennial and Gen Z parents are trying to parent more consciously while still carrying unprocessed stress and trauma in their own systems, and research is beginning to show that this inner work does matter for how connected and responsive we can be with our kids.

And still, knowing better in your mind often does not translate straight into doing differently in your body. This is where a somatic lens can soften the harsh and critical story you tell about yourself.

When your body is already at capacity

If you were not consistently (most of the time) nurtured, met or supported in your own childhood, your nervous system did what it needed to do to get you through. So it might have learned to scan for danger, to shut feelings down, to work hard, to go numb, to explode, to appease. These patterns become woven into your body as your go to survival response when life gets overwhelmingly tough.

Then you become a mum.

Now there is a small person whose feelings are huge, who has no impulse control yet and are totally and wildly unfiltered. They rage, cling, wail, bite, refuse, collapse in public (I mean they do a lot of lovely things too right - I am not discounting that!). But they want you, all of you and it can be really hard when you have nothing left.

Your child is looking to your nervous system as a first home, a place to borrow steadiness. Yet your own system may still be living with the imprint of times you were not held that way. Under stress, it is completely predictable that your body shifts into fight, flight or shut down.

This is your body’s survival response pattern to overwhelm and stress. So it is normal from a nervous system perspective to feel like this when you reach capacity. It’s not that you don’t care about your child. It is that you have been trying to offer your child more safety than your own system has ever truly received.

Why knowing the script is not enough

Modern parenting culture is full of scripts and these tools can be beautiful, and early research suggests that emotionally attuned, less reactive parenting supports secure connection and better outcomes across generations.

But your child does not live with your scripts. They live and learn from your nervous system.

When stress rises, your autonomic nervous system shifts state. If your body moves into sympathetic charge (fight or flight), your voice tightens, your responses get sharper and your patience thins. If you slide into dorsal collapse (shut down, numbness), you may go quiet, disappear inside, or feel like you are parenting through fog.

In those states, the loving words you memorised can feel far away - which is physiologically normal!

From a somatic lens, the work is less about performing perfect words and more about slowly expanding your capacity to be with your own emotional landscape, so you are can feel what you need to feel and do it in a grounded and connected way.

The invisible labour of the cycle breaking mother

Many mothers reading this are quietly breaking cycles. Perhaps you are parenting in ways that feel very different to how you were raised, while still carrying your own history in your bodies.

You might be:

• Offering language for feelings that no one ever gave you

• Sitting on the floor with a screaming child, remembering being sent away for your own tears

• Trying to repair after a rupture when you never once saw an adult apologise in your childhood

Intergenerational research on trauma and maltreatment suggests that when parents receive support and address their own stress patterns, the trajectory for children can shift in real, measurable ways across generations.

I get goosebumps knowing this because it is so filled with hope and healing.

And at the same time it is also a lot. Especially when we don’t have the community support, the cost of living is high, you are navigating sleep deprivation, health issues, race….I mean the list goes on. We don’t get to parent in a silo. We are parenting in a world that comes with a whole lot of additional pressure, stress and inequality.

From a body perspective, this “double load” of parenting and healing means your system is doing extra work beneath the surface. It is no wonder you feel stretched and on edge.

From performance to presence

So what does it mean to respond differently, when you are already tired and touch-saturated and carrying so much history in your nervous system?

It does not mean never losing it, being calm at all times or turning into a script-reading robot.

It looks much more like small, body centred shifts that bring you back to yourself, even after a messy moment/s or day. For example:

1. Name your state, not your character
Instead of “I am a terrible mum”, try noticing “There is a lot of heat in my chest” or “My body feels like it wants to run away.” This moves the focus from blame to sensation, which your nervous system can work with.

2. Offer yourself one small gesture of co regulation
Place a hand on your heart, your belly or the back of your neck. Feel the warmth and weight of your own touch. You might quietly say silently to yourself, “Of course it feels like too much right now.”

3. Let a glimmer count
Our brains have a negativity bias, so they cling to what went wrong and skim over what went well. Take 20–30 seconds to actually feel a tiny moment of goodness: the smell of your child’s hair as they fall asleep, a patch of sunlight on the floor, the support of the chair under you. Let your body register, “This feels even a little bit okay.” Over time, these small “glimmers” help tone your nervous system toward safety and connection. I have a free Glimmer Tracker for you here.

4. Repair instead of rehearsing the shame loop
When things settle, a simple “I was very sharp before, that was not how I wanted to speak, I am practising too” can be powerful. Repair does not erase what happened, yet it teaches both your child and the younger parts of you that relationships can stretch and come back together.

A kinder story about “failing”

When you feel like you are failing your child, it is often because your ideals are outpacing your current capacity. The longing to do it differently is real. The nervous system realities are real too.

Somatic and intergenerational research point to the same thing: parents who receive support, tend to their own stress and trauma, and experience more empowerment in their bodies are more able to offer stability, connection and flexibility to their children.

In other words, your inner work is part of parenting.

If this piece resonated, you might love my somatic guides and practices designed to help you come home to yourself in motherhood.
Explore both free resources (including a Glimmer Tracker) and deeper paid guides to support your nervous system, soften overwhelm, and reconnect with your body’s wisdom.