Content Warning: Language use on this page. To us a parental unit is someone installed in the parenting position or role who may or may not be filling the full idea of what "parenting" is. Deciding someone is a "parent" is an honorific that needs to be earned and includes nourishing, protecting, caring, attending, assisting, and role-modeling behavior that many parental units fail at. When we use the term "re-parenting" we are describing an attempt to do-over a failed or inadequate initial attempt to parent children (regardless of age) in every appropriate way. We only grant the honorific "parent" to people who do a good job at parenting. Our biological parental units never earned that honorific. Our internal parents have earned it. Your mileage may vary with the terminology used on this page, and until we have better terminology, we're going to consider what to do about this issue for some of our readers.
Something you may see kicking around boards and forums is the concept of re-parenting. Many folk feel a need to experience proper parenting relationships to correct some of the damage done by detached and/or abusive caregivers, and reparenting is supposed to be something along the lines of finding another person (whether internal or external) whom you can trust to develop a healthy parent-child relationship with one or more of your system's residents. In a perfect world, you get all that you were denied by your guardians during your childhood, fill heretofore unmet needs, and replace the unhealthy dysfunctional parenting/authority model you gained earlier with a more secure, safe, and attached paradigm.
The Crisses (and their system kids) talk about reparenting issues in a podcast episode here.
To take this to the next level, check out The Crisses' 2020 Plural Positivity World Conference session Building a Reparenting-Focused Community.
Re-parenting is a very important concept for plural/multiple systems who have any hurt children and even teen residents who are poorly attached, hungry for love, or insecure.
The idea of reparenting is to find a safe person (or persons) who can provide the unconditional love and constant attention a young child should have, or in the case of older children, slowly transfer responsibility for their life (as it is earned and reasonable for their life-skill-level) to the child.
Sometimes a child in one's system will chose someone external to reparent them on their own, without negotiation, clinging to someone, calling them by parental labels, pouring their attention, neediness, insecurity, etc. towards this person. There are many ways this can go wrong, or be inappropriate, so we will address some of the issues as candidly as possible. If you are currently in such a relationship with someone, please proceed with caution as the ideas on this page could be disturbing since they actually may apply to your situation. If you've had such a situation go sour for some reason, you may find yourself nodding in agreement.
I cannot stress enough how dangerous it could be to put yourself in a reparenting position with someone who may (deliberately or accidentally) reenforce the dysfunctional models you are trying to replace. Even someone who is well-meaning may have their own unhealthy parenting models or internal insecurities and needs for validation/attachment that they are working from. This may also apply to intra-system re-parenting arrangements, but with different potential outcomes.
When one considers the track record of government and non-profit organizations which have made it their business and primary concern to place abused, neglected, or orphaned children in the hands of those who can be trusted, it should be clear that external reparenting relationships are not something which should be jumped into without seriously checking the waters, and it should be avoided if at all possible. Raising children is an enormous responsibility, which challenges even the best of people. As we'll see below, raising traumatized system kids has it's own unique issues and challenges as well.
Let me repeat that! [from the original page, unedited]
As a person in part responsible for aspects of reparenting in many reality-contexts, I cannot stress HOW important it is to be cautious about this. Nonetheless, it's sometimes the only path. The key is knowing the prospective reparenter is utterly ethical and a skilled parent in a practical sense. - BP, for the Firewheel
It's very important to note that reparenting the youngest of inner children is a 24/7/365 job. There are no vacations or times off. A very young child can need intervention at any time of the day or night. Someone with office hours cannot be this for you. If your spouse has a job, they cannot be this for you. If your blood or adoptive parents have their own lives now they cannot be this for you.
What healthy therapists, spouses, or parents can do is help support the adults in your system by giving great advice, being great role-models, by giving loving and caring support as "grandparent" or elder figures to the adults in your system, by giving internal parents a little break by spending some time with the youngers in your system and playing or coloring with them, or giving them an occasional hug (for non-therapists), or taking them out for a treat or watching a movie with them, etc. At most, they can be co-parents with the children, but the internal parent should be the closer emotionally supportive parent figure that they go to when they have a nightmare or when they need hugs and cuddles, when they need emotional support and nurturing.
More about this below.
It's important to realize that the community and therapists have built up some unhealthy ideas around what small folk in the system need in order to make progress, and what they're capable of, that aren't true.
System kids do not need to front or age up to:
Some systems have difficulty regulating when their system kids front, and it threatens their stability, income, relationships, and may raise their overall anxiety level especially if the system kids fronting are trauma holders or triggered front, having panic attacks or anxiety attacks, etc. By helping your system kids to have appropriate internal outlets for exploration, art, healing, etc. you can help them grow and heal, both when internal and when fronting.
Fronting is a privilege. We discuss this more here. System kids deserve time out, just like anyone else in the system. That said, they also don't need to be given front at times that are inappropriate or create problems for your system, like any other system member. It would be inappropriate for a non-driver adult to front when driving a vehicle. There are times and places when certain internals should not front, and this becomes part of your system's culture and the negotiated agreements of your system.
That said, it's also fully possible to have system kids who can drive responsibly and should not be additionally restricted based on their age being a number. Each inner child should be assessed based on their abilities and ability to take responsibility for their actions, rather than the number that represents their age.
The overall idea is to regulate system kids' front-time, not to take it all away. Small children have both the need and the energy to be active and play or explore for many hours in the day, and they do not need to be front to do this. By building up to internal enrichment, exploration, learning, and needs-fulfillment, encouraging growth and healing, etc. internally so that they do not disrupt your external life at inappropriate times and you can negotiate fronting time as a reward and privilege for good behavior. It doesn't mean they will never front at all, it means they will take turns as appropriate along with everyone else.
There are several important items to note about what young system members need to be reparented.
Putting this level of trust and responsibility into the hands of people external to the system might seem to have some benefits, but generally the drawbacks far outweigh the benefits. Here's an example of 2 types of external reparenting relationships we have seen, and a list of some of the issues with relying on these people for reparenting.
It's important to find people you can trust to develop a healthy parent-child relationship for your inner kids. Finding great external parenting role-models who are available in the ways that a little needs, and with ironclad guarantees that they're in for the long-haul can be difficult-to-impossible.
It's also important to caution that, in addition to backing out when the going gets tough, externals may accept this important position and then reenforce the dysfunctional models you are trying to replace. Or create new dysfunctional dynamics; even someone who is well-meaning may have their own unhealthy models that they are working from.
Given all the downsides of trusting the externals you should be able to trust the most (your professional care team, your chosen intimate partner, and in theory your own body-parents or adoptive parents), the situation would not be improved by relying on friends or other family members.
Since inner children need permanence and security, constant access on an ongoing basis, etc. it's our recommendation that you find ways to work on reparenting internally.
You may be able to group reparent your inner kids, but every child will still need their own 1:1 time with caregivers so the number of caregivers still needs to outnumber the group of youngsters they care for — if that's possible. Make it work for you.
How do you set yourselves up for success in redirecting system kids to use internal resources instead of fronting?
You build internal landscape/inner world features that appeal to children and help fill their needs.
More info on how:
Creating areas that are attuned to the care of system kids is important to help them remain engaged, distracted, and have their needs met internally. You can use external role-models such as a family room, nursery school, kindergarten classroom, daycare center, playground, etc. as a role-model for what you can create or build internally for your kids.
Whatever you create, we suggest a few features:
Older kids and teens in your system also could use some fun and amusements in-system. You might consider allowing them to create their own space and give them more responsibility and input into what they create.
If you need it, you could have agreements that there are "indoor times" when you have external adult time, etc. so that your teens are distracted and shielded when need be.
Here's some ideas:
How does one become a good parent? What should the caregivers in your system do to work on their own parenting skills, especially when they haven't been handed great role-models?
This is just a starter list. There's many ways to learn better parenting skills, hopefully this is helpful.
Please check out The Crisses conference session on Building a Reparenting-Focused Community from the 2020 Plural Positivity World Conference.
Others in your system may want to check in with the reparenting team periodically and help them out. Relieve them for a shift, make sure their needs get met, give them spoons or some hugs and gifts to help them stay energized and focused on their task.
If the others in your system are attentive to the needs of what is essentially a nursery school or school system in your head, then things could go much easier. Being on hand to do internal landscaping tasks to help compensate for the little's changing needs, or visiting for playtime is fine! Your inner kids can have friends they associate with.
That said this is not a ploy to keep youngsters from fronting. When they front, their caregiver should be at their elbow, making sure to steer them away from trouble and perhaps help them understand what is going on in the world outside, also to guide them back to their care area when front time is done. They may interact with your therapist or spouse and even be affectionate and have moments of getting redirection or lessons and knowledge from external people. However, this puts those relationships into perspective as these people would not be parental figures — they would be more like adult friends or temporary carers.
Those who have insomnia due to little's evening antics: internal caregivers can also be put in charge of nap and bed-time including rituals that are carried out internally to help the little's fall asleep.
Note that while reparenting your system's children is of the biggest concern, middles, teens, and adults in your system may want or need reparenting as well, and by no means are the concerns or techniques much different for anyone of any age in your system. The point is for the parenting relationships to be healthy and appropriate for the "child" party's current age and developmental milestones.
One thing that may be somewhat different, however, is that once Middles & Bigs have appropriate boundaries, are able to detach and reattach in an age-appropriate manner, can perform accurate reality testing, and have some means to know right from wrong in the world, it is easier to have and hold accountable external reparenting figures. It's easier for Bigs, however, since Middles still may want daily "check-ins" with parental figures, where Bigs may be perfectly find checking in with "mom" or "dad" once a week or every few weeks. Also, should something ever happen to the reparenting figure(s), Middles and Bigs can experience a more realistic grieving process and while surely saddened, they can learn and grow from even losing appropriate role-models for being a good parent.
In this way, Bigs and older Middles can themselves be reparented by appropriate external adults and taught how to be a better parental figure for the younger children within their system.
So it will depend on your particular system and your particular needs. Just remember that no one is perfect.