We spend time and effort learning how to build a peaceful relationship with our children, but we rarely learn how to build a peaceful relationship with ourselves.
We have the tools to handle our kids’ big feelings, but we are so often overwhelmed by our own.
That is why Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Peaceful Parenting are such a perfect match. They are not separate approaches. They are two sides of the same coin. In this article I want to show you exactly why that matters for you as a parent.
The Natural Partnership of IFS and Peaceful Parenting
The partnership between Internal Family Systems and peaceful parenting comes down to one simple idea:
The way you relate to your child is also exactly the way you need to relate to yourself.
What peaceful parenting offers parents is guidance for how to respond to your child with compassion, connection, and curiosity. But so often we neglect to offer specific guidance for what to do with the storm inside yourself.
That gap is why you can often know exactly the right thing to say to your child while still feeling completely lost in your own emotional chaos.
The Missing Tool for Internal Regulation
IFS closes the gap between knowing what to do and being able to do it by turning your peaceful parenting skills inward. It asks you to use the same tools of connection and curiosity on your inner world that you already use with your child.
The same way you get curious about your child’s behavior, you can also get curious about your own frustrations, triggers and reactions. The same way you validate your child’s feelings, you validate the parts of yourself that feel angry, scared, frustrated or overwhelmed.
When you validate a child’s anger, you teach them that their inner world is safe. When you learn to apply that same validation to your own angry inner self, you can then begin to create safety inside yourself.
Why Peaceful Parenting Feels Hard
Most of us already speak to our children with compassion and patience, but we still talk to ourselves like a drill sergeant. That mismatch is exactly why peaceful parenting can feel so hard: you are using one style of relating with your child and a completely different one with yourself.
Internal Family Systems invites you to bring those two worlds together by relating to your own inner parts with empathy, love and validation. The more your inner and outer relationships line up, the more natural peaceful parenting becomes.
The reason peaceful parenting often feels so hard is because we are trying to be calm and connected for our children while still being at war with our own internal parts.
How We Talk To Our Kids, How We Talk To Ourselves
One of the most painful ironies of peaceful parenting is that we often hold ourselves to a completely different set of rules than we hold our children.
We offer them endless grace and understanding, but we offer ourselves immediate judgment and scorn. We are their safe harbor, but we are our own harsh critic.
This is where IFS changes the game. It simply asks us to take the tools we already use with our children and turn them inward.
Here is what that looks like in practice.
Empathizing and validating
With your child, you say things like, “I see you’re frustrated. It makes sense you feel that way.” In IFS, you talk to your own anger, fear, or shame the same way: “I see how I am feeling really angry right now, and it makes sense that I’m feeling that way.” You are using peaceful parenting on your own inner parts.
Listening without judgment
With your child, you listen to understand, not to criticize. As peaceful parents, we don’t label our children’s feelings as “bad.” In IFS, you do the same thing within yourself. Instead of judging your own thoughts, reactions, and feelings, you learn to listen with curiosity. You stop being your own harsh critic and start being a calm, caring listener for your inner system of parts.
Understanding instead of fixing
With your child, you move away from “How do I stop this behavior?” toward “What is this behavior trying to tell me?” In IFS, you do exactly the same things with your own inner triggers. Instead of trying to shut them down, you ask, “What is this reaction trying to tell me?” Again, you are applying the same concepts in peaceful parenting, just turned inward.
When you start treating your inner self with the same respect and kindness you offer your child, peaceful parenting stops being just a method you use on them. It becomes the way you live with yourself.
In order to do that, you need a map for your internal world. That is where IFS comes in.
What Is Internal Family Systems?
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a psychological framework developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz in the 1980s that is only now gaining widespread interest. It offers a powerful way to understand the mind, seeing us not as having a single personality, but as being made up of multiple sub-personalities, which it refers to as our inner “parts.”
Just like a family has different members with different roles, your internal world has different parts with different jobs. You have parts that manage your daily life, parts that hold your pain, and parts that step in to protect you when you feel threatened.
Think of it this way. If you have ever said: “Part of me wants to exercise, but another part of me just wants to stay on the couch,” you are already speaking the language of IFS.
In the IFS model, none of our parts are “bad.” Instead, they’re playing a protective function in our lives. Even the parts of you that yell, shut down, or criticize are actually trying to help you in the only way they know how.
This is where the connection to peaceful parenting becomes so powerful. IFS teaches us how to speak to ourselves with the same non-shaming, loving, understanding tone that we use when speaking to our children.
IFS for Parents
The connection between IFS and peaceful parenting is so vital in my mind, that I am writing my next book entirely on IFS for parents. Stay updated at IFSforParents.com for more.
But you don’t have to wait for the book to get started. You can begin this work right now, in your very next interaction with your child (and yourself).
How To Get Started with IFS
You don’t need to read a stack of psychology books to start using IFS. You just need to apply one golden rule: Offer yourself the same compassion you strive to offer your child.
Even if you aren’t perfect with your kids yet, you know the goal: connection over correction. IFS asks you to apply that same goal to your own internal world.
When you feel a trigger rising like anger, panic, or the urge to control, your instinct is likely to judge it. You want to shove that feeling down. You tell yourself you shouldn’t be feeling this way.
But you cannot bully yourself into being a peaceful parent. (read that again!)
Instead of beating yourself up, try applying the same validation and connection within your own internal system:
- Pause and acknowledge. When you feel the heat rising, don’t fight it. Say to yourself, “I am feeling really triggered right now. I should take a pause and listen to what’s going on.”
- Validate the part. Just like you would say to your child, “It makes sense you are angry,” say to yourself: “It makes sense that I am freaking out right now.”
- Get curious. Instead of asking “What is wrong with me?”, ask “What is going on with this intense reaction?”
Maybe your anger is trying to protect you from feeling powerless. Maybe your criticism is trying to protect you from feeling like a failure. In IFS we learn to see that these are actually not bad parts. They are protective mechanisms that have developed over your lifetime in the way that they have because they are trying to keep you safe.
When you stop trying to exile and push away your own difficult feelings, you stop being a referee blowing the whistle on your own reactions. You start being a self-led parent who models true emotional intelligence.
The Inside Job of Peaceful Parenting
I have learned that peaceful parenting is far more than a set of scripts or techniques. It is a philosophy of relationship and a way of being that starts within your own internal system.
By using the IFS model to understand and lead your own parts, you stop fighting a war inside yourself. You extend “no bad kids” to “no bad parts.” You extend that same deep safety to your own heart.
When you treat your internal parts with the same grace you give your child, the conflict ends. You are no longer peaceful on the outside while endlessly warring on the inside. You become a consistent, safe harbor for your children.
That is the power of bringing these two worlds together.
