I regret how I treated my child

You can do one of three things in your pain: then run (negative, compartmentalized), own (antiation) there, or make friends with it. Making friends in your pain means placing it next to you and starting a conversation with it. This internal dialogue may sound like this:

You: Welcome, old friends. I remember meeting at the airport almost 60 years ago. You came in a hurry to my life, but I pushed you away. I thought I could plow you forward, build a more stable family than I had, and get rid of you by being better in my career. But I'm tired of running from you. So sit with me. Maybe I can learn something from you after all?

Your Pain: Perhaps your father's actions do not reflect how much love you deserve, and not because you can't love properly, you can help you see. That must be very difficult to understand at age 8. You deserved to have a loving, present father. And you want to be able to control your child and your anger, but I might have struggled like this by someone with your background You can see that there is none. I hope you will show yourself some compassion and think that exploring this will give you the opportunity to relate to yourself and others in a different way. I'm not here to hurt you – I'm here to help you move forward.

Engaging in this type of dialogue and acknowledging a lost temperamental context can help you feel embarrassed and take action. The actions involve working with therapists to create meaning for your childhood through the adult lens, gaining tools for self-regulation in your relationship, and through your own childhood and your child's grief It includes working.

You can also start a dialogue with your kids – you can also offer honest apology and invitations to learn how to be there for them, rather than asking for their forgiveness. You can start with something like this:

I want to talk about something important. I now recognize that in your childhood you responded to the situation with disproportionate and hurtful anger. The $10 incident, and other moments like it, weren't about the real mistakes, but about my own unsolved pain and fear I'm working on. I am very sorry that I hadn't realised this before. And I apologize for making you feel scary, small, uncriticed, or unworthy. I don't ask for anything from you, but I'm against it. If I can be there for you, if I can help you heal something as a father in need now, or between us, then that will become my number one priority. Masu.

No matter what your relationship with your current children is, you don't know what they'll do with this. But the point is not about their reactions, but about changing regrets to new opportunities for suffering, in any way they feel comfortable with, in new opportunities for being the best father for them. The deepest healing often comes from acknowledging that we are defined not by our worst moments but by our ability to learn, grow and repair.

Do you want to ask a therapist? If you have any questions, please email askthetherapist@nytimes.com. By submitting a query you agree to the Submission Terms of Use. This column is not a substitute for professional medical advice.