Many of the defining symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD) have a profound effect on someone's ability to parent. In combination and without treatment, these symptoms can produce a traumatic environment for children raised by a parent with BPD.

This form of trauma, when it occurs, differs from classic trauma and presents some unique challenges to healing and growth. Understanding these challenges will help facilitate recovery.

Healthy parenting involves nurturing a secure attachment with your child by providing stable and consistent interaction. The security, created by consistent tone and demeanor, gives the parent the ability to comfort the child and offers a model of stable attachment that is essential for healthy intimate relationships throughout the lifespan. Secure attachments decrease anxiety by providing the child with an emotional anchor.

The defining symptoms of BPD are unstable (dysregulated) mood, identity, and relationships. These, in turn, are often associated with unstable behavior, often taking the form of impulsivity and aggressive lashing out at others.

A child cannot form a secure attachment to a parent whose behavior is determined by an unstable mood. These children form insecure attachments to their parents which are often fraught with significant anxiety, caused by the child being dependent on a parent whose responsiveness depends on the parent’s mood at any given moment. The parent may be capable of affection and pleasant interaction at times, but when the parent is emotionally........

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