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It’s time to rediscover playfulness—and heal your inner child along the way.
Key Takeaways
- Your inner child holds onto early emotional experiences, and unresolved wounds from childhood can quietly shape how you handle relationships and stress as an adult.
- Summer’s natural rhythms—warm weather, water, unstructured time—make it an especially good season to reconnect with that playful, curious part of yourself.
- Simple acts like playing without keeping score, trying something new, or having a sleepover can help you heal old wounds and access more joy in everyday life.
Not everyone associates childhood with carefree days. If you’ve experienced loss, trauma, or unmet needs, this pain can resurface when you’re an adult. You may have difficulty trusting people or putting your needs first. Although it might sound strange, learning to connect with your inner child can help you heal—and experience summer as if you were a kid again.
“Your inner child is the part of you that carries your earliest emotional experiences,” says Hillary Pilotto, LCPC, founder and psychotherapist at Better Balance Counseling. This includes memories, beliefs, and feelings that stay with you from childhood. Having a healthy inner child allows you to approach the world, including your relationships, with playfulness and curiosity.
Ahead, we talked to mental health experts about what it means to have unresolved childhood trauma, and summer-themed ways to connect with your inner child. As Pilotto explains, summer is a great time for this because many of the season’s natural rhythms are aligned with treasured memories and childhood pastimes.
How Childhood Trauma Shapes Your Inner Child
Our early experiences and relationships help shape our inner child. “At best, our inner child lives to celebrate youth and maintain a more whimsical approach to adulthood,” says Jessica Hines, MA, MFT, a California-based therapist. “At worst, the unhealed wounds or unmet needs of our inner child can negatively affect our relationships and sense of self later in life.”
Unresolved trauma can affect how you interact with people as an adult. An example of this is someone who gets constructive feedback at work and thinks they’re going to get fired. “In fact, they are really responding to something that has nothing to do with what’s happening in the room,” Pilotto says.
“When early experiences were safe and needs were met, people tend to develop resilience,” she says. For example, you might see a rejection as a temporary setback.
The key to connecting with your inner child is to focus on activities that emphasize wonder and being present. Here are nine ways to connect with your inner child this summer.
Play Without Keeping Score
When was the last time you spent an afternoon blowing bubbles or looked for fireflies at dusk? Real play means doing something for fun and not caring about the result, Pilotto says. It can be as simple as playing a game of tag or hopscotch, riding a bike, or building a sandcastle at the beach.
“As adults, we must always find sympathy and love for the inner child that lives within us,” Hines says. She adds that play allows us to relive the joys of childhood and access some of the best parts of ourselves.
Learn Something New
Summer is a good time to pick up a new hobby. “A person’s inner child responds well to the combination of newness and a challenge,” Pilotto says. She recommends choosing something that you’re still figuring out and aren’t automatically good at.
“Adults spend so much time being the expert that it is nice being a beginner again,” she says. That’s because there’s less pressure to perform, and mistakes are part of the experience.
Get in the Water
Water isn’t just for hydration. It also means splashing around in a pool or going down a water slide at full speed. “Rediscover the joy of what it felt like to approach rides with abandon,” Hines says.
Other water-themed ideas are paddleboarding, kayaking, or swimming in the ocean. And you don’t have to venture far from home—you can have a water balloon fight or run through the sprinklers.
Spend Time Outside
As adults, we often feel pressured to be productive, even if we’re sitting poolside. Try camping out in the backyard, watching a movie under the stars, or visiting a carnival. When you go for a walk, see how many animals you can spot, or head out on a bike ride with no destination in mind. If sports are your thing, consider joining a softball league or playing mini golf.
“These activities regulate the nervous system and are truly just fun experiences,” Pilotto says. “The nicer weather in summer makes them more accessible, too.”
Prioritize Unstructured Time
Remember those summers when the only thing on your mind was hanging out with friends? There was no structure or agenda.
Prioritizing casual hangouts as an adult can help lower stress and regulate your emotions, Pilotto says. “It also creates a sense of belonging, which is very important.” You can get together and play online games, listen to your favorite songs from the 90s, or simply lie on the grass and reminisce about old times.
Get Creative
As we get older, we have fewer outlets to express our creativity. “Engaging in crafting, such as coloring, bracelet making, or painting, reminds us that there once was a creative child that lived within all of us,” Hines says. Draw on the sidewalk with chalk or collect flowers or leaves to make a collage.
Another idea is to paint rocks with colorful designs and stash them around your neighborhood. You can also turn this into a scavenger hunt to get others in on the fun.
Reconnect With Pre-Internet Favorites
Whether it’s your favorite movie, sitcom, or book, revisiting childhood classics can be very comforting. “Surrounding yourself with familiar characters can bring you back to a place and time that only exists in memory,” Hines says.
Get a Treat
Who could forget the familiar sound of an ice cream truck? Head to your local shop for some ice cream or make popsicles at home. You can also put together a charcuterie plate with your favorite childhood snacks.
Have a Sleepover
Relive those late-night gabfests with a slumber party. Or if you have children, a “late-over” (staying late without spending the night) might be more your speed. “Remember the simple joy in talking all night on the couch with your friends,” Hines says. “Wear your pajamas and re-experience the carefree ways in which friendships can exist with nothing more than spending time together.”
Read the original article on Real Simple
