Ok, so after a week of talking about parenting and how it should look, it is time to recognize that it doesn’t always look that way.
I fall short.
In fact, sometimes I suck at this parenting thing.
Here are the highlights:
- One time, I forgot to pick Anne up from tumbling – for over an hour! They didn’t even call me because they had started the next class and didn’t realize she was still there. She sat and colored until I showed up.
- Multiple times, I have gotten busy at work and 3:00 school dismissal came and went and I wasn’t there. Usually I realized it within 5-10 minutes, but I have been called by the school secretary. More than once.
- I lose it sometimes. And I go off on my children. I have been known to say things that I immediately regret. Usually about their level of slovenliness. And their lack of care and respect for me and their home.
- I want to check my kids’ homework every day. But I don’t always get there. Some days it is just amazing that I have the presence of mind to remind them to do it at all.
- I don’t buy snacks to send to school on my kids’ birthdays.
- I don’t do play dates nearly as often as my kids would like, mostly because I really don’t like having extra kids with whom to deal.
- My kids have seen episodes of Friends (and other shows) that I probably should have turned off because of the content, but I wanted to see it so I left it on.
- I have great plans at the beginning of the summer and the school year for time management, chores, school work, and more, and it usually lasts less than a month before things go haywire again.
- I have wrongly accused my kids of doing things they didn’t do.
- Sometimes I let my kids eat cake and cookies for breakfast. (Because who doesn’t love a “Bill Cosby Breakfast!“)
- When I don’t feel like cooking dinner, they sometimes make their own. Which means pbj, or boxed mac & cheese, or popcorn. And no veggies.
- And even though I have tried to teach them, I apparently have failed to impress upon them the importance of brushing their teeth and flushing the toilet. 🙂
There’s more. This list could go on for days.
The thing is, after I fail, I may beat myself up for a bit, but I have to pick myself up, dust myself off, and jump right back in there and attempt to do better.
After you forget to pick up your kids a couple of times, you learn to set an alarm on your phone as a reminder.
After you realize that you said something you regret, you go apologize to your kids and love on them.
After your kids are exposed to something new (and possibly questionable), you talk with them about it.
After you fall off the schedule wagon, you do your best to get back on it.
We own our mistakes. We show our kids that we own our mistakes. And we work to do better.
These things have a way of teaching us and our children about failure and the ability to try again.
Are my failures as a parent over? I am confident they are not. I will fail again. And again. And I will keep working on getting it right.
Want to share some of your most memorable failures? Tell me about them in the comments!
This. “After you realize that you said something you regret, you go apologize to your kids and love on them.”
This is absolutely correct. The longer you wait to apologize, the less impact it has. Children need to know that you can admit when you make a mistake. It helps them to understand that everyone makes mistakes and that being honest about it is always the best policy.
Absolutely! I am constantly trying to help my kids understand the importance of owning up to it when we mess up, and I try my best to live that example! Thanks, Bob!!