Celebrate Your Mistakes as an Opportunity for Modeling
If you’re reading this post, it is clear you are looking for strategies to be a better parent. One easy thing to do is to embrace the times when you make mistakes.
Don’t be afraid to let your children learn that you are not perfect, and be sure to let them see how you go about rectifying things.
It’s important not only for your state of mind but also for your children to allow yourself to make mistakes. If you always come off as the expert, they will feel that they need to be experts too. They will interpret your desire for perfection as a message that it is what you expect of them and that you won’t be proud of anything less.
On the other hand, when they see you make mistakes, they come to be more tolerant of their own missteps. In addition, children need to see you struggle with some things because they can really benefit from seeing adults openly model problem-solving strategies. This gives them opportunities to observe how you deal with stress and frustration, and then how you pull it together to solve whatever issues you face.
A very common mistake parents make with their children is impulsively giving them a consequence for something they did that they later realized is either too lenient or too strict. It’s a very common issue and one that can be addressed while teaching children an important lesson because we all know they react to their emotions impulsively too.
Take the scenario of a parent reacting in anger by giving a consequence that is too strict. For example, a child disrespects his parents in the grocery store and the parent tells the child they will lose electronics for a month.
The parent later realizes that a month is probably too long for the punishment, so starts acquiescing after a couple of days and lets the child use electronics a little more each day. Instead of giving the child mixed messages by trying to cover the mistake, parents need to talk with their children about their thoughts.
“Sam, I was so angry in the store because you were being disrespectful to me, but I reacted too strongly. When I got home, I realized that losing your electronics for a month was an exaggerated reaction. I made a mistake, and I’m changing it to a week”. Alternatively, if you realize that the consequence you set was too lenient, you can also make that clear to your children. “Jane, I know I said you would only lose electronics for the weekend, but when I got home, I remembered that the last time you were just as disrespectful towards me, I told you that if it happened again you would lose them for a week. Now you’re not able to use electronics for a week.”
This models for kids how to fix mistakes when they react impulsively. It also shows that you are willing to make changes and that your first emotional response isn’t always the best one.
This is exactly how you want them to react to others. When they overreact to something a peer says or does, you want them to be able to self-monitor and resolve the issue on their own.
All parents make mistakes. Don’t feel like you’re going to read this post, or any other, and do everything that is suggested all the time. Just as you want to teach your children to be thoughtful and considerate when they approach life’s challenges, you need to be willing to model how it is done in a healthy way.