Mud Pies & Minivans: Parents Are Not Always Right

The other day while Aidann was observing her sister's Gymboree class, she became particularly interested in the interaction between 1 mother & her daughter. The lil' girl was giving her mom a lot attitude, not wanting to participate in the class or follow her mother's directions. At first, the mom responded to the daughter's behavior very sternly letting her know that type of behavior would not be tolerated. But as the class went on, the child continued to cop an attitude & refused to listen to her mother. You could see she was slowly breaking her mom down & demanding good behavior from her daughter soon turned into begging & pleading with her. You could see the frustration starting to show on the mother's face as the girl started to resort to scowling & throwing herself on the ground. You could tell mom was starting to get worried that this tantrum was soon going to escalate into WW3 & so she finally resorted to bribery, "If you stop right now, I will let you have your juice..." . This must have sounded like a good enough deal to the lil' girl because she quickly changed the expression on her face & ran over to the cubbies to grab her juice.

My oldest has always been extremely observant of the things being said & done around her & this situation was not any different.You could tell on Aidy's face she was a lil' bit confused & trying to process it all. "That lil' girl was not making very good choices, was she?", I asked her. I needed to make sure she understood that although other kids might act a certain way, some behaviors are not acceptable in our family. She paused for a second before answering, "No.... but she got juice anyway".Wow, that kid is only 3 years old but recognized how even though the girl was behaving poorly, she was rewarded anyway.

From there I had to explain how sometimes even adults make mistakes. After hearing this, a look of utter & complete shock swept over her face like the thought of an adult making a bad choice was just something you do not ever dare say. But I had to let her know that although most parents try very hard to do everything their very best, we are still capable of messing up & making bad choices just like kids are. Maybe we use language in front of our kids that we really shouldn't, yell, override our significant other in our kids' presence, perhaps we do something hypocritical in front of them even if we are not meaning to, contradict ourselves, or so on. We are ALL capable of making mistakes, we are not perfect, & sometimes we need to be big enough to apologize to our kids for those mistakes we make.

Okay, I will put some of my stuff out there to give you an example. The other day I was helping my girls clean up the creative mess of fun they had made in the Princess Playroom. I was definitely a woman on a mission in that deep cleaning mode & from time to time I would toss an item to the other side of the room so it would be closer to the basket it needed to go in. After a few minutes of doing this, I quickly stopped myself. I am always telling the ladies to be good stewards of their toys & to not throw them when here I was tossing things here & there across the room right in front of them. I quickly swollowed my pride & said, "Girls, I apologize. Mommy should not be tossing toys across the room because that is not being a good steward of our toys". They forgave me & did not really see what the big deal was, but even in the lil' things like that we are showing our kids that we have good character & take setting a good example for them always very seriously. It is not weakness to admit that you have done something wrong to your kids, but rather a sign of great strength that they are going to respect you for later on in life. "I apologize" & "I was wrong" are not bad words.

Parenting is an ever growing process. We are not going to handle every situation perfectly every single time. BUT it is not too late to admit it, change it, & handle it better the next time! And this does not just go for mommies. What a testimony when a father..No, a daddy, can set aside his pride & admit to his son or daughter that he was wrong. What an honorable man that is. Again, not a sign of weakness, but rather a sign of GREAT strength that is truly commendable.

-M&M Momma