by Muffy Mendoza
Tags: black parenting
black parenting blogs
Keira Washington
kids and mistakes
learning from your kids
parent handbooks
parenting mistakes
Pittsburgh bloggers
teaching kids lessons
This Is the Village
Keira Washing, Blogger at ThisistheVillage.com
By: Keira Washington
As a mom I love my children. But as a human I make mistakes. There have been many of times when I made simple or big mistakes but realized that it was not the end of the road. As parents, our mistakes can sometimes be blown out of proportion by how we handle them and the negative atmosphere we allow to hover after they are made. But knowing that our mistakes can be stepping stones and learning adventures will allow us to be more conscience of the mistakes we make hence forth.
Whether it’s putting your kid on punishment for something that wasn’t that big of a deal or yelling out a curse word in a moment of frustration, making a mistake does not make you a bad mother. How you handle the mistake is what really matters. As a parent, you always have someone watching you. Your children learn by your example.
If you give written instructions to one child on how to throw a ball and physically show another child how to throw a ball, the accuracy of your results will be approximately 80/20, the higher score being the child who emulated the behavior.
Sheltering your children from mistakes and allowing them to think you live perfectly can sometimes do more harm than good. No, I don’t bring unnecessary drama to my doorstep but I don’t believe in sugar coating things with my children. I allow them to see my imperfections as well as my rebound. If my lights get cut off because I am behind on the bill, if asked, I will explain my negligence or inability to pay the bill. Understand, I am not explaining myself, because I feel like I have to, but rather I do it to exhibit to my children the cause and effect nature of life.
With every action, there is a reaction. Equally, with every downfall there is a come up. Failure is not the end, sometimes it’s the beginning of something better. Acknowledging that life is full of mistakes, teaching your children that you can start fresh anytime and learning how to avoid wrong paths in the future will help your kids realize that yes you only live once, but there are plenty of options for do-overs. Mentally resetting and restarting is the greater option. Make sure that a lesson is learned so that the mistake is not made again. But if the issue should rear its head again, while you may not be able to control the problem you can control your response. Restarting comes from a learning experience. Success is often achieved with a failure and restart along the way.
Brown Mama Kei blogs at ThisisTheVillage.com specializing in keeping Black families in-tact through co-parenting and marriage coaching.