For the past year, my parenting strategies have been especially challenged. This is one of the main reasons why I launched the Parenting Resolution Series… because I wanted to do better.
My youngest daughter is spirited. I spend my days listening to her talk non-stop, chasing her, dealing with meltdowns, and negotiating acceptable choices of activities to engage in. To make matters worse, she’s up at 5:30 in the morning and is moving non-stop until her 7:45 bedtime. It’s exhausting.
At times, I fret that she’s experienced too many negative interactions with me. I feel like I’ve spent so much time redirecting and reprimanding her that I worry she may have a negative sense of self-worth. So I’m often looking for ways to positively engage and encourage her.
A while ago, I took my girls to the grocery store. Little H sat in the cart, and my oldest daughter (Big G) decided she wanted to “shop” for me. As we entered an aisle, I would tell Big G what we needed from that aisle, and she would have to hunt it down and bring it to the cart. She loves this activity, especially when I give her the added challenge of finding a specific brand or the lowest priced tomato sauce.
While she was doing these challenges, I pushed the cart and casually talked with my youngest daughter. Suddenly, Little H piped up and said, “Mommy, this store has Big G’s banana bread!”
I told her I wasn’t sure if they carried it. She insisted she saw it in someone else’s cart. Before I knew it, she flagged down a store attendant and said, “Hey, do you have banana bread here?”
He smiled and said, “Yes! It’s over there in the bakery department.”
I called Big G over and together we looked for the banana bread.
Within a minute, we had found it.
“I knew it, Mommy,” Little H proudly said, “I knew I saw it!”
I commended her for spotting the banana bread and for asking the store attendant.
“Good for you Little H! What a big help you are!”
I went heavy on the compliments because this child needs to hear how awesome she is. She needs praise. She needs to know what a big help she is.
We finished our shopping and started to walk toward the tills.
My oldest daughter dragged her feet. Her shoulders slumped forward, and her head hung down.
“What’s up Big G?”
“Nothing,” she wistfully responded.
“Something’s wrong; you can tell me,” I prodded.
She looked up at me. Her eyes shimmering with tears.
“I helped you so much and all Little H did was find a box of banana bread snacks, and you made such a big deal over it. Don’t you care that I was helping too?”
I can say that in all my parenting moments, this was the first time I felt utterly remorseful over something I did. I’ve hurt my children’s feelings before because I doled out a consequence or had to reprimand them for something they did, but this was different.
I had unintentionally placed more value on one child than another.
I immediately dropped to my knees and hugged her.
I grievously apologized and asked for my daughter’s forgiveness.
Despite her generous and forgiving spirit, I could not let go of the mom guilt I felt.
I broke my daughter’s heart.
I hurt my daughter’s feelings.
I was disappointed in myself and disappointed in my parenting.
#momfail
In all my years of parenting, I never felt the burden of “mom fail” as much as I did at this moment. While I realize I’ve had my fair share of mess ups, I never imagined hurting my daughter to this degree.
Guilt hung around my head. My mind started to run wild. I wondered if there were other things I had done that had brought my daughter to this breaking point. Perhaps I’ve been unintentionally showing favouritism. I wondered if my efforts to help my youngest daughter out of her challenging behaviours resulted in me neglecting to nurture my oldest daughter’s need for praise.
I grieved this incident so much. I could not let go of the image of my daughter, standing before me, eyes brimming over with tears, her spirit crushed by her mom.
To make matters worse, that evening I went onto Facebook and saw pictures and status updates about “perfect” moms and their “perfect families” and the “perfect” things their children said and did that day. In fact, one status update included a photo of a note a child had written to his mom, saying, “You’re the best mom in the whole world.”
I’ll never get a note like that… especially after this episode in the grocery store.
Great, big, enormous #momfail.
I wanted to share. I wanted to tell others about this pain in my heart. I wanted to share about my ache to make things better. I craved advice from someone who could sympathize. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to tell others about this incident because I worried about being judged… harshly.
Check out these tips for what to do when you're disappointed in your #parenting Click To TweetWhat to do when you’re disappointed in your parenting.
Avoid social media.
When you’re feeling at your lowest, avoid social media. You don’t need to see everyone else’s happy moments when you’re feeling gloomy. Wait for this season of sadness to pass before logging onto social media.
Pray.
By handing my sadness and grief over to God, I can often recover a lot faster from disappointing moments such as these.
Talk to someone.
Arrange to meet up with someone you love and trust. Talk about your feelings and your struggles with parenting. If you don’t have someone in your life who’s a good listener, then perhaps you could see a counselor.
Journal.
Sometimes we need to release all these feelings and emotions. Often writing everything out in a journal provides the freedom and clarity we require.
Think positive.
My mind is my worst enemy. It often drifts into negative thinking patterns. A few minutes alone in my thoughts can make me feel like I’m the biggest failure in the world. To help myself think positive, I write lists of everything I love about my life and myself as a mom. It makes a huge difference to think positive!
Let go of the #momfail culture.
Whether it’s the unfolded load of laundry, the sink overflowing with dishes, the burnt dinner, or the forgotten appointment, the #momfail culture is tearing us apart. Even though the pictures and momfail hashtag are a joke, they stack up in our heads and weigh us down.
So tell me, what do you do when you’re disappointed in your parenting? Take a moment to tell me about it in the comments below, then share this post with the other mamas in your life!
Wishing you a lovely and inspired day!
What great suggestions and trust me I have been there more than I’d like to admit with both my girls. So, I can’t than you enough for sharing not only your story here, but your valuable advice, as well! Hugs and hope you are having a great week so far xoxo!
I’m learning how to let go of things… but oh, is it ever a process! I keep telling myself that I only care so much because I’m either:
#1 – crazy
#2 – a caring mom
I’m voting for #2.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Janine.
Sometimes I feel very much like you Jennifer. There are times when I feel like I’m negating everything Madison does that I feel that I need to make up for it before she also starts feeling negatively about herself. However my youngest son who is autistic, I know that he feels left out because I’m almost always criticizing what he does constantly and I can see that he’s trying but I do it anyway. I really need to be a better mom and stop showing favoritism to my kids. They’re all special and we just need to show them. When it comes to social media however, I take it with a grain of salt. No one’s life is perfect and if I believe everything people write that their kids say, I’d be in the dumps too when I compare my own 4yr old crazy sayings. You’re an amazing mom and I’m sure your kids know it and they’re not going to stop loving you. You are way harder on yourself than they are on you.
I learned that day that social media, while feeling down about something, was not the thing to do. I normally have a healthy “view” of things but when I’m down in the dumps… it’s an entirely different story.
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts on this Amanda!
I often feel this way with my daughter. She’s so high spirited that I’m always correcting behavior when I should be focusing on giving her more praise. We all have mom fail moments; none of us are perfect. But a good mom learns from those moments and it sounds like you did. ?
LOL – oh Tiffany… I’m always learning. I partially think I’m this reflective because perhaps I am a good mom. As long as I’m better tomorrow than I am today (and the occasional screw up is fine too – I just need to stop bullying myself over making errors)!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.
Aww.. I’ve so been there. And your tips are amazing, and show such thought, and just how much you care.
Scarlet and Des are pretty well-matched in temperament, but they’re three years apart. Sometimes I over-praise Des just because.. he’s my baby and it’s more impressive when a three-year-old helps, than a six-year-old. That said, I’ve definitely disappointed Scarlet (and myself) in such situations, because she was being so awesome, but it was just.. expected. That she’d be awesome. And I didn’t over-praise. I need to pay more attention.
It’s such a precarious balance. I know I analyze a lot (perhaps too much) but I just think as long as I do better tomorrow than I did today… then all is well.
Thanks so much for sharing your experience with Scarlett and Des – my children are total opposites.
Yes . . . get rid of #momfail culture. We are all learning as we go. Even if we’re on kid #2,5 or 8 we’ve not parented that particular child or in that particular set of circumstances. One or even 100 failures, missteps, poor decisions in our parenting journey does not equate failure. Every mistake is an opportunity to learn. Every sin can be forgiven. Not keeping a perfect house or having every answer or staying on top of the list all the time isn’t failure. It’s the reality of being an imperfect person living among other imperfect people in an imperfect world. Let’s keep things real for sure, be honest about what we’re capable of and not attempt to portray an impeccable image that isn’t true. But I agree, joking about “failures” tends to dupe us into believing that we should have been good enough to avoid that. While the incident with your daughter brought you both sadness, I’d call it a win because you recognized an area of parenting you could strengthen. And you have so much time ahead of you to be able to do that. Way to go encouraging other moms on how to address similar events in their lives.
Oh Abi, you always share the most beautiful, encouraging words. I can only hope and pray that my words encourage other moms as well. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on the #momfail culture.
Thanks for that! We need to talk more about supporting each other as parents!
Yes! Parenting can be so challenging. We really need to encourage one another in our journeys.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the #momfail culture.
Hi Jennifer! I literally laughed out loud as I started reading your post because I can totally relate…and I love your choice of words…I have a “high spirited” daughter also and I’m facing the same challenges, which have recently intensified as she’s now going through puberty (yikes!) so it’s become a very delicate balance between redirecting, reprimanding, and giving praise. My hat is off to you for having two girls, I can’t even imagine what that’s like. What I’ve found to be most helpful is simply getting to know my daughter and spending one-on-one time with her. I ask her specific questions about school, classmates, boys, and her feelings and since she’s already talkative, she opens up and I’m able to guide the conversation from there. When she says something that may be uncomfortable or awkward for me, I don’t judge her or make her feel bad for feeling the way that she does, I just continue listening and asking questions and that way she’ll keep opening up to me. I so wish I had that type of relationship with my own mom! Don’t get me wrong here, I believe in setting clear boundaries and discipline, but developing a “friendship” with your child in the sense that you can share feelings, opinions, and interests is absolutely necessary so that you know how to best help them. It will also give them a chance to see what kind of person you are – that you have made mistakes and what lessons you’ve learned and how your experiences have shaped you. Oh and to your point about social media…I think all those photos and comments about “perfect families” and perfect moms” are total crap. People love to pretend like they have it all figured out and everything is “perfect” in their life, but to me, the more they boast about it, the more it isn’t true. That’s my two cents there…thanks so much for sharing an insightful post!
I just LOVED your comment Monique. I like how you’re focusing on relationship — that’s where it needs to start. It takes lots of work, doesn’t it?!
Yes, we need to be “real” about motherhood. Parenting isn’t an easy gig! It’s tough, tough, tough.
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts on this– your insights just made my day.
Awww, I think that was a #momproud moment…you’re raising girls who can come and talk to you when their feelings are hurt!
Aww, thanks so much Mandi. I never really thought of that side of things too. What a blessing your comment was to me!
Thanks for sharing your experience. I definitely have had my share of moments where I’ve realized I really messed up as a mom, and I’ve had to learn to accept my imperfections and trust that as long as I am truly striving to be a good mom, I can fix the mistakes and my boys will know their momma loves them dearly. Thanks for the advice.
I think it’s important for us to extend grace to ourselves… and like you said – you can fix the mistakes and your children will still know that they are loved.
Beautiful truths there Megan!
What a great story and it’s those little moments like that that really pull at our mama heartstrings and riddle us with guilt, aren’t they?! I think you handled the situation perfectly though and our kids are so forgiving. I try to avoid social media too when I’m feeling a lot of mom guilt because although I know social media is just a highlight reel it does make me feel even worse sometimes. and journalling always helps and usually spurs a blog post for me so it’s a win-win! xo
Yes, it’s moments like these that kind of bounce around in my brain. I eventually have to spew them out by writing. I have a parenting journal too – but like you said, often it lands in a blog post because hey, other mamas can often identify with these sorts of situations.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this Tawnya.
Oh my goodness, I have so been there! It’s a rough place to bee and the guilt can be all consuming. Thank you for the helpful tips when we find ourselves up to our necks in #momfail/#momguilt!
I’m so glad you enjoyed this Erin. I think many of us mamas get stuck in the rut of #momfail / #momguilt. I hope we can break the cycle!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.
Oh Jennifer, do I get it. I have been there too many times to count.
I love your advice, and I truly agree with all you shared. This video series is a wonderful way to encourage moms in those all too raw moments of failure. We ALL have them. Thank GOD our kids are so gracious!
It’s moments like these that really challenge me as a mom but there’s often growth that comes with it too.
I’m so thankful for the grace my children extend to me. No wonder God said we need to become more like children ;)
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this Chris (and for the encouragement).