Most parents we know (and that includes us!) tend to fuck up on a daily basis with our kids. And then beat ourselves up for it.
We yell at our kids when we had set the intention to be calm and gentle. We turn into authoritarian tyrants when we had decided we would work on our adultism. We suddenly find ourselves threatening and punishing our little darlings when we had promised ourselves to stick to peaceful parenting.
And it feels like CRAP! Shame invades us, and it’s a really solid awful feeling. As Brené Brown says in Atlas of the Heart: “Where perfectionism exists, shame is always lurking.”
Perfectionism
We measure ourselves to this “Perfect Parent” that we imagine we could be, that we think actually exists somewhere on this planet.
And we compare ourselves to other parents that look “Perfect”, because their kids seem to never do anything that could possibly ever make anyone go bananas. And we wonder what we’re doing wrong?!
But rest assured, ALL parents fuck up! And…
…there are only three ways of dealing with it:
- Refuse to acknowledge it and put the blame on the kid. (Please don´t go here!)
- Acknowledge it, but ignore it because the shame is so big we don’t know how to move on from there. (There ARE other ways! Read on!)
- Acknowledge it AND do the repair work necessary to heal our kid and our relationship.
What does the repair work look like?
The first thing would be: not trying to cover up the fuck-up. Admit what happened. Be authentic about it (I lost it!) and apologize to your child.
Sometimes you might need some time before you do that. And sometimes your kid needs time before they can hear it. So don’t feel bad if you didn’t apologize in the moment. It’s never too late (we’re serious about this! You can apologize years later – it still works!).
Second: remember that you are modeling what it means to be a human for your child. That’s why it’s important to be able to recognize our mistakes, be vulnerable and transparent about it, share our emotions with them – and also listen to them to understand how it affected them and how they feel about it.
This is what helps us solidify our relationship with our kids. This is what makes us two perfectly imperfect humans walking this earth together in partnership. Because our kids mess up too, but will hopefully not feel so much shame around it as we do, if we show them how to deal with mistakes in this way.
Third: practice radical self-acceptance! Accept yourself the way you are, with all of your imperfections. Make peace with the fact that you’ll always make mistakes and that the result isn’t the important thing here, but rather the process of growing as a human.
Not a realistic expectation
Perfectionism isn’t a realistic expectation to have – not on ourselves and definitely not on our kids. We are human and it means we will keep on messing up. That’s okay, as long as we do the necessary repair work.
But what about the feelings of shame? Brené Brown explains that “the antidote to shame is empathy”. She says that shame dissipates when we share our shame with someone that can respond with empathy.
In our experience, that empathy can come from our children when we share our shame openly and vulnerably with them. They understand. They too know what it feels like to fuck up and feel shame. They accept us when we’re vulnerable with them. And so we heal together.
Remember: as we see our kids develop as humans, they see us develop as parents – and that is simply a beautiful thing!