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Why our kids can benefit even when we get it wrong


There is no such thing as a perfect parent, we all get it wrong over and over again. And while we are often left feeling shame and guilt when we lose our tempers or react in ways we are not proud of …. the silver lining may be the lessons our children can learn when we are normal human beings who get it wrong some of the time.

Imagine this scenario, it is Monday morning and your youngest child has just told you that they have a project due in this afternoon, you can’t find your work computer and nobody can find the dog in the garden.  This is a pretty typical scenario in many houses on a busy Monday morning.  Your resource cup, which was feeling quite full after a few days off work, is beginning to feel very empty and when your oldest child starts complaining about having to walk to school you completely flip your lid.  You temporarily get highjacked by your own big feelings. Once our big feelings (anger, frustration, disappointment…) are in the driving seat, we no longer have access to that rationale thinking part of our brain, the part psychologists call the pre frontal cortex.  This is the part of our brain that helps us to make good decisions and think about the potential consequences of our actions.  When this part of our brain is offline our emotions are running the show.  We start shouting at our oldest child “you have no idea how lucky you are to be able to walk safely to school, why do you never stop complaining,” we slam down the dishes we are holding and stomp out of the room.  Once the adrenaline stops pumping around our bodies (long exhales really help with this) and we manage to get the lid back on… what happens – we start to feel rubbish.  This is not the way we want to parent; we don’t want to speak to our children in a loud disrespectful voice.  But we do because we are human and nobody can get it right all the time. 

No matter how hard we try, if we are living breathing human beings, these ruptures are inevitable… but inevitable does not necessarily mean unhelpful… if we are able to repair.   

This is a concept introduced by Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson and might look something like...

“I am sorry I spoke to you like that, that is not the way I want to be a parent, I’m sorry”

For many of us this feels incredibly difficult, it makes us feel vulnerable and for some of us we worry about appearing weak in front of our children but this is so valuable for several reasons….

·       It models taking responsibility for our actions – we are always telling our children that they are responsible for their own behaviour regardless of what other people are doing…” I don’t care what your sister was doing you are responsible for your own behaviour” … sound familiar.  It is for me.   Our children listen to what we say but they generally tend to do what we do. When you repair you will be super tempted to insert a but …. “but if you hadn’t complained I would not have gotten angry” … our big feelings are not our child’s responsibility they are our responsibility

·       You are teaching them how to repair a rupture – in all our meaningful relationship’s ruptures are inevitable, knowing that ruptures can be repaired and knowing how to repair the rupture is an invaluable life skill

·       Rupture followed by repair will ultimately strengthen the connection between us and them – when our kids repeatedly experience repair after a rupture, they internalise the belief that our relationship with them matters more than whatever has just happened between us

·       It gives them permission to make their own mistakes…. To be human and respond in ways they wish they did not

In the end it all comes back to the relationships we have with our children – once our children reach adolescence our relationship changes from manager to coach, we can no longer manage them in the same way but we can influence them.  However, to have influence we must have connection.  When we flip our lids, this connection is temporarily broken.  And while we will always wish we managed it in a different way, by repairing, these very difficult moments can also become moments of growth and fundamentally connection. 

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