Enjoy your children, mistakes and all.
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by user ActiveSports
There is something in our nature that makes us strive for perfection, some more than others. Our children are our creations, and we want them to be perfect. But remember, there was only one perfect child and he had perfect parents.
We also want to protect them. We want them to not suffer the hurts and pains we felt growing up - the strikeouts, the errors, the dropped passes, the missed steps in the dance recital, the transposing of the i and e in the spelling bee.
Plus, too often, we think that the mistakes they make are somewhat a reflection on our inability to parent. So we only see the good, or if something is so egregious, we look automatically to find an excuse for what happen (a bad hop, a bad call, the floor was slippery, the teacher is too tough, etc.). In that way, we believe it's not our parenting skills that are questioned but just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Recognizing that we 1) don't have perfect children, 2) their mistakes don't reflect negatively on our ability to parent, and 3) a mistake is an opportunity to grow and learn will heighten our ability to look at our child's accomplishments in unbiased eyes.
I just recently spent two weeks at a famous children's hospital with a two-week old granddaughter on a respirator for most of that time. Thankfully, I was able to spend her first Easter with her last month as a healthy, striving 3 1/2 month old child. But next to us in the waiting room, for two weeks before and at least two weeks after, were the parents of a 15 year-old girl basketball player. On a Thursday, she started coughing. On Friday, she ran fever and Mom called the doctor. On Monday, she was in a coma with staph pneumonia. About six weeks later, without ever regaining consciousness, they were planning her funeral. Don't you know they would love to see her miss one more free throw or get called for walking?
Parents, enjoy your children, mistakes and all.
