Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Parenting with Grace

A few days ago, Squirrel [age 13] spilled red koolaid on my white jeans. Let pause and say that I rarely buy koolaid. It isn't healthy at all.  But since we're on spring break, I conceded.
So, she knocks over the RED koolaid on my WHITE jeans and my heart drops.  My first impulse was to yell and be mad but it was honestly an accident.  We all have accidents. She already felt bad about it.  So instead, we googled "how to get koolaid out of white jeans" and she followed the steps.  My jeans are white, she learned a new skill, and all is well. The rest of the day, this intense kiddo was much calmer than usual and more affectionate.

The next day, I started thinking about it and came to some realizations. I was hot because I looovvvveee those jeans. But sometimes we gotta fight the impulses and look past how we feel in the moment because there are a LOT of lessons she learned:
1. Be more careful.
2. How to remove stains.
3. How to use Google for something useful.
4. How to be calm even when you're super pissed (from watching me).
5. One mistake isn't the end of the world or even a day ruiner.
6. Be accountable and fix it when you mess up.
7. Own up to your mistakes; don't hide them.
8. Treat others with grace.

All of that is more important than how mad I was if she had messed up my doggone pants [which are replaceable anyways]. Someone asked how I would have felt if the stains didn't come out. To be honest, I didn't think she was going to be successful.

I don't always do this mommy thing right but I felt good about that moment so I was moved to share it.

So IDK who needs to hear this but parenting is teaching and almost everything is a teachable moment.  Making kids feel worse than they do for making a mistake or physically hurting them isn't necessary.

Parent with intentionality and grace.