Acceptance: I 'm a Lousy Parent Sometimes

It's one of the great shocks of parenting to find ourselves yelling at or hurting our beloved children, when we never ever intended to do so. There are things they do that drive us nuts when they are little like whine, make messes, and fight with their siblings. When they are teens, they might talk back, dress inappropriately, get bad grades, disregard limits you have set, take risks, value their peers opinions over yours, push for independence, be too dependent (should I go on?). We each have our thresholds of what we can tolerate. If in your parenting journey, you find yourself reacting rather than responding, take time to explore your reactions and how they might relate to your past. Don’t judge yourself, accept that as a human being you have fears and things you need to work on.

The way we parent is greatly influenced by the experiences we had as children and teenagers with our own parents. More than by practicing specific strategies and techniques, we are better parents when we are aware of the ways in which our past impacts our present choices and behavior. Looking to your past doesn't mean blaming your parents or someone else for your present struggles; nor does it mean that we should feel guilty about our shortcomings. Blame and guilt have no place in the parent-child relationship. The world is not perfect, no person is perfect. We have all been parented imperfectly and we all parent imperfectly. By letting go of feelings of blame and guilt, we can accept ourselves and our children as we truly are. We can create honest, authentic relationships which are essential to the type of connection we all desire to have with our children and teens. You don’t need to be perfect to be emotionally connected to your teenager, you just need to be real.