Photo by Jon Flobrant on Unsplash
The journey of parenting is like no other endeavor adults undergo. It’s filled with joys and challenges, ups and downs, and parenting mistakes parents must learn to manage.
Is it okay for parents to make mistakes?
While it’s often defined as a consequential role people undertake, parenting isn’t for everybody. This statement might convey multiple sentiments, one being that it is a personal choice people decide on. The statement can also reflect the immense responsibility that comes with it.
Parenting isn’t for everybody, not only because of the responsibility it brings but also because of the extreme ups and downs that not everyone is capable of handling and coping with.
Looking after children can be exhausting and overwhelming, as much as it can create a sense of unparalleled happiness. After all, this is another life one is made liable with – another living and breathing personality that doesn’t come with a manual. Parenting presents real risks not only for children who are improperly cared for. But it can also influence parents’ mental health throughout.
The Mental Burden In Positive Parenting
One of the possibly crucial impacts of parenting revolves around parents’ emotional well-being and mental health. Given they’re rearing another person, there’s an unspoken liability in ensuring children are raised properly. Parents carry a heavy burden to practice positive parenting to mold children into well-rounded individuals correctly. They set unrealistic expectations for themselves to know and relay an almost perfect parenting style to support child development.
However, it’s critical to recognize that they are humans too.
While most may believe that people, especially women, are born with a maternal instinct naturally woven into their DNA, parenthood is always challenging to finesse. Parenting mistakes can exist, and this may have a significant impact on children. But as long as they’re perceived as learning opportunities, committing errors is never a grave sin.
Before parents experience the bliss and fulfillment it brings, parenthood thrusts people into a rollercoaster of emotions and mishaps to cope with. It may not be a career, but it’s one loaded with responsibility and a heavy routine to follow.
Nobody is born a parent. It’s something that people learn and grow with the longer they’re given the task to undertake. Hence, parents must learn to change how they view parenting mistakes. They shouldn’t be taken as signs of failure. Instead, they’re stepping stones for learning and improving.
Parenting Mistakes Lead To Positive Parenting
When it comes to parenting mistakes, these can mean more than simply packing the wrong lunch or giving the wrong answers for the child’s homework. Instead, parenting mistakes can entail emotional reactivity to tantrums or the inability to correct behavioral concerns. These are instances when parents fail to uphold their roles as guides for their children. And while these can be detrimental to their development stages, they are not the endpoints of parenting.
No parent is perfect.
Embracing imperfection in parenting can help shift parents’ perspectives that mistakes are set in stone. Perfection is unattainable, and while parenting mistakes can be frustrating, they provide valuable lessons for growth for parents and children.
Rupture and repair.
Parenting mistakes lead to the best behavioral discoveries. For instance, when parents lose their tempers, instead of calming down, children become louder, and parents realize how faulty their reaction is. Hence, when the situation reoccurs, they know how to react better. This propels their relationship to more manageable grounds, which will help improve their connection.
Shifting The Perspective
Aside from accepting that no perfect parent exists, it’s also essential for parents to shift their mindsets. When they commit parenting mistakes, they shouldn’t focus their energy on mourning or self-loathing. Instead, this should encourage them to do better. Accountability doesn’t only stop at mentally recognizing their faults. It should also include implementing the proper behavior to combat these mistakes.
This can be difficult to practice, especially since guilt almost always precedes any action. This drags them down, stopping them from changing their behavior. When parents perceive parenting mistakes as unchangeable, they end up driving themselves into a hole they can’t pull themselves out of. When mistakes are inevitable, what happens after is where value is found.
Parents may either choose to become better or lament their mistakes.
Whatever they choose to act on will influence their relationship with their children. It’s not the parenting mistakes that matter the most; it’s the mindset they adopt when committing them.
This is the beauty of parenthood. It is a perpetual cycle of messing up and correcting the error. Parents aren’t crucified by their mistakes. Children can still learn from the initial parenting mistakes. These aren’t the be-all and end-all of parenthood. Instead, everything can be remedied when parents learn and correct their behaviors.