I have told you this before, but while people were dreaming up their careers, I was dreaming about being a mom. I couldn’t wait to have babies and be a mother. I wanted to fall in love with my bashert (soulmate) and have babies. I wanted to stay home and raise them and be the best mom that I could be.
My concentration in graduate school was marriage and family. Family systems are where my head was and I was ready to learn all the things. What did it take not only to be a wonderful wife and mom but to also guide others to do the same? I was on a mission to find out through my classes, internships, books and work.
I just interviewed a wonderful expert for the Whinypaluza Parenting and Marriage podcast. There are well over 500 episodes of content for you. She said that we are so flooded with data that we have lost our mom instincts. We need to put the stimulation away, sit with ourselves, and become more attuned to what feels right.
I have great parenting instincts. I was born to be a mom. I also still make mistakes. It doesn’t matter how trained you are. You will still make mistakes. It doesn’t matter if you are a professional or how many books you read. It doesn’t matter how much therapy you may have had. We are human and we will continue to make mistakes.
It’s important to have compassion, grace and understanding for ourselves. It’s also important that we learn from our mistakes. I’m going to share some of my mistakes so that we can all learn from me.
Forget about the sock!
I am going to tell you the story of the missing sock. When Max was little, he would go to a sleepover at his friend’s house and come home without something. It was usually a missing sock. It was a charger. It was a sweatshirt. You name it, he probably left it at his friend’s house. I would get so aggravated. “Why can’t you just pack up all your stuff and remember it all. Can you please keep track of your stuff.” Every time I would say – remember to bring everything home. It got annoying. Fast forward to 10 years later and now Max is always worried about forgetting something. It hurts me every time I see him trying so hard to remember everything he needs. I know it’s my fault. I needed to be more chill about it. I was too uptight and I don’t like how I handled that as I look back. Our vision is 20/20 as we look back on things. If I could do it again, I wouldn’t have made a big deal about it. Max, I hope you know how sorry I am for making such a big deal about a sock. Mom mistake number 1!
Don’t hang the report card!
I am thankful to tell you that all three of my children have very good grades and amazing report cards. Max and Ella can take it a little too far. I printed Ella’s report cards filled with 100’s and 99’s, and I hung it on the fridge. Lillie and her friends were all looking at it and talking about it. Oops! Lillie couldn’t believe Ella’s grades in mostly AP classes. I explained to Lillie that her grades are awesome too and that I by no means expect her to study as much as Ella and get all 99’s. I told her to stay balanced. I then wondered if hanging the report card was not such a great idea.
Too many questions!
Do you ever listen to yourself? How many questions do we ask? Do you nag? Do you criticize your kids? Just pay attention to what you say to your children all day. We need to give them five positives for every one negative. I bark a lot of orders. I ask a lot of questions. I drive my kids crazy with questions. Every mom does. Let’s chill on the questions. Give them a couple at a time and don’t overdose them. I am guilty party number one with asking way too many questions. I secretly think they love how interested I am in their lives.
Overprotective
“Mom, we are going to walk to Starbucks after school and then we are going to walk home.” I agree with Lillie’s plan, and we move on with our dinner. Max looks at me and exclaims, “You never would have let me do that.” That is because I can be way too overprotective. My husband is guilty of this too. We need to loosen the reins. Let them have more independence. Let them fall and make mistakes. Let them figure it out. I am backing off. I’m learning. It is also much easier with child number three than it was with child number one. They are getting very different versions of me as a mom.
Swooping In
You all know that I want to swoop in as a mom and fix whatever problem that my children have. “Don’t call their mom.”
“Don’t email the school.”
“Don’t say anything mom.”
My kids want to tell me things, and they don’t want me to do anything. They want to figure it out themselves. As parents we need to ask them questions (there I am asking too many questions) to get them to think things through. We want them to learn critical thinking and problem-solving skills. If I swoop in and fix everything, they won’t learn a thing. Again, take a step back. Do you see a theme here?
Praising everything
I know my children’s strengths and weaknesses. I am not that mom that thinks my children do nothing wrong. I know what all three do wrong. I know what my husband does wrong. I know what I do wrong. I also think my children are amazing. I tell them all the time. They are flooded with praise from me. Seth says I praise them too much so that it loses its power. We want to be specific and authentic when we praise. We want to catch them doing good things all the time. I just may go over the top sometimes, but I think my kids are awesome.
Losing my cool
This one I have made huge great amazing strides in. This is the one where we all need to start with. We want to stay calm in chaos. We want to stay calm in anger. We have to practice this every day and make improvements so that our kids learn how to handle their anger effectively. We don’t want to blow. We want to pause and take a deep breath and think before we speak. I am always working on this to do better every day! I hope you will join me because this is so important.
Those are only a few of my parenting mistakes. I do a lot of things right and I pat myself on the back and give myself praise. I also see myself making mistakes. I don’t beat myself up about it. I take mental notes, I evaluate myself, and I try to learn more every day. Life is a field of learning. We never stop learning. We will never know everything. We will never be perfect. We can keep working on being our best selves.
I hope you found this helpful! I hope you can relate. I hope we can laugh at ourselves.
Feel free to share your parenting mistakes with us so that we can learn from you too!
Laughing, Learning, Loving,
Rebecca Greene, LCSW-R
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