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I’m Sorry, I Haven’t a Clue: why fallibility is our parenting super-power
Parenting Through Stories • Feb 02, 2020
There are many mysteries in parenting: some destined to remain so and others to be solved along the way.
How will we get him to potty train?
Will she ever sleep through?
What happens to all the socks?
Exactly how much Paw Patrol is too much Paw Patrol?
And just why does Pando only wear pants?
Whether large or small, the questions that arise as we nurture littles into bigs can often be over-whelming. It’s no wonder that on occasion, our solutions are more miscalculations than marvels. And often, we’re a part of the problem.
Now. This blog is not about beating ourselves up…we’re all going to make mistakes. I do. You do. I do again. By the minute, sometimes.
As we’re so good at telling our kids, mistakes are fine as long as you try and learn from them. We seem to forget this, in adulthood. Whenever that begins.
I’ve seen emblazoned on many a supermarket T-shirt: ‘My Mum’s / Dad’s a super-hero’.
Standing there, milk-sodden and snack-covered, contemplating crying baby and whining toddler,
the heroic parenting figure it refers to - glossy mum? baby-wearing dad? - feels far from that aisle of woe.
‘My Mum’s / Dad’s a super-hero’.
Is there not a certain sneering, even boasting tone about the sentence. A taunt? Judgement, even?
‘Well, good for you,’ I’d hiss back, hiding the offensive blighter with a onesie - a famously far less bolshy item - and scurrying off, before the trousers joined in.
Heroic Fails
Amidst the shock and awesomeness of those first few months, then the years of sleep deprivation and only the total realignment of your identity, the idea that parents can be perfect decision-makers, infallible super-heroes, is, frankly, bonkers.
Plus, super-heroes wear their pants outside their leggings, which is daft and something I’ve only done once after basically no sleep and absolutely no-one mistook me for a super-hero, unless my super-power was to call forth pitying looks and terribly hidden sniggers…
I get that we’re fab jugglers, performing super-human physical feats (car-seat wrestling, anyone?) as well as listening, cooking, cleaning, wiping and frequently listen-cook-clean-wiping…
But we’re also HUMAN.
Thankfully, our humanity is the point.
We need to grab hold of it - in all its messy, fallible, bodge-job-on-occasion gloriousness - and show it to our kids. We need to model that being imperfect is normal…and also map out what to do when we realise we’ve fallen short of the ‘hero’ standards we (perhaps stupidly) set for ourselves.
A large part of the approach Sarah advocates is around reparation: making things better when it all goes wrong, feelings are hurt and relationships stretched or frayed. Making mistakes, of course, but acknowledging them and repairing the relationship effectively afterwards.
Paradoxically, it’s our natural, non-heroic normality that can be turned into our parenting super pow-er.
‘I’m Sorry’ - is that all that you can say?
Sorry is a powerful word - and it’s important. But whilst it might be a brief salve, the wound it seeks to repair lies much deeper.
If we see sorry as a sticking plaster covering maybe the more obvious emotional wounds (crying, for example), the real act of repairing a relationship is from the inside out…healing the hurt, confusion or frustration which lie beneath.
Effective reparation is not just a throw-away plaster, but indelible medicine for the heart and soul.
So what is this magic elixir and how do I get some?
Sarah’s Sock Monsters
Sarah recounts a recent example of ‘rupture and repair’ in her household.
We have a chronic odd sock problem, honestly we have a whole basket full of them. In my effort to get the children to help with the housework last night I tried, unsuccessfully, to make pairing the socks playful. (Thinking PACE here! See last week’s blog for more on this…)
The boys (10, 8 and 3) were all keen and I suggested we see who could make more pairs.
First mistake. Given the level of competitiveness between the oldest two, I should have done it as a joint task.
They were still on board despite this, and my eight year-old came upstairs with the little one whilst the eldest went to get some food.
Disaster struck when he returned to see that the others had started without him.
I could see the inevitable coming, so I intervened asking him not to over-react. This was my second mistake.
It led to a pretty monstrous meltdown: the basket was pulled from his brothers, socks - all of them - were strewn over the floor and, after screaming loudly about how unfair it was, how mean I was and how I prefer his brothers to him, he fled to his room in a rage where he began crying.
I realised that I had made a boo boo on a number of levels and needed to connect with him and apologise for my errors - despite feeling highly frustrated that a bit of fun had turned nasty and that his over-reaction seemed so out of proportion.
I reminded myself that it wasn't about the socks, but about his feelings of others being prioritised which made him feel he was not valued as much.
I went into this room and said that I was sorry we had started without him (he started to soften and stopped telling me to go away) and that I had not intended to make him feel left out.
I said that it must have felt unfair and that it seemed like I was letting the others succeed when he was at a disadvantage (he softened further!), I told him that I had not intended to make him feel bad and was sorry that I had and that I understood his reaction - although it would be helpful if we could have found another way to tell me how much it upset him.
I said that I had intended to ask the others to stop when he came up from food so it would be more fair, but that I was sorry I wasn't clear about that and he felt so left out.
I tried to match this all with acceptance and empathy as well as being present and having some spe-cial time with him afterwards.
This response (which I don't always manage) worked wonders and he joined in again, joking with his brothers. He even managed an almost sincere apology for pulling his brother’s hair (oh yes, that happened too!) and we had a lovely remainder of the evening.
He crept into my bed later that night, which I think was his way to reconnect with me after feeling I wasn’t really against him.
Notes to self:
• Some children are more sensitive.
• All children, to some degree, struggle with sibling rivalry and tonight it revealed his feelings - which we all have at one time or another - that others are better than him.
• I must try to look at the hidden rather than expressed feelings (it really wasn't about the socks) and make sure I acknowledge how big they are for the little in question and help them with them.
He gave me a gorgeous wave when he went off to school this morning - much nicer than the times he holds a grudge and snarls at me when I haven't effectively repaired.
I do still have odd socks all over my floor though!
Relax, you’ve got this…
Even if your plasters have Paw Patrol on them, your kids will appreciate the healing power of effective repairing actions much more.
Sarah employed some key strategies to make this happen (more details are in the ‘Parenting Hand-book’, which accompanies the lift-the-flap books):
Reflecting
- on what happened rather than moving on, chastising or ignoring the behaviours and the feelings
Empathising
- with the feelings the event threw up (even if they seemed out of proportion)
Labelling
- the feelings, and thus allowing her son to understand and manage them. They’re less scary when they are explained as normal and the child is helped to understand them.
Apologising
- for her part in adding fuel to the fire.
Accepting
- the big feelings and blow outs as natural. We can help our kids learn to control them and deal with them over time in less demonstrative ways.
X
- kisses, hugs and cuddles
Over time, the act of repairing ruptures in your relationship with your kids nurtures their deep-rooted emotional durability…when they do go wrong they know they are loved, unconditionally.
In essence, this approach can make them happier humans.
Adulting = check
Acknowledging mistakes and using them to help grow your children’s mental well-being - crikey, that sounds very mature. Is this, in fact, adulthood?
We perhaps don’t have a clue, sometimes. Or even very often. But we’re doing our best to figure it all out. And that is enough.
(But seriously, WHAT HAPPENS TO THE SOCKS?)
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Next week, we meet another key team-member, Claire - our marketing and PR whizz - and explore the next element of the PACE model: acceptance.
Happy hero-ing everyone. xBecks
Editor. Blogger.
@rebeccaritsonwrites
www.rebeccaritson.com
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