Perfection

Parenting is hard. We make mistakes... all the time, and that's OK.

I feel that it is important to know that, so here's a mantra....

'It's ok NOT to be perfect'

Very ok in fact.

We learn by our mistakes, and we should allow our children to make mistakes so they can learn from them too.. and to be open an honest about the mistakes we make ourselves. Let them see us as the imperfect humans that we are, then they do not grow up thinking perfection is achievable.

How many times have you seen your child, or someone else for that matter, doing something wrong and correcting them straight away and sometimes even before they make the mistake. Consider letting them fail. See how they handle it and learn from it. It almost goes without saying that there are exceptions! You might want to stop them from drinking bleach or walking out into the road without looking!

Picture this... your child is working on a jigsaw and they don't seem to know where a piece goes. They've tried it in the right place but they had the piece upside-down. You want to help them but how about instead of taking the jigsaw piece out of their hands and putting it in its correct place, try waiting to see if they can do it themselves, no matter how long it may take.

We need patience, as parents, lots of it! Not just for our children but for ourselves too and our partners.

We can't always get it right the first time. We might need to read a bit or take a break.

It's ok if we shout at our kids. I mean its not ok to shout at our kids but its ok if we do. Take a breather and apologise but remember that your only human and we all get frustrated sometimes, you'll do better next time, or the time after that!