Parenting After You Screwed Up

There he was crawling across the floor. He found the object that would give him the lift to stand upright and then directed his crawl toward it. Slowly, he lifted one hand upon the seat of the chair and got up to his knees. The chair was not a large chair and is the one I am sitting in right now. It is just a simple black computer chair, but the same as nearly everyone’s computer chair, it swivels and rolls. It did not take all of my few brain cells to realize that its not the safest chair for my son to be climbing. Yet, he managed to find it. He took the other hand that had been resting on the ground and put it atop the black seat. He pulled himself to his feet and suddenly did a couple of flips to the floor. Where was I? I was on the other side of the room. I was watching an apple/PC commercial.

I admit it. I screwed up. I knew it as soon as I heard his heartbreaking scream fill the room. He was saying, “Daddy, where were you to catch me?”. I ran, picked him up, held him in my arms and whispered, “Its ok” over and over again in his little ear. There was nothing left for me to do, but I still had to do something.

Life is filled with honest mistakes on our part. We screw up all the time. I at least do. Sadly, when it comes to parenting, this wasn’t the only nor the worst mistake I had done. Kids are messy. Life is messy, but continues through and after the mess. We need to remember that our actions after we screw up are more important than our reaction to our mistake. My son had every right to be upset and not feel safe with me, but he moved on. Children will always forgive us. We don’t need to continuously dwell on our mistakes and become terrified of making more. Own up to it, change course and try again. What our children will not forgive us for is an unwillingness to take another risk with him or her. If we lose focus and distance ourselves from those little hands that depend on us to dwell on our mistakes. Then our children will resent us.