How to Deal with Parenting Disappointment

When I was asked to write an article for the Parenting Section, I just laughed. God is such a “God of humor”. Why, because in our home, we haven’t always been the perfect parents. In fact, I will be honest with you; we have flat failed from time to time leaving us with tremendous feelings of what I call “Parenting Disappointment”.

We’ve all read articles of some unbelievable woman who was able to fry up the bacon with one hand and teach 20 children at different grade levels with the other hand. She looked like June Cleaver from “Leave it to Beaver” cleaning house while donning her pearls and was always able to have just the perfect kind and wise word for each child. My prayer is that you are this kind of parent, but for those of you who fail from time to time in parenting, this article is for you.

It was many years ago, when our girls were quite young, I had the feeling that I must be the perfect parent. Al and I had met and married in our late twenties, and after a miscarriage and the passage of six years, gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Then three years later, we were graced with another little beautiful baby girl. It was especially fun for me because I could dress them up and do hair…it was a mother’s dream. We enjoyed being together and my husband was very proud of our little girls.

A long time friend asked me one day for some parenting advice. She patted us on the back for being such good parents with such good children. I felt proud and extremely puffed up. You could have stuck me with a pin and lived off the air emitting from my head for several days. As time went on and the girls began moving into their pre-teen phase, we were constantly surprised by the different issues we faced, and that sense of failure began to find it’s way into our thinking.

Then, at the age of 46, we birthed our little son who came blasting into our lives of pre-teen blues and middle child realizations. God could have made it easy for us by making our children out of the same cast, but each child required a different style of parenting and we were slow to change gears. We found that all the classes, books and the “be aware” programs were not enough to help us be successful parents.

So what do you do when you feel like a parenting failure? Here are some basic principles I’ve found helpful.

1) Forgive yourself. Forgiving is just what it says…for (pro) giving. Give the gift of forgiveness…to yourself. Admit you messed up, ask God’s forgiveness, accept God’s forgiveness and then move forward. (If you are a visual person and have a problem with self forgiveness, then do this: Write “revelations” you have on forgiveness on strips of paper…sayings…scriptures, etc. Then wrap up a box in pretty shiny paper…paste the scriptures all over the box and finally…tie it up with a big beautiful bow. Keep it around and when you are feeling this way, pick up the box and say “Thank you God for this gift of forgiveness. I will forgive myself and move on.” Hokey I know, but if it works…then do it.)

2) Offer love and forgiveness to your children…and (sometimes this is hard) love and forgiveness to your children’s friends who have helped create the problem. (This does not mean you cannot remove that influence from your child’s life, but it does mean that through forgiveness he or she can be put in a position of healing)

3) Make adjustments in your parenting based on knowledge, not guilt or fear. In other words, don’t reward a child throwing a tantrum with ice-cream and candy because your reaction to the tantrum was wrong. Instead, apologize for a wrong response (no matter what the age of the child), settle down and then respond correctly to the issue.

4) Commit each day to God. The Spirit of the Lord…He is your best guide. He will show you and prepare you for the bumps in the road of parenting. Jesus said this in John 14:26,” But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”

Cheryl is a wife and mother of three children: a happily married 20 year old, a dramatically beautiful 17 year old, and an all boy 7 year old. She writes at http://onestepupfromstupid.blogspot.com.