Denver author and educational consultant Craig A. Knippenberg is renowned for his work with children, adolescents and parents, Craig has a lifelong commitment to improving the lives of children and families by developing effective strategies to help “imperfect” parents build resilient kids so that they may better understand how children’s brains work and foster a deeper connection and independence without guilt or shame.
Craig has released two parenting titles: Wired and Connected: Brain-Based Solutions to Ensure Your Child’s Social and Emotional Success and Shame-Free Parenting: Building Resiliency in Times of Hardship, Guns, and Social Media.
Letting Go of Parental Shame
If you do lose it, apologize and seek forgiveness. Apologizing means you own your emotional response, and you feel bad about it. You can own your feelings while also holding your child accountable for their behavior. The important part now is to forgive, forget and let it go.
Forget about you losing it, some other parenting mistake you feel you have made, or something you wish you had done differently. You have to give yourself permission to let go of your guilt and shame. It is human nature to link cause and effect with future outcomes, as if one bad parenting moment will have disastrous consequences for your child. Parenting and child development is not about one specific moment but is more like a stained-glass window filled with thousands of moments that make up the parenting process. If you are a good enough parent, that picture is going to be fine. Give yourself permission to let go of guilt and shame.
I often ask parents what they think was a big moment in their child’s development. I then ask the children the same question. Rarely have I ever seen the answers match up. The children bring up some obscure answer that parents do not even remember. In response to the parents’ moments, children often reply that they were no big deal at all. Do not forget that we are all imperfect.
In addition to forgiving yourself, extend grace and understanding to other parents. Misguidedly, there is a recent trend of parent shaming in our culture. Once you are a parent and have gone through enough hard times, you will understand how hard parenting can be and how unpredictable children can be. Parents who are judging other parents and children are living in a state of denial. They believe that neither they nor their child would ever do the things they are judging others for doing. That is, until they experience a moment that is below good enough or get a call from the teacher about something their child did. Now they have to eat crow and accept that every family has imperfections. While we have laws for parents who are below adequate, no good enough parent needs to be shamed by other parents.
A great way to support your parental self during all the years when you are parenting is with a parental gratitude box or drawer. Most of us had memory books of our infant’s first year, which we tried to diligently fill out (often bagging it on the second or third baby). An easier thing to do is simply have a box or a drawer for your kids. When you observe them doing or saying something spectacular, write it down on a sticky note and toss it in. This could include comments from others on a report card or conversations you’ve had about your child when the other person gave you a positive word.
Recently, I randomly called a mother and left her a voicemail about how impressed I was with her fifth-grade son and his role model behavior during my annual puberty talk for the boys. On the last day of school, she came up to me and shared how touched she was by my gesture. She said, “I’m so glad I didn’t answer the call and that I have it recorded!”
While she can’t put that in the box, perhaps she’ll save the recording for a while.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. While clicking these links won’t cost you extra money, they help us keep this site up and running. See our disclosure policy.
Author: Mile High Mamas
