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Scott Dunlop
Good morning everyone,
Are you a failure? Me too. Not every day or all the time, just regularly enough to keep me very, very humble. What better to keep us human beings humble than having kids?
There are degrees of failure and degrees of humility. The worst moments are those awful times when some shortcoming of yours has resulted in your child losing out or getting sick. Here are one or two of my failure moments:
Running out of money on the day the tooth fairy is supposed to come, there’s a cake sale at school and the grocery cupboard almost entirely stripped. We’ve had to endure some horrific “cuisine”, although my kids have been oddly accepting. They see me stressing about trying to put a can of something with some spice and rice together and that’s when they understand the efforts that go into making a meal. The demands for pizza and lasagne melt away.
Forgetting the request to photocopy a project element. It’s the opposite of “why did you not tell me about this BEFORE Sunday evening?” This time, it’s my fault, and the project will have to get handed in with a hand-drawn picture instead.
Missing the signs that a joke has gone too far. Hey, we all love a good laugh, but occasionally we’ll be laughing at something one of the small people has said for just too long, and the lip will quiver and tears will flow. Nice one, Dad.
Losing my temper. Those moments when you’re stressed about something that has nothing to do with your kids and you forget to breeeeathe/count to ten. I feel dreadful when I lose my temper with my kids because I’m the one in the bad mood.
In fact, any time I’m selfish, I realise too late that it’s partly my role to be available to my children, even if I am tired or distracted.
There are worse failures, of course, but at least if I am aware of them, I can make more of an effort to work on them. It’s also good to apologise occasionally to your kids.
Children can be very forgiving.
Have you ever dropped the ball when parenting? What happened? Send your stories to chatback@parent24.com and you could feature on Parent24.com.
Are you a failure? Me too. Not every day or all the time, just regularly enough to keep me very, very humble. What better to keep us human beings humble than having kids?
There are degrees of failure and degrees of humility. The worst moments are those awful times when some shortcoming of yours has resulted in your child losing out or getting sick. Here are one or two of my failure moments:
Running out of money on the day the tooth fairy is supposed to come, there’s a cake sale at school and the grocery cupboard almost entirely stripped. We’ve had to endure some horrific “cuisine”, although my kids have been oddly accepting. They see me stressing about trying to put a can of something with some spice and rice together and that’s when they understand the efforts that go into making a meal. The demands for pizza and lasagne melt away.
Forgetting the request to photocopy a project element. It’s the opposite of “why did you not tell me about this BEFORE Sunday evening?” This time, it’s my fault, and the project will have to get handed in with a hand-drawn picture instead.
Missing the signs that a joke has gone too far. Hey, we all love a good laugh, but occasionally we’ll be laughing at something one of the small people has said for just too long, and the lip will quiver and tears will flow. Nice one, Dad.
Losing my temper. Those moments when you’re stressed about something that has nothing to do with your kids and you forget to breeeeathe/count to ten. I feel dreadful when I lose my temper with my kids because I’m the one in the bad mood.
In fact, any time I’m selfish, I realise too late that it’s partly my role to be available to my children, even if I am tired or distracted.
There are worse failures, of course, but at least if I am aware of them, I can make more of an effort to work on them. It’s also good to apologise occasionally to your kids.
Children can be very forgiving.
Have you ever dropped the ball when parenting? What happened? Send your stories to chatback@parent24.com and you could feature on Parent24.com.
