Good Parenting

Have you heard of Dr. Becky? She’s been all over my social media lately and my understanding is that she is a parenting coach.  This nugget of wisdom caught my attention this Wednesday:

It was shared on one of my Facebook groups and I thought it might provide us all with some encouragement. Kids are learning how to behave like responsible young humans.  This process takes time.  Just because your child misbehaves doesn’t mean that you are a bad parent.

A Story

Each year, Michael was assigned to one of the typical classrooms for his homeroom.  Even though he spent almost all of his instructional time in the special education classroom, this gave him a home base for school activities and a group of typical buddies to bond with over the course of the year. One afternoon, I got a phone call from Michael’s classroom teacher.  She explained that two of the boys in the classroom had been doing imitations of Mikey’s stereotopy.  She did not share their names, but told me that she had addressed it with them and that she didn’t think Mikey had seen what happened (he was walking out of the room at the time and his one-on-one aide was behind him).

Almost as soon as we got off the phone, my phone rang again.  It was the father of one of the boys involved.  He was profusely apologetic. He wanted me to know that he and his wife were not raising their kids to be unkind and they would be following up at home.  I reassured him (honestly) that I was sure they would never encourage that kind of behavior.

Sometimes kids need to make a mistake in order to learn the lesson.  Those kids weren’t mean.  They were in second grade and they made a mistake.  Lots of adults make mistakes too.  I’d just say that in general, we need to be forgiving of each other. 

Key Takeaways

I appreciated his phone call and thought more highly of their family because he reached out.  I truly forgave the children for their small mistake and I never thought the parents were responsible. I hope we will give ourselves the same grace when our own children misbehave. They are learning.  More good parenting will help keep them on the right track.

And, kids (ours and everyone else’s) will make more mistakes in the future. Hang in there, my friends.