At some point, my children will make bad choices. Fail. Do really dumb things (and let's be honest, haven't we all?). What we in modern days have sometimes forgotten is that many of life's teachable moments come from our failures. In shielding kids from all that's bad and distasteful in life, we do them a great disservice - we are preventing them from learning how to handle suffering, consequences, how to rise from the ashes and recover from mistakes.
This past week, two of my kids made some huge mistakes. I was angry. I was disappointed. I wanted to lecture, admonish, and mete out punishment like a Supreme Court Judge. But then it dawned on me... maybe the best thing I can do is to love them at their "worst" and teach them how to learn from failure and move on. If they have to be perfect - if they live in fear of failure - then I will have missed my opportunity as a parent to teach my kids that some of the best life lessons come from our darkest hours.
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1 comment:
this is really well said.
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