As moms, we all make mistakes. Sometimes, these mistakes are minor. Sometimes, they’re much more detrimental. But there is one mistake that stands above the rest: the #1 parenting mistake we should all try to avoid.
And it might not be what you’d expect…
I’m a stay-at-home mother to two boys. One of them is a pleaser and really does want to make me happy. Take, for example, his behavior yesterday. When I picked him up from school and asked how his day went, he told me something that wasn’t true.
We’ve been working with him on honesty, so I was frustrated when I realized he hadn’t told me the truth. When he saw my frustration, he took out his little memo pad and wrote the words, “I love you, Mom. You are the best” on it. He handed it to me and said he wanted to make it up to me.
That’s one of my boys.
The other boy isn’t quite so much a pleaser. He doesn’t really care if he upsets his mom. (Actually, he might…but he sure doesn’t let it show.) When he does something he knows he’s not supposed to do, he often laughs about it.
If I tell him no, I can almost guarantee you he’ll do it. He’s the picture of a strong-willed child: super-independent, likes to do things his way, and doesn’t like to be told what to do (or what not to do).
There’s one thing you should know about me: I’m also strong-willed. And competitive. I don’t like to lose.
As you can imagine, we have battles of the wills from time to time.
A few days ago (interestingly enough, shortly after the lovely Stephanie Shott talked with us MOMS about sharing our parenting mistakes), I lost my temper with my beloved child.
It wasn’t even over a huge thing. I should have let it go. (The saying, “Choose your battles” is SO wise when dealing with strong-willed children.) But for some reason, on that day, I was determined to win the battle.
It was only after I raised my voice at my son and then watched him pull back from me that I remembered another wise saying, “You don’t have to win every battle, but you want to win the war.”
The biggest parenting mistake we need to avoid is to lose their hearts.
We can lose battles. We can make mistakes in the way we handle things. We’re never going to be perfect. BUT we can’t lose their hearts.
That’s the war we don’t want to lose.
There is a battle for our child’s heart, and we don’t want to lose that battle.
Sometimes, though, I’m afraid we forget just how much Satan wants our kids. He wants us to push them away. He wants us to focus so much on good behavior that we forget about relationship. He wants us to put our phones, our hobbies, and our work before our children. He wants us to be so prideful we refuse to apologize when we make mistakes. He wants us to focus so much on what we’ve done wrong in the past that we fail to move forward in the future.
Satan wants us to lose our kids, but we don’t have to let him win.
This week, no matter what has happened in the past, choose love.
This week, choose grace. Chose repentance. Choose to be all there.
Forget about the mistakes you’ve made, and do better today.
This week, remember to fight for their hearts. Because that, my friends, is a battle worth fighting.
Lindsey Bell is the author of Unbeaten and of Searching for Sanity. She’s also a stay-at-home mother of two, minister’s wife, avid reader, and chocolate lover. You can find Lindsey online at her website: www.lindseymbell.com.
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