A List of Positive Parenting Moments
and how everything isn't ruined
The disconcerting thing about reading any parenting curriculum is that you might find that you’ve blown it. This isn’t so bad if your kids are under the age of five, but if older, it’s rather disheartening. There’s no starting this project over. Whatever we’ve built or torn down must be built upon further or torn down some more. Yikes!
I was feeling discouraged the other day while reading a chapter in Discipline That Connects With Your Child’s Heart by Jim and Lynne Jackson. I was feeling discouraged because I have so much work to do, so many habits to change, so much damage control to handle. Part of me wants to say, “Oh well, there’s no sense in changing now. I’ve ruined everything.”
Once, my eldest was unloading the dishwasher. He was carrying a stack of plates across the kitchen when the top plate began to slide off. “Uh-oh,” he said as it hit the floor and broke into pieces. Then, instead of righting the stack and saving the rest of the plates, he tipped the stack over even more, dropping all of the plates onto the floor and smashing a number of them. We’ve since been trying to instill in him an understanding that if one thing goes wrong, that doesn’t mean everything must go wrong.
I’m learning to believe the same myself. Just because I’ve been parenting out of fear and anger and shame for years doesn’t mean the whole project is ruined. How could it be? We’re talking about people being transformed through God’s healing power, and God seems to make the most of the messed-up people, not the picture-perfect people.
