Ask For Forgiveness!
“Forgive each other as Christ has forgiven you. ”
When my reaction to my kids is Too Big, unkind, or a complete fail, I often want to ignore it, hid from the issue, and beat myself up over the failure. It is so hard to address our perceived failures head on! It feels vulnerable and uncomfortable! But, it does so much good.
Ask for forgiveness from:
From yourself! This is probably my hardest. I beat myself up endlessly over missteps in my parenting. There are truly times that I just lose it over and over during a day and go to bed feeling so defeated and helpless. This cycle of ineffective parenting only stops when I have a long hard talk with myself about being human, about doing my best, about having grace with myself and about forgiving my missteps. It is not easy sometimes, but only when I can get there do I feel ready again to tackle the tough job ahead of parenting this crew.
From your child! Equally important to the process of bonding and positive mindset, is asking your child for forgiveness. You have to genuinely apologize to your child and ask them if they can forgive you for your mistake. You have to help them understand that when people make mistakes, even mistakes that embarrass them – they must admit their mistakes and apologize. Only by watching you do this over and over will they become convinced that they too can gracefully make mistakes and ask for forgiveness.
God! Forgiveness is the only way that we can truly move past our mistakes and blunders. We have to be able to talk to someone, whether it is God, the Holy Spirit, our Aunt who has died, or the mirror, we need to seek true forgiveness. When we both give and get it, our lives become so much “lighter” and we can move forward with so much more grace.
Then, even if forgiveness is NOT given, move on as if it has been. Sometimes people need us to “earn” their forgiveness. That is ok! Don’t give up. It may take time to earn their trust again. Talk to your kids about this – how sometimes we mess up enough to break someone’s trust and it takes time to prove to them that you will not do it again.