Parenting slip-ups that taught me big lessons – sharing so you can win faster! Part 1

The first time I realized I was parenting by default, not by design, was when our daughter was about 3 years old. I found myself correcting and correcting nonstop. If you have a toddler, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Then one day it occurred to me, I believe by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, “Why do you have these expectations of this child when you haven’t taught her?” Children aren’t born with the knowledge of how to behave; it is our duty to teach and show them how to behave. Spanking them for bad behavior isn’t how to teach; you teach them by sitting down to teach them.

You may ask “how would I know what to teach my child? Isn’t it when they do something wrong that I’d know what to teach, hence correcting and maybe sometimes spanking so they can learn?”

Well, that’s because you’re trying to parent on your own. There have been billions of parents before you who have graciously left behind books on various aspects of parenting, moral lessons, and devotionals for littles.

When you stand on the shoulders of those who have gone ahead, you see ahead, you know ahead and you will have a clear path to teach ahead.

After this realization, I instituted our family devotion targeted at the children (we had another baby by then) and with the help of those little devotionals and story books, I started finding lessons to teach ahead.

A little bit of intentionality goes a long way.

I can tell you for a fact that I still have some mom guilt over spanking my two and half years old then. It was very wrong to expect her to give me something she doesn’t have, because she hasn’t been given it. And every time she over-explains herself today, I feel a tinge of guilt, because her younger one displays so much more confidence, having been rarely, if ever at all, spanked.

Children 0-3 are trying to determine if they can trust you implicitly, their world revolves around you alone, spanking breaks that trust. Settle down to teach them when they show you their ignorance. Teaching is done with the attitude of “I know you don’t know better”, correcting / spanking is done with the attitude of “you should have known better”.

However, this was just the beginning of my lessons, because one or two years down the line, I found myself in the situation of, “I have taught you these things, why are you still manifesting ignorance and falling short of my expectations?” And that led me to my second lesson.

Keep in mind lesson one: children are not born with the knowledge of how to behave; it is your duty as a parent to teach and show them how to behave.

Watch out for part 2.