Parenting Lessons (Nov/Dec 24): Parenting Myself with Grace
This is part of a monthly series where I share parenting lessons I learned each month.
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Showing Grace to Myself and My Parenting (Nov 2024)
I’ve been so busy the past few months that I didn’t get a chance to write down my lessons and reflections for November and December 2024. But I did write down quick notes for this post!
Back in October 2024, I wrote about parenting with grace, aka showing grace to my children. In November 2024, I learned another aspect of parenting with grace — showing grace to myself and my parenting. This is especially true when I made wrong choices for my children or when I disciplined them in a way that I’m not proud of – usually it’s when I overreacted and blew up disproportionately bigger than their mistakes.
Showing grace to myself is like a form of self-compassion. It means putting less pressure, stress and guilt on myself by accepting that everyone makes mistakes and striving to be a “good enough” parent rather than a perfect one. This helps me forgive myself and not get trapped in a mom’s guilt that could worsen the situation. Pyschology.com has an article titled, “Don’t Let “Mom Guilt” Make You a Worse Parent“. There’s this line from a parenting book, “When we feel bad, we act badly. So shame creates a negative cycle that keeps reinforcing the child feeling like a bad person inside.”
According to washingtonpost.com, “Research suggests that feelings of guilt and shame catapult parents’ levels of depression, stress and anxiety.” Parenting is likely better and more effective if the parents are more joyful than depressed and restful than stressed and anxious.
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Sidenote: It’s also the month the children said goodbye to their kindergarten, St James Church Kindergarten, because it is pivoting to childcare. It was harder for me than them to let go because I wanted my younger daughter to finish her education and graduate from there because of the culture and teachers. It has the elements I wanted for them—play-based learning and Christian values. And I get why some schools have a strong alumni spirit, something I have tasted and didn’t want to lose with the school’s closing.
I also can’t help having gripes over the school’s decision to close its kindergarten operations. It didn’t fit my understanding about the church’s role in the education scene and the changing landscape for families. Oh well.
Parenting Myself with Grace (Dec 2024)
Then it was December 2024, an intensive month because the children were having school holidays, so it was almost 24/7 with them. Hence, I had quite a few bad days. On a particular day, I felt defeated at the end of the day once again and I rhetorically asked them, “Why must the day end up like that?” But upon reflection, I think the problem is me, I am the one who made the day become ‘like that (bad)’. I had allowed frustration to seep in because I had wanted to control them. Yet it’s so easy to default into control mode when I was tired out with two active kids badgering me the whole day. I could have chosen to be slow to wrath but I was quick to anger.
I went to God with my defeats and He said I have improved, at least I didn’t scream at them, a big improvement since I had my menses that day – a day which I could have been easily triggered because of cramps, tiredness and hormones that come along with it.
I have improved. I have. Believe it.
Some advice from psychology resources mentioned parenting our inner child. In line with what I learned in November, I had to learn to parent myself with grace – to celebrate the little improvements instead of berating myself for not being perfect. I believe if we parent ourselves with grace, we can treat other people including our children with grace. As a result, our children will also treat themselves with grace.
As I was writing this in February 2025, I had another revelation, this time it is about the grace of God. There was this particular day, a very physically demanding day and a challenging one because of some work matters. It had all the ingredients for a triggering day. I thought I would be easily triggered by the children and screamed my head off, but I didn’t. Then I thank God for His grace upon me, the grace to manage my emotions. It reminded me of testimonies about people who suddenly stopped smoking or taking drugs because they had no more desire after praying or knowing God and His grace.
Nowadays, I just pray before their school ends or before the day starts for love, wisdom and patience upon me. If iron-will cannot change me to be a more respectful and gentle parent who models after Father God, prayer can. If not a sudden big change, then little by little.
That’s about it, thanks for journeying with me on this parenting journey. Before you go, you might want to check out my other posts on parenting. Leave your parenting tips, comments or questions below. Love to hear from you. 🙂
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