Look, sometimes we try things as parents. We have an idea about what’s best for our kids. We are trying our best. And then, it’s clearly not working—it’s clearly having something very different than the intended effect.
This is not the problem. The problem is our inability to admit this, our reluctance to change course—because we don’t want to be wrong, because we don’t want to feel the guilt that comes from having clearly been wrong.
We talked recently about the lie that Andy Kaufman’s parents told their 5-year-old son in a misguided attempt to spare him grief over the loss of his grandfather, telling their son that his beloved grandfather was simply traveling and not dead. They thought they would prevent him from being sad…but actually made him much more sad. All he could think was: “Why had he left without saying goodbye?”
Again, the problem with this was not so much the intentions (which were good) but the obvious failure in practice. The problem was that his parents stuck with it! “Andy kept looking for Papu to come back,” Andy’s father explains in a new documentary. Andy spent hours just waiting, looking out at the street, hoping his grandfather would return. “And I suspect,” his father says in one archival clip, “maybe that’s why he was looking out the window, and maybe that’s why he was sad.”
You think?! Of course it was. You knew it was! Just as so many of us know deep down when we have messed up as parents, when the plan is not working, or worse, backfiring. What matters, then, is what we do when this happens. What matters is how quickly and how honestly we change course. Andy’s parents needed to sit him down and explain what happened—spare him the betrayal they had accidentally inflicted in their hopes of sparing him grief.
We are not always going to get it right. A lot of parenting can feel like trial and error. But when we make mistakes, we can own up to them. We can be transparent with our kids and model what it looks like to admit wrongdoing. By doing this—and then correcting it, apologizing for it, and being honest—we show our kids what it looks like to take responsibility for our actions and repair things as best we can.
P.S. In her book Good Inside (which we can’t get enough of), Dr. Becky Kennedy shares some best practices for repairing. She also spoke with Ryan over on the Daily Stoic podcast about parenting, emotional regulation, and raising great kids.
