Too often we mothers beat ourselves up with the guilt-stick, in our efforts to be a perfect mother all the while keeping the perfect house and raising perfect children (and that\u2019s without even starting on what you want to do outside the home!).\u00a0 But here\u2019s the deal \u2013 you are not the perfect mother. Neither was your mother. But hey, you turned out okay\u2026 didn\u2019t you? Sort of? So ditch the idea of living up to some idealized image of a perfect mother and just be a really great one. Focus your efforts on making sure your kids know they are loved, listened to, and don\u2019t need to be perfect for you to love them just as you don\u2019t have to be perfect to love yourself!<\/p>\n
Lesson #2.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Lighten up and laugh<\/strong>\u2026<\/strong> a lot. <\/strong><\/p>\n Every busy home will have many moments of stress when plans for apart, homework gets lost (or stolen\u2026 yes, would you believe there are \u201cstrangers\u201d who love to steal math homework?!) and everything descends into chaos. Adding a big dollop of\u00a0humor\u00a0to such occasions can diffuse tension like a magic wand and make all the difference in the world, particularly on those days when the kids want to strangle each other, or you want to strangle them.<\/p>\n Lesson #3.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Encourage non-conformity (in doses).\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ve always drummed into my kids how important it is to be polite and respectful. However, as I wrote Brave<\/a>, if you place too much emphasis on \u2018what others will think\u2019 you set them up to have others opinions run their lives. In the end, it\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0matter what others think as much as what\u00a0you<\/u><\/em>\u00a0think about yourself. If we are going to teach our kids to follow their dreams, we have to first teach them to move beyond fear of criticism and rejection \u2013 it starts with encouraging them to express their individuality and engage with those around them from a place of self-confidence, rather than self-consciousness.<\/p>\n Lesson #4.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0\u00a0Share your struggles.<\/strong><\/p>\n Life can be hard and helping equip my kids with the life skills and resilience to bounce back from setbacks is one of the biggest responsibilities of any parent. We help set our kids up to navigate it\u2019s disappointments, failures, hardships and heartaches better when we have been open about our own. While I try to be positive, denying life\u2019s realities and painting the world with rose colored glasses doesn\u2019t serve my kids in the long run. In sharing my struggles and sorrows with my kids as they\u2019ve become old enough to understanding them I hope I have helped them learn how to be more resilient for those they\u2019ll one day face themselves, learning that we must never let our hardships define us, and to always look for the opportunity in adversity.<\/p>\n Lesson #5.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Be the first to apologize.<\/strong><\/p>\n As fun-loving as I try to be, at the end of the day when I\u2019m totally spent (as I was last night having flown in from the other side of the world),\u00a0my patience and humor can wear thin. So thin in fact that I have been known to yell at my kids for simply leaving a plate in the sink, rather than putting it in the dishwasher.\u00a0 Yes, bad mother \u2013 I should be encouraging any responsibility at all! \u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0also been known to forget picking up my kids from basketball practice, dropping them at the wrong soccer field, double booking a special assembly and buying the breakfast cereal\u00a0they\u2019ve\u00a0specifically told me never to buy again (major drama!) \u00a0On these occasions,\u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0learnt there is no better response than to simply fall on my sword, apologize for my failings and ask for forgiveness.\u00a0 It\u2019s my hope that, over time, they will learn that it\u2019s okay to mess up. It\u2019s how we \u2018clean it up\u2019 afterward that matters more. Oh, and not making that same mistake twice.<\/p>\n Lesson #6.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0 Allow them make\u00a0their<\/em>\u00a0mistakes (small ones).<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s a lot of talk these days about helicopter parents. I\u2019m not one of them. \u00a0That\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0mean I\u2019m not involved in the truly important things, but I have no idea what project\u2019s they have to do, or when they are due.\u00a0 As I tell their teachers, if they get an A, it\u2019s all-them. If they get a D, it\u2019s all-them too. \u00a0Of course sometimes there are tears because I haven\u2019t helped them like \u201call<\/em> the other mothers (who love their kids) do,\u201d but it\u2019s my hope that in the long haul, they will be able to manage their lives much better than they would have otherwise. As I said above, I don\u2019t care so much if my kids win the prize for \u2018best project\u2019 (which is lucky, they rarely do.) I do care that ten years from now they can be discerning in their decisions and willing to put in the effort and take the courageous risks needed to succeed in the bigger game of life.<\/p>\n Lesson #7.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Hug hard and hug often. <\/strong><\/p>\n Children learn to be emotionally and physically affectionate by experiencing it. \u00a0Of course with three teenagers, and one twelve-teen year old, I\u2019ve come to accept that they don\u2019t necessarily love hugging their mother as much as I love hugging them. That said, I often just wrap my arms around each of them regularly and let them know how proud I am of them (even if not the state of their bedrooms.) While they sometimes try to wriggle out from my grip, I know they don\u2019t really mind. Just as I didn\u2019t when my dad would hug me when I was fifteen. There\u2019s something special about physical touch \u2013 about holding someone in our arms; about being held. In the busyness of our lives, as we race from one place to another, those few seconds of hugging may be the only time we truly connect. \u00a0 And in the end of the day, when we look back on our life, our family and what truly matters most, connection is what it\u2019s all about.<\/p>\n Of course I could keep going, but frankly, I\u2019ve got a lot of other things to do (which don’t include proofing this blog post for typos). Such is a mother’s lot right? And let’s face it, we wouldn’t want it any other way!<\/p>\n So cut yourself some slack, pat yourself on the back, and never doubt for a minute how much impact your efforts make (\u00a0even if you’re kids rarely think to thank you for it.)<\/p>\n Happy Mothers Day!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s Mothers Day this weekend and hopefully my four children have remembered (with a little reminder from their dad) to at least get me a card. But as I reflect on this day dedicated to celebrating motherhood, I can\u2019t help but think of the less important lessons I\u2019ve learnt since I became a mother seventeen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[138,142,184,208,234,377,448,550,574,628,664,665,738,812,837,852,859,867],"class_list":["post-10625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parenting","category-live-passionately","tag-brave-parenting","tag-bravery","tag-change","tag-comfort-zone","tag-courage","tag-fear","tag-happy-mothers-day","tag-kids","tag-letting-go","tag-margie-warrell","tag-mothers-day","tag-motherhood","tag-parenting","tag-raising-kids","tag-relationships","tag-resilience","tag-responsibility","tag-risk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"137\"](\"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/137-1030x773.jpg\")
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