How and Why to Be an Imperfect Model for Your Children
Parenting is not meant to be performative.
In fact, at least with our first child, none of us really have any idea what we’re doing so we’re figuring it out as we go, course-correcting as we pay more and more attention to what works and what doesn’t. My intention in naming this is to move us toward accepting what’s true.
The most meaningful relationships in our lives are grounded in authenticity. Seeing that we love our children more than anyone, let’s be sure our relationships with them are also steeped in honesty and vulnerability.
Parenting imperfectly is what it’s about - being more real with your children.
This may make some readers uncomfortable - the very idea that their child might see them as imperfect. But, herein lies the gift.
If we ‘pretend’ to have it all figured out, to know it all, we’re actually doing our children a disservice. When we acknowledge our mistakes, humbly admit when we’ve missed the mark and seek repair, we’re modeling how to be human. Teaching our children that we’re all human, doing our best to be our best, and that there is no such thing as perfect.
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My daughter, Tate, is busy with oil pastels at her art table while I finish up work emails. She’s been at it for at least a half hour. Suddenly, she’s pounding and banging on her paper with a giant crayon in her fist. I look up to see her scribbling, pressing with all her might,
“Sweetheart, what’re doing? Why’re you so fiercely crossing out what you've been working on?”
“Mamaaaaa, Mama!” Tears fill her eyes.
“It was supposed to be a rainbow and then the colors bled together from my arm and I didn’t notice and this is grandma’s gift and I wanted it to be perrrrrrrrfect and …” Tate’s yelling with a scrunched face, cheeks as red as the pastel in her hand.
“Ohhhh, honey. That sounds really hard,” I nod, sympathetically.
“I think you must’ve forgotten though, my girl, that there is no such thing as perfect. Grammy will love whatever you make,because you made it. And knowing her, I bet she’ll especially appreciate your ‘beautiful oopses’”
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*Reframe. 101.You may have a kiddo that loves to point out your mistakes. Or you may have one for whom mistakes of all kinds (yours or theirs) are incredibly dysregulating. Ask yourself - what does this tell me about what I need to model more of, talk more about or perhaps normalize?
Your children are eager to understand how you admit what you don’t know. They want to hear you laugh at yourself when you make silly mistakes and see you embrace the learning embedded in your fails. They need to witness the courage it takes to own when you do something that negatively affects someone else and apologize.
So practice getting comfortable in the uncomfortable. Show them how to be ‘human’ so that imperfection (both yours and theirs) is allowed for. There’s real relief in this. A home where everyone in the family is accepted for who they are and ‘where’ they are, is a safe home, one where your children can truly rest. And that’s what you want to create and to be - a place of rest for them. This takes deliberate thought, regular sharing by both adults and kiddos, and many conversations that embrace the inevitable and natural discomfort, messiness and vulnerability of life.
For more on how to instill these practices into your family dynamic in the younger years, please book a free one-on-one with Jenn and peruse her website in the meantime.
Jennifer Wert is a parenting coach who prioritizes authenticity, humility, and connection. With a Master’s in Education, a teacher’s lens and a doula’s experience, having run both for-profit and non-profit businesses built around empowering families and self-expression, along with extensive post-graduate social and emotional intelligence training, she knows how to counsel parents who want to do their best by their children. Who are committed not to perfection, but to a presence of mind.