Parenting is the hardest, most sacred work. I would maybe say that parenting in the early years especially is the hardest, most sacred work.
If you know you know. The work is absolutely relentless, and the stakes are actually particularly high in this time as well. Janet Lansbury, queen of wisdom for parenting in the early years, writes: “Psychologists have long known that in these formative first years, the interactions we have with our loved ones are internalized as ‘self.’ Meaning, how we are treated is who we become, and therapists know this deep sense of self is difficult if not impossible to shake later on.”
Jeez, no pressure!
And to boot, these are the years we’re just getting used to our lives being totally propelled into chaos—we’re new at this! Oh, and there’s no training whatsoever: the only thing we have to go off of is the parenting we received ourselves.
Hardest, most sacred work. But hang on; good news is coming.
Speaking of the parenting we received, I did a poll on my Instagram stories once about what generational cycles people were trying to break in parenting their own children. Do you know what the most common answer was? Not apologizing. As in, I was not apologized to as a kid and I will not repeat that with my own kids.
Let’s examine this.
It’s hurtful when someone treats you poorly and then acts like nothing happened. It’s no different with the parent-child relationship. Yet this scenario is familiar to parents everywhere: we lose our $%(@ on our kids—for reasons that usually have much more to do with our own stuff we’re dealing with—and when the heated moment passes, we… just let it be. We probably feel bad, but mostly we just carry on with the day or the night or the task at hand.
I don’t think we think it’s fine—we feel bad because we know we’re hurting our kids when we treat them harshly—but we don’t think there’s anything we can do. The more neurotic or sensitive among us might even feel extreme guilt, ruminating with thoughts of having “ruined” our child and envisioning them in therapy in the future because of our asshole behavior.
But there’s hope. And it’s not a cutesy, syrupy “give yourself grace” kind of thing (although you should give yourself grace; I’m not saying that’s a bad idea). When we treat our child poorly, there’s actually a simple, powerful solution. And by simple, I mean not complicated. Straightforward. Not necessarily easy.
We repair with our child.
What does it mean to “repair”? It means owning our actions. It means taking responsibility for the hurt we caused. It’s saying to our children, “Hey, I’m really sorry I yelled at you like that earlier. I was feeling stressed about making dinner, and everything was noisy, and it felt like too much. I’m sorry I treated you that way. I need to deal with my stress better.”
(Basically quoting myself, lol.)
Simple, but powerful. Becky Kennedy, a clinical psychologist who you may know as “Dr. Becky” from Instagram, recently gave an excellent TED talk on this topic. You might be thinking, how does this work? Why would apologizing be such a big deal? To answer that, we need to understand what happens to kids when we don’t repair after a hard interaction. I’ll quote a powerful part of Becky’s talk here:
“For kids, it is better to be a sinner in a world ruled by God, than to live in a world ruled by the devil. In other words, it’s actually adaptive for a child to internalize badness and fault, because at least then they can hold on to the idea that their parents and the world around them is safe and good. And while self-blame works for us in childhood, we all know it works against us in adulthood. Something’s wrong with me. I make bad things happen. I’m unlovable. These are the core fears of so many adults, but really, they are actually the childhood stories we wrote when we were left alone following distressing events that went unrepaired.”
Oof.
This is the truth parents need to know: that it hurts our kids when we treat them poorly, but only if we don’t repair.
Dr. Becky shares that her inspiration for this talk was realizing through her work with clients that people genuinely didn’t understand that they could do anything about this thing that happens to literally all of us as parents. “All parents yell,” she says. “No one knows what to do next.”
Repairing with my kids actually came to me quite naturally. Maybe it was years steeped in Janet’s soothing voice (I discovered her respectful parenting work when I was pregnant with my first), or maybe it’s because I was a sensitive kid. Probably some of both. But the reality is that this isn’t common. People don’t generally know that apologizing to their kids is a thing they can do. Hence, Becky’s talk. Hence, this post.
It also got me pondering, why? Why do we not know to do this with our children? Or, why does it feel so hard?
First, obviously, genuine apologies aren’t normalized: for most of us, they didn’t happen in our own families, and they don’t happen in the wider culture, either. A spirit of perfectionism—something I actually see as the root of so many issues—is also deeply at play here. Mistakes are not okay; deny or ignore them at all costs. (And when you make them, feel bad, really bad.)
I also think a big part of it stems from the consciousness of authoritarian parenting, which goes like good parenting is having your kids under control. Main objective: let them know who’s in charge. Someone who’s embodying this type of parenting is likely afraid to lose their position of power in the parent/child dynamic. You can’t apologize to your child—you would lose your authority! They’d lose respect for you, and that’s the basis of your ability to parent them! They’ll be spoiled! Bullies! Brats!
Except all that’s… just not true.
We derive true authority with a child through our authentic connection with them. It may *seem* like we have authority when we parent in a harsh and punitive way, but we’re really just activating our kids’ survival mechanisms. Children are vulnerable, and they know they’re vulnerable. They’ll do what it takes to adapt to their reality, and if that means doing what Dad says the first time he asks otherwise they’ll pay a big price, then they’ll learn to do that. So yeah, they may listen, but at what cost to their emotional well-being and to the parent-child relationship?
When you have a loving, trusting connection with your child, you have the actual authority to speak into their life as to what they should do and not do. That doesn’t mean they’ll always listen and obey and you’ll never need to give consequences (post on the pitfalls of gentle parenting culture forthcoming); it just means you’ve put in the relational work to be able to ask them to do something have them want to do it, because they trust you. They feel connected to you. They know you have their best interests at heart.
Ultimately, this isn’t just about apologizing: it’s about putting your relationship with your kids at the forefront of your priorities. Over convenience. Over the opinions of other people about your parenting. Over your own pride. Over everything.
If you’d like support with this (and don’t we all need support with this?), you should join our first book club! We’ll be reading one of my favorite books, Hold On to Your Kids, which will help you develop a foundational philosophy as well as a practice of tending to the relationships you have with your children. It’s a must-read. Grab your copy and look for the post on Chapter 1 the first week of October!
One last note, and it’s important. I imagine some people reading this post may be feeling regretful. They know how much they’ve messed up with their one kid or their oldest kid or all their kids. They yelled, they were harsh, they didn’t repair, and those early years are over. So the damage is done, right?
Wrong. The incredible thing about repair is that you can always do it and it makes a difference. Even years later. Check out this review of Dr. Becky’s book (which was just released this month, called Good Inside):
“I am a 59-year-old mom whose relationships have been dramatically changed for the better by Dr. Becky Kennedy. Though her book seems to be written for parents of young children, it is actually an invaluable resource to anyone wanting to understand the people they love the most in order to have deep, meaningful connections with them.
Her Good Inside approach has strengthened my resolve to trust my adult kids, to listen far more than I speak, to prioritize understanding them over convincing them of the rightness of my own ideas, and has helped me tremendously in supporting my kids when they are wrestling with challenges in life.
What I would give to have had this book when I was raising our four kids...it would have been a total game changer! But even now, it has really empowered me to do transformative repair with my children over things I missed, or things I didn't get just right with them. If you are longing to have a deeper, more emotionally safe connection with your adult kids, this is a phenomenal place to start.”
It’s actually never too late to repair with your kid(s). When you do, you re-write—even if just a little—the story they have about themselves. If you don’t trust me, trust this almost 60-year-old random woman on Amazon!
I absolutely recommend spending 14 minutes to watch Dr. Becky’s excellent TED talk. Maybe grab the tissue box. Parenting is so hard—and there’s so much hope. We don’t have to be perfect; we just have to own it when we’re not.
Also, I’m not done talking about this. Part 2, on forgiveness, coming soon.
I love the word ‘repair’. Rachelle Garcia from Innate Traditions called this word in through her “the right way to raise children” class. Not only does this work with children, but infants, and babies whose language doesn’t make us believe they are capable of a conversation. Yes, we can sit with them and explain that our actions weren’t appropriate or okay, whether that was frustration towards the kids or an angry fight w dad. This creates the foundation of respect and offers us the chance to take accountability and show our children that we too make mistakes. This also shows children that they are deserving of respect, at any age.
I think in some ways, this term repair feels limited for most- esp in our society where if someone does us wrong, esp a partner, it’s 2 strike and you’re out. Often times there’s no sincere willingness to repair a situation. Really, there’s little maturity across the board when it comes to our emotions- we let them take control and want little to do with sincere change except for from within. But I think repairing relationships is so important. Of course I’m
Not saying all, and there is a level of stupidity to repair an abusive relationship. But often times two adults are playing immature games that hurt the child in us, and the child sabotages the relationship instead of the adult repairing it.
In my own issues with my fiancé and his tendency to drink in response to his issues, I think some of the best advice I’ve gotten is that it’s okay to repair. And that there’s a possibility of redemption.