Apologies

We recently discussed in our community group about the importance of apologizing to your children. Coming from an Asian household with the Confucian values of respecting your elders and whatnot, this has been a very new concept to me as a parent. But entering toddlerhood the first time around, I definitely felt convicted that this was a practice that I wanted to implement as an imperfect human being attempting to do a halfway decent job at this crazy thing called parenting.

I definitely failed today when E had a meltdown on the car about which park we were going to. She'd been whining all morning about wanting to play in sand. But I had already chosen a park (which had no sand) that was closest to our lunch plans, and had explained that to her repeatedly. So when she started whining again, I got really annoyed and yelled at her for complaining so much. (All of this fuss and the park turned out to not be a good decision anyway because it was 80 degrees today and way too hot to really do anything at the unshaded park!)

Later, putting away my pride, I said, "I'm sorry I got made at you in the car today."
She said, "You were mad today? When?"

Guess my yelling really made an impact on her.

Regardless of our kids' reaction to these types of failed moments in parenting, I want our kids to know that we are equally sinful and as human as they are. And relationships, even between parents and children, are still just that - relationships, which demand forgiveness, humility, grace, and healing. I'm glad she was gracious to me today.