Forgive Yourself

You can’t reach for anything new if your hands are still full of yesterday’s junk.

~ Louise Smith

Forgive yourself.

You are not a perfect mom.  None of us are.

But you are a good mom.

Your child does not need perfection.  Your child needs you.

The other day, I lost it.  I mean, I totally lost it.

I am not a spanker.  I do not believe in hitting my children.  And yet, spank I did.

I’m not proud of it.  I’m ashamed to write it.  I will not hold my head high when folks read it.

But I did it.  I spanked my baby.

Not hard.  And definitely on his pull-up, to soften the blow.

And definitely more than once.

Why?  Because.

Because I didn’t know what else to do.  I was out of tools and I was out of patience.

It was nap time.  He was supposed to stay in his bed and go to sleep.  He is my spirited child. And when he is supposed to do one thing, he is most certainly going to do the opposite.  He takes orders from no one.  And he hates sleeping.  He fights it.

So that is exactly what he did – he fought it.  And he kept his brother awake in the process.

I have a lot to do during nap time.  Nap time is my time.  So when the kids don’t sleep….well, I get crabby.

After an hour of trying everything to get him to sleep, I finally, in sheer frustration, spanked him.  It didn’t work. 

So I spanked him again and told him to stay in bed. 

He looked me in the eye as he put one foot, and then the other, over the high bar on the side of his bed. 

That bar is designed to keep him from falling out while he slept.  On this day, it was used to challenge his mom.  Having just been spanked twice, he defiantly climbed over. 

I spanked him one last time, threw him in bed, and escaped the bedroom before I did any further damage. 

Oh, yeah, and I screamed.  A lot.

Nice, relaxing way for a baby to fall asleep, right?

Poor baby.  He didn’t deserve that.

I cried.

He cried.

His brother cried.

And I vowed to never, ever do that again.

They both fell asleep.

And I spent nap time working on forgiveness.

For myself.

Why?

Because this ain’t my first rodeo.  I have six children.  The twins are my babies.  I’ve been through this enough times now to know that I have moments where I just plain old suck as a mom.  They are far more often than I’d like to admit.  I’m not perfect and I do a lot of things wrong.

And you do, too.

But in order to be a better mom, we need to forgive and forget.

So I screwed up.

Yes, it was bad.

Yes, I hate myself for it.

And yes, I never want it to happen again.

None of us do.  So we say “I’m sorry.”

Even if my child is an infant, I say I’m sorry.  I ask for forgiveness.  And of course, I receive it.

Children forgive so easily.

A good, solid relationship with your child is the key to all discipline.  You don’t want to damage that relationship. With a good relationship, they will grow up to be good people, and that is our ultimate goal.

But of course, we will damage that relationship from time to time.  We are moms and we are imperfect.

We are human. And our children are too.  They deserve the same respect every other person does.  Ask for forgiveness and then re-establish trust.

How do you re-establish trust?  By not making that mistake again.

Sure, I will make tons of others.  But spanking?  I’m not going there again.

I lost my patience and didn’t have the tools to get my son to do what I wanted him to do.  I said I’m sorry;  I forgave myself and he forgave me.

And then I went on a search for better ways to handle it the next time.

And believe it or not, I discovered that my spirited child sometimes simply does not know how to calm himself down.  He needs help.  So I hold him tight and snuggle him until he settles down.

Something I had been avoiding, because I felt I then had to do it for his brother too.

And that would take way too much time.

I decided it was worth the time.

Nap time is so much easier now.

Snuggles instead of spankings.

Isn’t forgiveness a wonderful thing?

Let go of the junk. 

If you are a mom and your relationship with your older child is damaged, let go of the junk.

Forgive yourself.   

Ask your child for forgiveness if you have done wrong.  

Forgive your child if he has done wrong – even if he doesn’t ask for it.

Let go of the junk.  You have a life to live and a child to love.

8 Responses

  1. Thank you so much for this… It is so hard. Here I am sobbing on the train reading your post. I messed up the other day in a similar way, and I am just desperately searching for something to make me feel ok about it and less lonely in my experience. It is incredibly taboo in the culture I live in. In fact I could get in trouble for simply talking about it, so I won’t. But, thia helped me feel less alone in the shame, the pain. I am going to try to my hardest to forgive myself.
    Again, thanks.

    – mother of 5y old.

    1. Oh momma, I feel your pain! We all do. We all mess up from time to time. It’s okay!! The fact that you feel so horrible is testament right there to what a good mom you are!! ♥️ Ask for forgiveness and work on re-establishing trust and that maternal bond in whatever way is appropriate for your culture. Kids are so quick to forgive! We are harder on ourselves than they are on us. Let it go and start over. You got this!!

      1. I just now read your reply to my previous comment, thank you so much for your encouragement and non-judgemental attitude. It is truly a support. A month has passed now, and we are in a better place. I am still visited by a feeling shame when I think of the incident, but knowing that, that was my lowest point in parenting, never to be repeated, gives me assurance. I wonder if the emotion of the memory ever truly disappears.

        1. I don’t know. I still think about all of my horrible mistakes with regret, sadness, and shame. But, most of the times I’ve messed up, my boys don’t even remember it. And the times that they do remember, they have forgiven me for. Truly forgiven me for. So I remind myself this, during those fleeting moments when I do remember how I acted. And I try to give myself the same grace. I wish you all the best!! Your child is lucky to have you, momma!! 💕

  2. Thank you. I went through the identical thing with my 5yo daughter, fairy little one, a month ago. I still have’t forgiven myself. It reached me deeply where you said that your son immediately forgave you. It sank in that my daughter forgave me right away too, and she meant it. So it’s time to forgive me too. Can’t really move forward if I keep myself pinned to that regrettable moment. So thank you for this offering, your honesty, and your light.

    1. You’re very welcome. Children forgive so easily! It’s us parents that really have to work at it. But just like anything, the more you do it, the better you get at it!

  3. I smacked my kid’s butt with a spoon tonight. I screamed at him tonight. Screamed. Swore. Wooden spoon on the butt. The last thing he said to his mom before he fell asleep was “My daddy doesn’t love me anymore”. He is 5. He should never have to question whether or not I love him. How do I fix this?

    1. I’m so sorry you both had to go through that! Start by forgiving yourself. You messed up. But you can always wipe the slate clean and start over. I know my response is late, and I apologize for that! But I hope you had the chance to tell your son that you were sorry. If not, the next time you mess up (and you will – we all do), be quick to tell him you are sorry. Point out that even grown-ups mess up. When you do this, he’ll see that you respect him and love him enough to admit when you do wrong and ask for forgiveness. Plus, you also teach him to say he’s sorry when he messes up. I wish you both better nights!! Five is a tough age.

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