Parenting with Tough Love

I read a great article the other day that my Mom sent to me, it was about teaching our kids about failure. At first thought I was thinking I don't want my kids to fail and then it dawned on me that it is because I have lived failure in more than one sense. Friendships, love, education, tests, and the list goes on. However if we as parents don't allow our children to learn how to cope with failure how will they cope when they are adults?! Most likely they would grow up blaming anyone and everyone and thinking that the world owed them something. So with this article I realized that I want my kids to live life and all that goes with it including failure, whether its self inflicted or caused by something worldly. Life will be full of choices for them, you make choices everyday and all the choices we make have a consequence whether they are good or bad. I want them to learn to make the best choices but the reality is in order to learn to make the better choice they will have to make the bad choices that in return could cause failure of some kind. This is tough because with failure comes the emotions that lead us to question our ability to do things, it can rock us to our core. I am being reminded that through the eyes of my son that sometimes failure can be sad and can cause defeat and doubt in oneself. My job as his Mom is to remind him that with hard work, effort and dedication he can achieve any goal and over come any obstacle if he puts his mind to it.

As parents with need to remind ourselves that we are not here to provide our children with all the luxuries in life and make them as comfortable as possible. Our job is to provide them with there basic needs and show them love and guide them into growing into the young adults we know they can be. Every age, event, triumph, heartache, loss, and even failure will mold them into who they will become. I feel positive that with a lots of guidance and resilience children can overcome anything.

I do not want to raise selfish children; I want to raise confidant, caring, honest, hard working and resilient children that will grow up knowing how to face failure and any other challenges that come their way.

I know this phase of change is just beginning for my house and I am interested in seeing how life progresses and the things we will conquer as a family!!

The best advice I can give myself is to keep the faith, pray, encourage each other and love everyday! And to remind myself that I too I am only human, I too have bad days and cry and yell but at the end of the day its all going to be okay and the best part is that tomorrow is a new day for us all! So here is to what I learned yesterday, lived today and whatever tomorrow will bring.

Xo,

Kat