Most parents do everything to provide their children with the best life possible, aiming to give them all the things they might not have had. The goal is often to provide as much happiness and protection from the outside world as possible. Parents often feel guilty when a child hears them fighting, experiences divorce, is let down by an unmet promise, not being able to provide something they may want, catching an illness at school, experiencing loss, or just overall disappointment. Seeing your child experience things that bring on “negative” emotions can feel like you’re failing at parenting—I hear this all the time. The truth is, parents need to stop aiming to provide the “perfect” childhood and refocus the attention on how to provide your child with the skills needed to handle the “imperfect” world we live in.

Children like adults will experience disagreements with others, breakups, loss of friends, disappointment when they don’t get what they want, they will get sick occasionally, be let down by others, experience loss, and feel disappointed often. If you constantly protect your children from experiencing a wide range of emotions, they will never learn the tools needed to cope. A lack of skills can lead to avoidance and avoidance can lead to vices. This is why it is crucial to provide a safe space for your children to experience all the emotions and learn to sit with them without judgement. Here are a few ways to do this:

Model: Children learn from what their parents do. Yes, this can be a scary thought, but it doesn’t mean you need to be perfect parents. It’s not how you fall; it’s how you get back up! So, when you make a mistake, take responsibility and learn. “I got angry before and yelled a lot. There are other ways I could have handled that. I’m sorry for how I reacted.” Don’t be afraid to show that you as parents have a wide range of feelings. Pretending feelings don’t exist only creates confusion for a child when they experience them. Do your best to model handling situations in a way you’d want mimicked.

I also want to point out that some parents have difficulty handling the emotions in their children that they may struggle with themselves. Don’t be afraid to get help if you need it yourself-it shows great strength which can lead to big self-growth.

Sit with your child but don’t fix it: In the effort to provide the “perfect” childhood free of negative experiences and feelings it’s not uncommon to swoop in like Superman and try to “fix” your child’s problems. This is a hard one, and we have all done this! How many times have you given in to tears and bought the toy or the candy? This method is great for the short-term gains but only creates a cycle where the child expects relief from emotion in the long term. As children get older and avoid their emotions the stakes become bigger than a toy. It could be school avoidance, drugs, self-harm, or whatever. I’m not saying this will happen from buying one toy but repeated emotional avoidance over time leads to more avoidance and finding ways to do it.

Children need to experience their emotions without parental interference aimed at relief. Instead, acknowledge the emotion and offer to sit with them while they experience it. “It’s hard when you want something, and you don’t get it. I feel sad when this happens too. I can sit with you while you feel sad.” And let me tell you, this is easier said than done because if you don’t have your own emotional regulation skills as a parent this will be hard- but YOU CAN DO HARD THINGS. Bottom line here, we don’t need to fix emotions.

Practice Self-Compassion: Teaching your kids self-compassion is invaluable. Having productive self-talk is important because it’s how one heals from challenges. For example, a child that is struggling with their grades at school may spiral with negative thoughts about how incompetent they are. The goal is not to love a bad grade but to be able to recover from it without tearing down your self-worth. Children, like adults are not the sum of their grades, experiences, or behaviors, it’s how you recover from what happens to you. Self-compassion heals shame and guilt, practice and practice often. Parents need to do this too.

Separate behaviors from emotions: All emotions are accepted but not every reaction to an emotion is. It’s okay to feel mad, but it’s not okay to punch in a wall. A child needs to know that the action might have been a poor choice, but they are not bad. If that was the case, we’d all be bad people because we have all made poor choices in our lives-although some are worse than others!

Treat the emotion, enforce the consequence: Continuing with the example above where the angry child punched in a wall. How many times have you as a parent punished your child by taking something away for the behavior which in this case is punching in a wall? How many times after punishing a child for a behavior do they do it again but maybe this time throwing something? Punishing the behavior does not solve the problem. In this case the child is struggling with anger and is lacking the skill to regulate it. It’s much more beneficial for the long-term gain to develop the skill. This can come with a clear-cut consequence aimed at self-growth. I have my kids write out what they did and come up with other choices for the next time they feel that way. It’s a great way to help with skill development and gives them a consequence aimed at self-growth they don’t want to do!

There is nothing wrong with wanting to provide children with the best childhood possible. For many, the best childhood possible just needs to be redefined without perfection which leaves no room for skill development and self-growth. Imagine an imperfect childhood where people learn to validate, sit with emotions, accept emotions, and develop skills to handle challenges. Imagine a life where your decisions are not led by avoidance or fear but rather values. This is the zone where one truly learns to live authentically. If you can help your children learn to live in this zone, you’ve given them something that is worth more than any “perfect” life could!

Call A Little Counseling if your family needs help on the imperfect journey!