When We Feel like We've Failed as Parents

We’ve talked a lot about safety for kids lately. We’ve mentioned outdoors safety, water safety, dehydration and nutrition deficiency prevention…but what about the things that are out of our control? What about when we feel like we’ve failed? As much as we’d like to keep our kids in a plastic bubble of protection their entire lives, we can’t, and kids get hurt. Kids get sick. Kids fall off of things or get hit in the head with a baseball. Or in some cases, kids shoot BB guns at each other until one gets shot in the eye only to have the BB slide into his cornea and behind his eyeball, unattainable, and he now beeps when he walks through airports (this really happened to my childhood neighbor when we were in fifth grade). So, that being said, what do we do about it when we feel like we’ve FAILED and our kid gets hurt?

Forgive ourselves.

And learn, of course.

But forgive. Because you can’t learn, you can’t attend to your child, and you can’t move on until you forgive yourself.

The Fear

Look, if you’re a parent that worries that you’re not good enough or you’re failing your child…jump on in, the water’s fine and it’s CROWDED. Because every parent is right there with you. It’s every parent’s worst fear. It is the innate instinct of a parent to guard and protect their little one, as it should be. We were designed that way. But we can’t let the idea into our heads that we can participate every accident or mistake. That is why we must remember to do what we can to prevent harm from befalling our children, as well as understand that sometimes, things happen. No parent wants to fail a child. More importantly, no parent wants to lose a child. And it’s that fear of loss that can cause us to fear so many things. However, most of the things we worry about never come true, and most of the things that happen are out of our control—and accidents happen.

The Reality

The fact of the matter is, kids are susceptible to illness and injury. Childhood itself can be brutal—a series of dodging bullets and bobbing and weaving all around. Which is good, because adulthood is much the same way. Measles, chicken pox, flu, croup, RSV, mono, strep, falling off bikes, falling out of trees, falling down stairs, getting bucked off a horse, getting bitten by a dog, broken bones, torn ACL’s—all of these things we are constantly dodging during our childhood. Frankly, I don’t know how half of us made it out alive. But these things are normal. They’re a part of childhood, and they’re what make our bodies stronger and ready to handle the stress and situations we run into in adulthood. So when these things happen, what do we do?

The Perspective

Not dealing with guilt can be super harmful. That’s why it is important to learn how to deal with guilt when we do feel like we’ve failed. A good model to help with this is called face it, trace it, erase it.

Face it - Understand that they are called accidents for a reason. If you were part of the cause of the accident, accept that. Forgive yourself for whatever part you may have had in the injury.

Trace it - Sometimes knowing the reasoning behind an accident can help us work through it. For instance, if your child was injured by a toy or piece of equipment, you can look into whether or not the object was defective, or how to prevent it in the future.

Erase it - Let go of the blame. It doesn’t help the situation. Carrying guilt around can prevent you from being a good advocate. Letting go doesn’t mean you don’t care. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Letting go clears the way for more productive responses and for positive emotions.

Focus on helping your child now

The best way to help get over the guilt is to think about what you can do for your child right now. How can you help her recover? What is his favorite comfort meal? How can you provide the best medical care for him/her? How can you make sure they feel safe and loved? Once you start tackling these issues, you can better overcome the guilt that you might feel while your child recovers. And remember, children are the best forgivers. If they can forgive, you can too.