It was one of those mornings…everyone was just a little on edge, a little cranky, and the littlest thing could cause a huge explosion. I had woken up late, feeling dizzy, my son had no clean pants, I couldn’t find the water bottle… you know those days!
When my son missed the bus, I was really frustrated…it really wasn’t his fault, even though I had told him 10 minutes ago to get his shoes on! The bus was earlier than usual, plus I hadn’t even finished making his lunch since I was moving verrryy slowly, dealing with some strange bout of vertigo. But, I must admit that I got frustrated and blamed him, setting off a chain of reactions that, to put it mildly, were not pleasant on his or my part. But, it was time to go to school…
When I later picked him up early to go to his Hebrew tutor, he needed to run into the house to get a book and spent 7-8 minutes looking for it, making him late for the tutor. Again, my frustration showed...and I didn’t win the award of calm and patient Mom!
Later that evening, after the younger kids had gone to sleep, I approached him, apologized for my shortness during the day, and told him I was just not feeling well in the morning and I was sorry. He took it well and was incredibly affectionate and calm the rest of the evening. In fact, he was more affectionate than usual, and kept coming over and hugging me and talking to me throughout the evening.
Do we all make mistakes as parents? Of course! It’s built into the system that we are going to make mistakes, and that our children need to experience our mistakes. Didn’t Adam and Chava make a mistake in their first hour in life, didn’t Am Yisrael sin with the Golden Calf right after Har Sinai, didn’t all great people in Tanach make mistakes? Why do we think we are any better?
Even further, I believe that it is the mistakes that make both us and our children greater. We learn from our mistakes, and try to do differently next time. A person who does teshuva is in a totally different place from the person who never made the mistake; when you are aware of and regret your mistake, and are really thinking of ways to change, this thought process enables you to learn new things about yourself, and come up with new ways to stretch yourself and grow that you might not have never done if you hadn't made those mistakes.
And our children actually benefit from our mistakes as well, if they are acknowledged and repaired on the right way. First of all, they see that we are human and make mistakes, and therefore, it is okay for them to make mistakes as well. Additionally, when we make a mistake and then repair it by connecting with them, they actually feel closer to us, because they realize that we want the connection with them. As I saw with my son, it's never too late to apologize and repair a rupture in the relationship: and in fact, it can help the relationship be even greater than before.