My worst parenting moment
I’ve had my fair share of bad moments or times that I’ve lost my temper with my kiddos. But, I can honestly say that I had my worst parenting moment with my son a few weeks ago. I was stressed out with work, overtired and just having a bad day (all the excuses, right?!). My son had just been pushing and pushing and pushing me that day. I knew my fuse was wearing VERY thin and weak. I should have just put myself on an adult timeout, but I didn’t.
We had just finished an argument and I was literally walking away, and then my son charged at me while my back was turned and flying karate kicked me in the butt. I turned around and lost my shit. I screamed at him with that growl scream that you hope no one ever hears. The kind of scream that lingers and hurts your throat for hours after. I demanded for him to go to his room and he wasn’t moved fast enough for my liking…and I pushed him. I pushed him—hard. I pushed him out of anger and I was seeing red. No surprise, he tripped on our wood floor threshold from our kitchen to our hallway and fell… hard, smacking his face on our wood floor.
It’s like the whole incident happened in slow motion. The minute I put my hands on him, my head was screaming at me “noooooooo!”. My husband came out of the office as this happened, catching the tail end of it. I just looked at him horrified and ashamed at what I had done. I picked up my crying son and carried him to his room. He had a bump under his eye and a swollen lip. F$ck. Seriously, F$ck. The next minutes were so ungodly hard, but I held him as he cried…and I told him how sorry I was. I told him that it was OK to be angry at me, he was angry at at me. Gosh, I was so grateful that he could express that. I told him that I had made a huge mistake and that moms should NEVER push their children. I told him that it was because I pushed him that he got hurt…and that I never would intentionally hurt him. I also promised him that I would never to that again. F$ck.
Talk about a parenting low. I left his room and just balled. I called my mom immediately, as I just needed to talk about my parenting fail (my husband was of course on a Zoom call). I needed to take accountability and talk through it…and get advice.
This was definitely a wake up call for me. I am my son’s safe person, his advocate, his role model…and I failed him on this day. I failed him miserably.
My silver lining + lesson learned from this horrible moment:
I know that when I’m super stressed and pushed to my max, my parenting needs to come from my mouth. This means that when I’m seeing red, I’m hands-at-my-sides, taking deep breaths and just verbalizing what needs to happen. When I’m angry, it’s hands-off parenting. Period.
I vowed to my son that something like this will NEVER happen again. And, it won’t.