MAKING PEACE WITH PARENTING MISTAKES

How to forgive yourself for the past and build a better relationship with your adult children going forward

From the moment they sniff their tiny, milky heads, many mothers will swear to do everything in their power to protect their precious babies and not repeat the mistakes they believe their own parents made. But as life continues and you spend the next 20+ years trying to steer them in the right direction, challenges inevitably arise that can pull the rug out from under even the most confident of parents.

Whether we were too strict, too open, too distracted, too emotional or too dysfunctional, few parents emerge from parenthood without enduring some level of wrath from their adult children.

“Most parents start their parenting adventure with the goals to love and protect their children, and to parent better or more effectively than their own parents did,” says psychologist Donna Cameron.

“If you were to live in a bubble with everything in your control, your parenting journey may go perfectly, but in the real world, with so many unknowns and stressors in life, there is a very high possibility that you are going to go off script or even get it wrong sometimes.”

So how can we make these conversations more helpful than hurtful, so you can both move on to a positive next chapter?

THE POWER OF ACCEPTANCE