Giving Respectful Parents Permission to Fail Sometimes (How Control of Error is Actually Needed)

Following my post how positive parenting is for every family, which I shared after I had some questions following Respectful Parenting Tips and Tricks for a More Peaceful Home, I wanted to talk about the next question or argument I know a lot of people have.

Doesn't respectful parenting and the growth required to do it well, put too much pressure on parents to be perfect, to expend even more energy parenting causing more burn out? 
Won't this type of thinking contribute to even more overwhelm and guilt?

And to that I answer, yes, it absolutely can.

It definitely has for me in the past (and will again, in the future.)

A homily given recently by Father Mike Schmitz on how failure is feedback is what helped me find some peace.

Not Proving We Are Incompatible with Respectful Parenting

Our children are counting on us.

Day in, day out, our children are always counting on us, and it's true that the gravity of that reality, the pressure of our role as parents can be exhausting, overwhelming, or feel too big, as it is.

As is the case for absolutely any role we have, there is a large margin for growth in parenting in general, and definitely for those striving to be respectful parents.

Maybe respectful parenting comes super naturally to some people.

But I think for a lot of us, it requires a shift from how we were raised, from misconceptions we have, from resentment and disconnection that have already filtered into our parenting.

Add to this the personal struggles we encounter, the marital problems, the stresses of work, finances, physical sickness, mental health, childhood trauma, and all the other things we have to face as parents and adults, and there are definitely times when we feel we are performing at less than our best.

Whatever it is you need to grow through in order to become the best person and parent you can be I think we need to be realistic about what growth looks like, in general.

I know I have had to be.

Learning to control my temper has been the biggest area of growth for me, and it has definitely not been a smooth, steady incline.

There have been times when I have made huge strides in controlling my temper. Maybe even times when I have felt like I had figured out how to avoid it, or conquered it.

But then something happens (like my husband gets a new job, spending half the time away from us, and I struggle hard with feelings of depression while being pregnant and wanting more than anything to sell our home and move to our new city) and that temper struggle is real all over again.

And I can tell myself things like you're failing. You are a hypocrite as a respectful parent. You haven't learned anything that stuck.

Or I can realize that to fail sometimes is an integral part of growth, that there is no steady incline when it comes to this journey of personal healing.

When we fail, when we take that typical two steps forward, one step back in our growth as parents, we are definitely not proving that we are incompatible with respectful parenting - we are merely proving that, like all human beings when we strive for growth, we are bound to make mistakes, and inevitably lose our footing at times.

As Father Mike Schimtz said, we have permission to fail. But when people are counting on us (as we know our children are) we do not have permission to give up.

Failure as Control of Error

In fact, I have talked before, specifically, about the importance of the Control of Error in our growth as parents. The control of error is an essential part of all Montessori materials as it helps children to see their mistakes and self-correct.

I have found that the control of error is also essential to character formation.

As Maria Montessori says:

If we seek perfection, we must pay attention to our own defects, for it is only by correcting these that we can improve ourselves. [...] Mistakes, to us, have a particular importance, and to correct or eliminate them, we have first of all to know them. [ Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind ]

Some of my biggest moments of growth have come after I have made a huge mistake or done something that could be perceived as a failure. It is these moments of regression or failure that really clearly illuminate something we need to improve, correct or eliminate. It is entirely possible that, without that failure, we never would have experienced that growth at all.

To know our faults is to know what we need to work on. And if we are seeking to be the best parents we can be, if this ideal for us is respectful parenting, we are going to need to stare at our defects, get comfortable reflecting on moments of weakness and failure, and use these to propel us forward.

And, of course, every mistake we make is a valuable opportunity to model for our children what it is to own up to mistakes, apologize when necessary, and engage in real, healthy social relationships.


As always, thank you so much for reading! For more posts on growing as a parent: Model | Becoming a Positive Parent | Why We Need Errors to Grow






If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me. And if you are interested in following along in our daily adventures, follow us on Instagram where I post daily.

God bless,
Olivia Fischer