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Health & Fitness

Why Our Children Embarrass Us

Do your children ever embarrass you? This week's blog post gives you some personal insight and some ideas about what to do the next time...

My mom likes to remind me, and remind me often that, "God has a sense of humor" when it comes to raising children. Just when you think you have it all figured out and you start with your 'I am the best parent ever'-swagger....

They go and screw it all up.

They put their brother in the emergency room with stitches, they pee on the floor in Macy's, they bring home a 'D', get arrested or have a complete meltdown at the park...

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In front of everyone.

Apparently, from what I can tell, there's really not a thing you can do to escape this phenomenon.

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I can remember a day last spring, as we were walking to the car after school my oldest two started fighting over my new iPhone (I had just given it to one of them to look at. I know, what was I thinking?). There was not just shouting and screaming, but a punch was thrown and a full-on kick to the stomach took one of my sons to the ground.

In front of, yes, everyone.

Meanwhile, my youngest (Asher-3), feeling the excitement and tension in the air, hauled off and punched a second grader in the gut.

"My Gosh. Can this get any worse?"

Oh. yes. It can.

Now I could have tried to minimize this whole event and assured, what felt like, hundreds of witnesses that my boys rarely, rarely fight and that this was one of the most bizarre scenes I'd ever witnessed between the two of them. But remember, God has a sense of humor, and on this day, this parenting instructor (who had just finished a parenting series at that very same school not a week before) was just supposed to be the poster child for His 'lighten up people, you're raising kids' campaign.

My children have knocked over shopping carts and entire product displays in Wegmans - once a stand-alone display of potato peelers in the produce section went flying - peelers everywhere. Another time, a pyramid of paper towels.

If fact, we have made such 'impressions' in the grocery store apparently that I've had strangers approach me and say they actually recognize me from Wegmans. I smile and resist the urge to ask the clarifying question 'Sooo....what is it about me exactly that you recognize...?'

When Asher was two I couldn't keep his clothes on at Nic's baseball games; he'd run off and come back buck-naked. This continued the entire season.

My oldest was the first child to have the honors of sitting in the 'bad seat' on the bus his first year of school and my third son has had complete meltdowns while trying to leave McDonald's playgrounds.

Just recently a trip to a hair salon was more like a roving circus with one child wiggling and making funny faces through the entire hair cut, another spinning on a chair, and yet another playing with shampoo bottles.

Do I feel embarrassed. Knocked down a few pegs. Mortified. Highly annoyed and irritated. Like crawling under a rock with a glass of wine and emerging years later.

Of course!

Do I try to assure myself 'these are the exceptions; this too shall pass'.

I try. I wish they'd always sit still and be perfect. I would like to make it through Wegmans every time without incident. I would like to say my kids never fight.

But they do. And they will.

They're not perfect. And neither am I.

So I smile, shake my head....

And look forward to passing on my mother's words of wisdom to them someday.

_______________________________________________

Parents:

I'm often so busy reminding myself that it's OK that I'm not perfect, that I forget to apply the same rule to my children. Your kids are just figuring life out. They're supposed to make mistakes along the way. We, as adults, have our moments. Don't forget, so will your kids.

Be careful not to attach your self-worth to your children's behavior. When we do and our children mess-up, their mistake become a reflexion of ourselves and we over-react. 

When you find yourself in an embarrassing situation, control your behavior. Don't make matters worse. And for goodness sake - don't make a scene. That will most definitely escalate the situation and your embarrassment.

Most importantly - remind yourself that everyone's thinking 'thank God that's not my child' and watching to see how you are going to respond. So keep your cool, smile and show the world - 'Big deal. I have kids'.

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