No, my kids aren’t perfect. Are yours?

I’ll admit it, my kids aren’t perfect!  It’s so easy to talk about their strengths and brag about their achievements because that’s what we do as parents.  But what about when your kids misbehave, lie, cheat, and steal?  Do we go around talking about that or do we just sweep it under the rug and hope that no one will find out?

I don’t want to go into all of the details because this blog is not my place to embarrass or humiliate my children (after all, one day hopefully they will read some of this) but I want to acknowledge that my children aren’t perfect.  This has been a challenging week as a parent.  My son got caught cheating.  He is a very competitive academic and puts a lot of pressure on himself to do good.  When things don’t go as he thinks they should he gets very angry and doesn’t know how to react properly.  He’s always been sensitive and tends to over-react when he gets angry, that’s nothing new.  I’ll take full blame on the sensitivity issues because I tend to over-react myself (although none of my friends ever see that side of me).  He ended up receiving a punishment that I think will discourage him from cheating again so hopefully the incident will have a positive influence on him.

Then tonight my 2 year old got her first lesson in lying.  She damaged something in my room tonight and instead of admitting that she did it she blamed her brother.  Two year old’s aren’t the best liars so I had a feeling she was lying to me but I couldn’t guarantee it.  She was upset when I punished her and gave me her dramatic tears.  I asked her one more time if she lied to me and finally before bedtime she admitted that she ‘did it.’

I think I was harder on my son at this age because I knew I was teaching him a lesson.  With her, she’s our baby and our little princess who can do no wrong.  With 6 years between them it’s amazing how different our parenting strategies are with them.

Why is it harder to talk about their weaknesses and failures than it is to talk about their achievements?  I feel like I could have written a post 10X longer and more well spoken than this if I was bragging about his mad math skills.  Instead I’m admitting that my children lie and cheat!  They aren’t perfect!

Are yours?