Have you ever caught yourself making a mistake and said aloud to no one in particular (except yourself), “Don’t be so stupid, Katie!” I know that I have. It just comes so naturally. Make a mistake: chastise yourself for it. Right now you might be thinking, “That’s dumb. Everyone makes mistakes.” Indeed, we all do.

My brother is an expert at this self-admonishment. If he makes a mistake that he feels ashamed of, he’ll smack his palm against his forehead, berate himself no less than 15 times and have some trouble moving on from the site of his mistake. Maybe he has heard other people (including me) do this to ourselves often enough that he’s picked up the habit too. I would argue that this isn’t a really useful way of solving problems or of making yourself feel capable of solving problems. So how should we change this “Doh!” attitude?

#1

Difficult as it may seem, we first need to police ourselves and how we narrate our own mistakes. If our kids hear us berating ourselves for doing something wrong, then they’ll think that that’s the usual response to forgetting to pack a snack or going in the out door.

#2

Try to replace your usual sarcastic, “Nice one, Katie,” with something a little more forgiving. When trying to bring my brother back from the edge of “I’m so stupid,” he can sometimes reframe his thinking into the much nicer, “It happens to everyone.” Having another phrase at the ready for those knee-jerk face palms can help you say something that you’d like your kids to hear you say to yourself.

#3

When you do make a mistake that affects someone else, apologize and move on. Whenever my patience gets short with kids and consequently, so do my words, I almost always try to apologize to them for my infraction. It’s up to them to forgive me, but I try to forgive myself after the incident. I try not to dwell or let any feelings of guilt affect how I treat them immediately after.

The same is true of kids apologizing for something they’ve done. Once they’ve apologized for whining or yelling at me, I work to forgive them and move on from it. I don’t want them to feel that they have to carry it around and show me that they feel badly for whatever they’ve done by calling themselves names. We don’t want them to do it to others, so why would we want them to do it to themselves?

Remember, it’s ok to be wrong & being kind to ourselves is an important example to show our kids.