For another week in parenting mistakes, meet Beth Sanders. She's not sure why she did that either.
1. I made my 8-year-old feel like a bad person.
I didn’t mean to. I really didn’t. We were just talking about recess when she told me, for the 100th day in a row, that she “ran around with K and A.”
“You have other friends, you know,” I said, off-handedly. I have no Earthly idea why. And when she started listing off the reasons she didn’t play with those friends, I started giving her tips for asking kids to play with her instead of letting her regulate her own friendships like I usually do.
She burst into tears and told me I made her feel like she wasn’t a good person. She’s never said anything like that before, and it didn’t make me feel like a very good person.
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2. I threw away my daughter’s school project.
Last year’s social studies project was a salt clay map. Last week, when I threw it away, it looked less like our state and more like 100-year-old Play-Doh. About 24 hours after it had left the building—and for the first time ever—my 10-year-old wondered where it was. And now I’m being blamed for everything that’s gone missing. EVER.
3. I blew off my kid’s sore throat.
Two kids plus three rounds of influenza (them and me) plus two rounds of norovirus (them) since January equals I have no sick days left, and the kids have missed too much school. So when my 4th grader told me her throat hurt but had no fever or sniffles, I sent her to school anyway. Two days later, positive strep test.
4. I ate the rest of the Easter candy.
It was to protect their teeth. I mean, they don’t need all that sugar, right?
5. I broke my own rules … and got called on it every time.
No technology at the table, no fast food dinners, floss your teeth five nights out of seven. I made the rules, then got called out by my kids when I broke them.
6. I didn’t read to my kids once this week.
I’ve got a stack of classics a mile high I want to read with my kids before they grow up, but The Phantom Toolbooth sat gathering dust on the shelf this week. I bribed them with 30 more minutes of playtime (and, who am I kidding? TV time) instead so I could get things done.
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7. I fed them Lunchables from 7-Eleven instead of packing a healthy lunch.
Thursday nights are the worst. We are all worn out from the busy work/school week. There’s always something going on after school, and my husband works late. It literally takes me 10 minutes to pack a healthy lunch that they’ll both eat, but I couldn’t face it. They were delighted to pull into 7-Eleven and pick out their own Lunchables packed with 75 percent of their daily salt content.
