When you have children, it is very easy to expect too much from yourself. Stay calm. Be patient. Always know what to say. Never lose your temper. Never get it wrong. The longer I am a father, the less I believe in that kind of parent. I think much more about something else now: what a child feels next to us, especially when the day has not gone well.
Children Do Not Always Need Perfect Parents
I have three children. And the longer I am a father, the less I want to tell anyone how children should be raised. Every family has its own personalities, difficult moments and rules. But there are things I have started to understand better through my own experience.
Sometimes it matters more to come back to your child after a mistake than to avoid every mistake
Sometimes a child asks you something when you are busy, tired or thinking about something else. You answer more briefly than you wanted to. Sometimes more sharply. Then a little later you realise that whatever you were doing was not nearly as important as it felt in that moment.
Especially when there is so much advice about the “right” way to raise children
Today you can find hundreds of recommendations. How to talk to a child. How to set boundaries. How to respond to emotions. How to support without doing harm.
Some of that is genuinely useful. But after reading enough of it, you can start to feel that a good parent should remain calm twenty-four hours a day.
Real family life is simpler and messier. Someone did not sleep well. Someone is in a hurry. There is school. There is work. Someone is upset. Someone wants attention exactly when you have almost none left to give.
So I ask myself less often, “Am I behaving like the right kind of parent?” and more often, “Am I losing connection with my child right now because I am tired, irritated or too focused on proving that I am right?”
Not four rules for parenting, but four questions I ask myself
I am not trying to turn this into a method. These are simply questions I come back to myself.
Not only with a good grade or good news. Also after making a mistake, getting into an argument or knowing that I may not like what they have done.
I also have the urge to explain immediately what should have been done differently. But sometimes the child has not even finished telling me what happened.
When everyone is emotional, a normal conversation may not be possible straight away. What matters to me is not leaving it unresolved simply because a few hours have passed.
I can disagree, say no or be unhappy about something they did. But love should not become something a child has to earn again every time.
But I do not see that as losing authority as a parent
If I say something too sharply, I can still be right about the issue and wrong about the way I said it.
Then I have a choice. I can act as if being the father automatically makes me right. Or I can go back and say normally, “I went too far. I should have said that differently.”
The rule does not disappear because of that. But the child sees that adults are also responsible for their words.
Sometimes agreeing is the easiest way to avoid a conflict
But a family cannot work like that either.
Some things are allowed and some are not. There are agreements. There is respect for other people in the family. There is responsibility for your actions.
A child may be unhappy with my decision. That is normal. I was not happy with every decision my parents made either.
What matters to me is something else: not humiliating the child, not turning them into the enemy and not making every disagreement a fight over who has more power.
What works with one child may not work at all with another
One child tells you straight away what happened. Another needs time first. One responds well to a direct question. Another shuts down after the second question.
I had to accept something simple: there is no single correct way to talk to every child.
Sometimes you need to explain. Sometimes stay quiet. Sometimes give them time. Sometimes be the one who goes to them first.
I do not always get it right. But I try to look not only at what the child did, but at which child is standing in front of me right now.
For me, one of the hardest parts of parenting is not raising “children in general”, but seeing each of my children as a separate person.
What worries me more is when a child decides after an argument: next time I will say nothing
Especially as children get older. They already have their own opinions, friends and decisions. Naturally, we are not always going to agree.
Disagreement itself worries me less than the silence that may come after it.
A child can stop sharing things not because there is nothing to say, but because they already expect not to be heard or to get a lecture immediately.
That is why it matters to me that after an unpleasant conversation there is still a way back to normal communication.
There is little point in showing them a picture where parents never get tired and never get things wrong
They notice more than we sometimes think.
They see how we speak to each other. How we react to problems. What we do when we are angry. Whether we can apologise. Whether we can admit that we do not know something.
So it matters more to me not to look perfect, but to show in my own behaviour what I ask from my children.
If I want them to admit mistakes, I also have to be able to do it.
I want them to be able to come to me not only when they have done everything right
When children are small, you know almost everything about where they are, who they are with and what is happening in their lives.
Later, their world becomes bigger. They have their own friends, decisions and things they may not want to talk about immediately.
I will not be able to control everything. And I do not want our relationship to be built only on control.
What matters more to me is that in a difficult situation my child thinks not, “I just hope my parents never find out,” but, “I need to talk to them, even if the conversation is uncomfortable.”
For me, that is probably one of the clearest signs of trust.
Not because our parents were always right
I simply understand the situation better now.
You love your child. You worry. You do not know what life will look like five years from now. You do not have a ready-made instruction manual. And you still have to make decisions today.
That does not excuse every mistake parents make. But it definitely gives you another way to look at them.
What matters more to me is keeping a real connection with my children
I will still say the wrong thing sometimes. I will not always understand immediately. Sometimes I will be too strict. Sometimes perhaps the opposite.
I do not know a way to avoid all of that.
But I can notice it. Come back. Talk. Admit when I was wrong. And try to do better next time.
I think children sometimes need that from us more than they need an image of parents who never make mistakes.
Family life is built in ordinary days, not only in big moments
For me, family is also about the small things we do every day: being present, helping each other and staying connected when everyone is tired or busy.