How to Let Go and Say Sorry to Kids After a Bad Morning

The skill of genuinely saying sorry to your kids after a bad morning (or afternoon/evening) is so important!

We all have those days we aren’t proud of.  Those days where everyone is stressed, in a hurry, and can’t find their things.

I respond poorly, then they respond poorly. I wonder… “where do they get the nasty attitude from?” (Um HELLO….They learn by watching you!) Then I respond poorly AGAIN!

We just had one of those….I spent so much time after the kids went to school feeling awful.  Feeling like a bad mom AGAIN.  I realized all those negative thoughts were NOT productive. I came up with a few major takeaways. Now, I don’t need to stay stuck there so long next time.  I want the same for you too!

 I will share my story from this particular morning. Feel free to skip ahead to the Key Takeaways!

Bad Morning Story…..

It was supposed to be an exciting dress up day at school. Their catholic school was having a fundraiser, and all the students had worked really hard to raise money. They reached their first goal!  M&M day! Dress up as anything starting with “m”.

My youngest decided to be a mummy.

We didn’t have a mummy costume and live out of town.  I found some first aid kit bandages to use as mummy wrap. We tried it out the day before. It wasn’t anything fancy. We were able to wrap up his arms, torso, and a small part of his head. It was looking pretty good. He was so excited!

Fast forward to this morning, time to wrap him up after breakfast. I didn’t realize that he had taken the wrap off himself the day before. It had gotten all stuck together. (It was the non reusable kind of bandage roll).

The first alarm on my phone rang. It let us know that the bus would be here in 5 minutes. This increased the stress level.

The other 2 kids each were either having trouble finding a book or getting their shoes on.  I told my son in a calm, stern voice to make sure to ask me for help. He should ask for help with taking his costume off. This way, we could roll it up nicely. Now it was going to be hard to put his bandage wraps on as we had planned. They were all stuck together.

I kept repeating that to him over and over. I felt bad that I had not caught that it was all stuck together the night before. My son’s face drooped. He was very disappointed that his costume wasn’t going to turn out like he had planned.

He said he wanted to take it off. I encouraged him to leave it on. After a class picture in school, then he could take it off if he wanted.

The bus stopped at the driveway. I gave him a quick hug and said I hoped he would have a good day. He trudged slowly down the driveway to the bus. He was disappointed because his first dress up day as a kindergartner was a bust.

I felt awful. I know kids are going to have disappointments in life and need to overcome and learn from it. I also know my repeatedly pointing out what he should’ve done differently in that moment didn’t help anything.

I went to work and had trouble not thinking about the whole situation.  After a while, I realized that beating myself up for my own mistakes was not productive. Trying to correct his mistakes over and over wasn’t either.

We are both human and make mistakes. The best thing I could do was apologize and talk about how we can both do better next time. I decided to get him excited about making a mummy costume out of old white shirts. Halloween was coming up in a few weeks!

Excited to make amends, I got ready to go pick up the kids from school.  I drive up and I see my first and my second but no sign of my youngest son.

My daughter went inside to see if he was still there. She was sure he didn’t ride the bus home.

Sure enough, she came out with her arm around my youngest son crying. As he got up to the car, I asked him what was wrong. He said that people made fun of him because his mummy costume didn’t look good.

I gave him a big hug and apologized for the stressful morning. Then I told him my idea that I thought of while he was gone.  His spirits lifted and I felt much better after apologizing.

Key Takeaways

It’s so easy to get caught up in wanting to teach our kids in the moment. Those high stress situations aren’t the best time to do that.

Of course we will screw up (welcome to being human)! The main thing is making amends and focusing on positive changes next time.

I don’t want my kids to leave for school starting the day on a bad note. I want to teach them to be respectful, responsible, hardworking, and loving kids.

It’s much easier for them to learn all of these things when they are feeling loved and encouraged by me.  Not harped on for making an simple mistake.

So mamas, let’s all do our best to learn from and let go of our honest mistakes. And also be willing to do the same for our kids that are still developing so much.

The thing they need the most from us is our unconditional love.  Because we all learn best when we are feeling our best.

Let me know how these tips for letting go and saying sorry to your kids after a bad morning go!