What I Wish My Parents Did When I Was Little: Practical Parenting Tips For Everyday Moments
Last Saturday I was folding bath towels on the couch when my 8-year-old, Lila, burst into the living room, crumpling a lopsided friendship bracelet in her fist and sucking in big, wobbly breaths. She’d been working on it for an hour, waiting for her best friend’s birthday party this weekend, and one wrong knot had pulled the whole thing out of shape.
As I wiped her cheek with the hem of my sweatshirt, I was 8 again, sitting at our chipped linoleum kitchen table, staring at a lumpy potholder I’d woven for my mom for Mother’s Day. I’d dropped it, and one whole side had come undone. I remember crying, and my mom leaning over, kissing the top of my head, and saying “It’s okay, honey, I’ll fix it for you.” Ten minutes later, she handed me a perfectly straight, even potholder to wrap up. It was beautiful, but it wasn’t mine.
My parents were good parents. They showed up to every soccer game, packed my lunch every day, saved up for summer camp and new backpacks and braces for my teeth. I don’t have any big, dramatic scars from my childhood. But as I’ve gotten older and had a kid of my own, I’ve started noticing all these small gaps, little things I wish they’d done differently, that didn’t feel like a big deal at the time but shaped how I show up for Lila now.
After I sat Lila down on my lap, I didn’t reach for the bracelet to fix it for her. I just said, “Working that hard for an hour and having it mess up is so frustrating. That sucks a lot.” She nodded, still sniffling, and I asked her what she wanted to do next: did she want me to help her figure out the knot, did she want to start over, or did she want to forget the bracelet and make a drawing instead? She thought for a minute, wiped her nose on her sleeve, and said she wanted to try again. I sat next to her on the floor, handed her new embroidery floss when she asked for it, and didn’t say a word when her second try was still lopsided. She wrapped it up in a sparkly bag anyway, and was so proud she could barely sleep.
That’s the first thing I wish my parents did: let me sit with my messy, small negative feelings instead of rushing to fix the problem for me. When I messed up, their go-to was to step in and make it perfect, because they didn’t like seeing me upset. But what I learned later is that getting to be upset about a mistake, and then choosing what to do about it next, is how you build confidence. I don’t mean letting a kid throw a huge tantrum over nothing, or ignoring them when they need help. It’s just small shifts: instead of saying “it’s fine, don’t cry,” you say “that does hurt, I get why you’re sad.” Instead of grabbing the bike to fix the chain when they fall, you wait and ask if they want help before you step in. It takes less effort than you think, it just means slowing down for 30 seconds instead of jumping into fix-it mode.
A month ago, Lila brought home a B on her math quiz. She’d failed the last two quizzes on fractions, and had been doing extra practice sheets after dinner every night for two weeks. She held the paper out to me, grinning, and I remembered when I was 12, bringing home a B on a biology test I’d studied my butt off for. I’d gotten Ds on the last two, and I was so proud of that B. My dad looked at it, nodded, and said “Nice work. Next time aim for an A.” My grin fell off my face so fast I don’t think he even noticed. That B was the biggest win I’d had in months, but it didn’t count because it wasn’t the top grade.
That’s the second thing: I wish they’d celebrated the small steps of progress, not just the big end results. Now, when Lila brings home work, I don’t just look at the letter grade. I ask her what she’s most proud of, and I point out the work I saw her put in. If she gets a C+ but got all the words right she struggled with last week, I say that out loud. It doesn’t mean I never encourage her to do better, it just means the effort counts as much as the final grade. I still remember how good it felt when I got that B, and how fast that good feeling went away. I don’t want that for Lila.
The third thing is letting me quit things that don’t fit me, even when someone already put time or money into it. When I was 10, my parents signed me up for piano lessons. I tried it for six months, and I hated every minute of it. I hated practicing every day after school, I hated recitals, I’d rather have been drawing in my room. I told my mom I wanted to quit, and she said “We paid for a full year of lessons, you’re not wasting that money. You have to finish the year.” I finished the year, I never touched a piano again after that, and I spent that whole year drawing less and resenting piano more. Now we have a simple rule in our house: you try any new activity for two months, to give it a real shot. After that, if you still hate it, you can quit. No guilt, no arguing about the money. Last year Lila quit gymnastics after three months to take art classes, and now she comes home every week with a new painting to tape to the fridge. If we’d made her finish the year, she’d have missed out on something she actually loves.
I don’t do this perfectly. Sometimes I still catch myself jumping to fix Lila’s puzzle when she’s struggling, or asking when she’ll get an A after she brings home a good but not perfect grade. I know my parents were doing the best they could with what they knew when they raised me, and I’ll probably have my own things Lila will wish I’d done differently when she’s my age. Right now, though, all I can do is keep those small old memories in mind, and slow down when I’m tempted to rush through the messy parts. That’s enough, for now.
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