Been thinking a lot about this lately. I tell my kids to be honest and truthful but then I caught myself lying to my boss about why I was late to work. My 8 year old was in the car. Felt absolutely sick about it. How do you guys handle those moments when you mess up in front of your kids? I want to teach them Christ-like character but I'm failing at it constantly.
Leading by example is harder than it sounds because the stakes feel way higher. If I mess up now it's like everything I've taught them gets questioned. How do you bounce back from that with your kids?
Yeah this is the real struggle. It's way easier to tell your kids to be honest than to actually live it when nobody's watching. What was the situation where you got caught?
Being honest about your own failures with your kids is probably the most powerful thing you can do. Shows them that being a good person isn't about being perfect.
This hits hard because I struggle with the same thing. But I think kids actually benefit from seeing their parents try, fail, and try again. It's more real than perfection anyway.
This is the gap that keeps me up at night too. The honesty thing especially. I think kids actually respect parents more when we acknowledge we failed them and try to do better.
We all slip up on this stuff. The fact that you're thinking about it and caught yourself means you're already doing better than most. Kids respect parents who own their mistakes too.
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The gap between what we preach and what we do is something I'm constantly aware of. What happened when you caught yourself? Did you talk to them about it?