No parent is perfect — and that’s for the best, according to child psychologist Becky Kennedy.
When parents make mistakes, and then make an effort to repair those missteps, they teach their kids important lessons about maturity and bonding, Kennedy told comedian Trevor Noah’s “What Now?” podcast in a Dec. 4 episode. Those lessons can help kids maintain happy and healthy relationships going forward, she said.
“We learn the most in our relationships when people take responsibility for their behavior, when people repair,” said Kennedy, a Columbia University-trained child psychologist, host of the parenting podcast “Good Inside” and a mother of three children herself. “I wouldn’t want to deprive my kids of that opportunity, and that’s such [an important] part of healthy relationships.”
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Repairing a mistake or a rift is the best way to get closer to another person, Kennedy said, calling it “the ultimate relationship strategy.” In parenting, those repairs can strengthen the parent-child bond and give your child a model for how to own up to their own mistakes, said Kennedy. They can teach kids that it’s natural to make mistakes, and how you respond to them matters.
