Good Job Falling Down

My five year old fell a week ago and broke his ankle.  After two days completely off of it, the orthopedist fit him for a pair of crutches.  Unfortunately, the crutches are a little too big, but they’re the smallest they can find.  At first, when my little kiddo would be off balance, he would try to catch himself with his bad foot, and it would hurt; he was so worried that he would fall.  I remembered reading something about the fear of falling and how this would cause the elderly to tense up when falling and possibly increase risk of injury (read this article here and here for more information).  I took the time to talk with him and remind him that when babies learn to walk, they do a lot of falling down as they figure things out.  At this point, he was going to learn a new way of walking and might have some falling down to do, but that he’s forgotten how to fall down safely.  We talked about how it was okay to fall and not to try to stop himself on the way down (with his bad foot).  We talked about how he would learn more about walking with crutches and eventually get really good at it, just like his little sister did.

For the last week I have praised him when he’s fallen with, “Good job falling down!  You did that perfectly!”  He has taken great pride in how well he’s falling down, and is getting amazingly good with his crutches with falls fewer and farther between.

Sometimes, as parents, we fall down.  We might lose our cool or forget something.  We might overschedule ourselves or say the wrong thing.  Yes, we fell down.  That’s part of learning.  Acknowledge what happened, but don’t compound the mistake.  I love this article by Dr. Joan Simeo Munson.  She shares that none of us are the perfect parent we so desperately want to be, but that it is important to, “Acknowledge that you aren’t perfect, that you may have future tantrums, but that you are human and fallible. Forgive yourself for past indiscretions and move forward with the goal that you will start each day aiming to try your best, forgiving yourself if you weren’t great, and praising yourself when you find you are parenting at your best.”

Just as my five year old is getting better at walking with crutches, with fewer slip ups, I know that as we are kind to ourselves, and forgive ourselves, continuing to learn and do our best, that we, too, will get better at this parenting gig.