Five Things You Can Do When Your Child Messes Up

It is inevitable, you know.  Those precious babies melt your heart and then… one day, they break it.

DISCLAIMER:  I am an empty-nester, and I was by no means a perfect parent. This isn’t a blog about one of my children or grandchildren.  It is a reflection on the times that my perfectly imperfect children messed up, and the conclusions I have come to as I look back on my years of parenting.

I have four children.  Two boys and two girls, each one very different from the other.  Same DNA from their parents, no drastic differences in their adolescent years, yet distinctively different in personality and perspective of our family unit.  While birth order and gender differences account for some of the distinctions, they also account for some of the shared similarities. (i.e. common memories, shared experiences and even family jokes that only we would understand!)

Two siblings (one…