Welcome back to become a calm mama. I'm your host. I'm Darlyn

Childress. I'm a life and parenting coach. And on the podcast

today, I'm gonna talk about regret. I'm gonna share with you some

of my parenting regrets as I am

thinking a little bit more about kind of where what what decisions I

made when the boys were younger and where we are now.

And sometimes when I talk about regret, people will

say, like, oh, it doesn't really matter or,

you know, don't spend time doing that. Why? That's not important or don't do

that to yourself. Don't beat yourself up. And I'm gonna

offer to you today that regret is actually

informative and instructive, and it doesn't need to be

destructive. We can use regret

to hurt us, or we can use regret to help us. And a

lot of times, we don't wanna talk about the things that we made a mistake

around because we feel a lot of shame about them, and we're embarrassed.

And we don't really know what to do with those regrets. And if

you can metabolize process the feeling of

regret and use that as fuel to either forgive

yourself and grow deeper in compassion with yourself or to

make action take action steps and make changes

towards new behaviors, then regret can be really useful and

helpful. So I wanna talk to you today about how to use

regret in a way that is positive and is supportive of

you. So that's gonna be really helpful, especially

this episode is coming out on December 26th,

which by the way, shout out, mama day holiday. So I hope you're taking

advantage of your mama day holiday today. I think December 26

is my my belief is that it should be a day of

rest for moms. That's why I call it mama day holiday.

And I always plan a day for myself

after the for me for Christmas time

where I take one day in the middle of that winter break just to

recover because that winter is so hard that like all the

winter holidays and preparing for

guests and presents and going to recitals and

end of the year things. There's parties. There's so much going on that

it can be really easy to burn out, and then you still have all of

winter break. So I like to take a day in the right at the beginning

of that winter break and, like, reset my nervous system. I usually do that on

the 26th, and I call that momaday holiday. So just a reminder, if you're

listening to that, this episode while it comes out, today is momaday

holiday. Now what also happens at the end of the year is

we start talking about next year. Right? We start thinking about our

goals and our resolutions and our

words of the year, like our themes and things like that. And I love

all of that. And next week, I'm gonna talk about, you know, how I'm

gonna do resolutions this year and walk you through that process, which is

fun. But as it is the end of

the year, I was thinking it might be good to do some reflection on sort

of where you're at and invite you into doing

some gentle reflection in maybe noticing

places in your life that you don't think you're doing

great. And that's okay. And I wanna normalize that.

Or mistakes from the past that you might be beating yourself up at, and you're

just like, okay. Who cares? I'm going to the future, and I'm gonna, you know,

just ignore all the mistakes I've made, and I'm gonna push

forward. That's fine. I like that sentiment, but you're

not milking the mistake, milking

the regret for all that it's worth. So we're gonna use

regret today to get more from it. If you're gonna make

a mistake, you might as well learn from it. Right? So the first

thing before we even get into the strategies is I wanna

say that as I started to think about sort of my

parenting regrets, I realized that I had some. Okay?

So, that there were decisions that I made

in the past and things I did as a mom or

with my kids, and I'm gonna go through a few of those with you. But

that I was like, okay. I'm a really

good parent. I'm a parenting coach. I have a lot of information.

I have a lot of privilege. I have a lot of access, and I

still have things that I chose to do

that I don't love. The decisions I made as a parent or

behaviors that I had that in retrospect, I'm like, ugh. You

know? I wish I wouldn't have done it that way.

And I'm gonna talk about how I'm processing that. But I first

just want to say it is normal

that you make mistakes as a mom.

What kind of mistakes am I talking about? It is normal for you to

pick a educational path and then decide that wasn't the right

educational path for your kid. It's normal to make them stay in

a sport and then find out that they, you

know, were getting a chronic injury in that sport and you didn't know. Like,

you're going to make mistakes. You're going to make behavioral

mistakes where you act a certain way. You create disconnection with

your kids. You're going to sometimes say

things the wrong way or say things you wish you hadn't. You're gonna do things

you wish you didn't do. You're gonna take risks that turn out to

be, failures. You're gonna do things where you

don't take a risk or you don't push your kid hard enough, and that's

gonna end up being what it is. You cannot

do motherhood perfect. It's

impossible. Because in a lot of

these situations with our kids, we're in a moment where we're

deciding based on a future we don't know.

You don't know the future. You don't have a crystal ball. And so you

make the best decision you can at the time

that you have to make that decision. So

you sometimes you make decisions in the short term, like,

should I give my kid, this lollipop or should I, you know, whatever it

is, you give them you give in because that helps you in

the short term and it hurts, maybe hurts your kid in the long term.

Or sometimes you do things in the long term that are hard in the short

term. So we always make these decisions

with either whatever kind of capacity we have, whatever capacity we have, whatever we're

working on. Say my kid seems to be struggling socially, so

I focus on their social development. And then at the same time, I'm not

focused on their academic development. I'm choosing one thing

over the other. I'm choosing, you know, teaching a skill in the short

term that maybe has a long term effect. All that to say is

that's going to happen. That's normal. You're not going to be able to do

everything perfect, nor do you want to.

Because part of what I'm talking about is when you make the mistake,

you learn from that mistake and you grow and change.

One of my parenting manifestos is that

parenting is my opportunity for growth. So

I wanna use these experiences to learn about myself and learn about my

kids and learn about the world and how it works and how my

values are. And you you know, I'm defining my values in real

time with my kids. And I'm going to sometimes be

shortsighted or make mistakes. So I just want you to

know that that's normal. It's gonna happen. You're gonna get to the end of the

line and be like, wow. I should have done better at sleep training. Or one

thing I was this is a simple one that I'm not even gonna talk about,

but I didn't focus on having my

kids make their beds. I would, like,

create a boundary around it, create a limit, create a routine. But for

whatever reason, which I do understand the reasons, I wasn't able to

completely commit to my value around

having their beds made. And now to this day, they don't

make their beds. Okay? And I regret it. I

regret not making that a bigger deal. But, like, I did make brushing their

teeth a big deal. They both brush their teeth. I did make showering. Right? They

they I also made keeping their room clean a

priority, and their rooms are clean now. They both keep their room really clean even

in college. But they don't make their bed. Isn't that funny?

And so I kinda was like, oh, man. That was a missed opportunity. I

didn't take action. I didn't do it. But then when I think about

it, I was really overwhelmed in the mornings and I

really did not have bandwidth to manage that bit.

And so it I would like, okay. This is the year I'm gonna make them

make their bed and I would like commit. And then like 3 weeks later, I

would give up on it. And I can forgive myself for

that. I can just be like, well, I guess they didn't have it in me.

Right? So there's gonna be things that you don't focus on, that you don't

commit to, that you don't have capacity for, and then later you might regret

that. So what do we do to make those regrets

be helpful or prevent those regrets from

hurting us? Because I could sit here with 2 kids, 18

and 20, both, you know, now out of the house, and spend a lot of

time thinking, coulda, woulda, shoulda, and beat myself

up and have a lot of, guilt and shame.

But I don't wanna live with that guilt and shame. I have no reason

to spend time thinking I'm a bad

person. I'm a bad mom, or that I've messed up.

And on the flip side, nor do I have to think like I did everything

perfectly. And I'm not a problem. And there's no mistakes here. Because that's

not honest. And if my children ever need to come to

me to talk about an experience that they

had from me, I wanna be open and not

be defensive. I don't wanna have their feedback push me

into shame and into a spiral and feel terrible, like, oh

my god. I failed my kids. That's not true. I know that is I know

what is true, and I know it's not true. I'm willing to take a

look and be honest. If I'm being honest,

and I'm loving myself through that honesty, and I'm using my

mistakes to serve me instead of to hurt me,

then when I get feedback as my young adults

become more aware of their own childhood that they are giving

me feedback, I am able to receive it without it crushing

me. I wanna be ready to make amends if I have to, to

apologize, to make things right, to undo something that if I've done

something. So I need to be willing to take a look at my

own behavior so that when my kids come to talk to me about

their their experience of me, then I'm ready for

that. That that has actually already happened

with both of my kids kind of reflecting on just simple

things. Like, I don't wanna go too far into it, but one of my kids

said that not I don't wanna scare you. Okay? But he said

not having a phone in middle school

did delay him a little bit socially because

everybody was communicating in their messaging

and stuff like that, connecting online. And he didn't

have the ability to do that. Same thing happened. I didn't let him play video

games. They were connecting in video games, and he wasn't.

Now we push out 10, 12 years outside of

that, and he's socially

fine. All of those he doesn't have any social

issues. He caught up just fine. And he says,

I'm better for it because I know how to entertain and occupy

myself without devices. I know how to connect with people without

using technology. So he's better for it.

But at the time, it was painful for him. And he would like

to reflect on that and share that with me. I don't think that's a

regret I have for me, but it is something that I wanna

be open and able to hear. Now, one of the

regrets that I do have is, around something

that one of my kids brought to me. So I'm gonna get into that now.

But normalizing that you're gonna make mistakes and then being willing to

take a look at them is a very, very important practice.

Alright. So now what do we do with some of our

regrets? So there's kind of, like, I'm gonna give you

5 options of ways to

kind of handle regret. The first is

undo it. The second is at least

it. Like, at least we still got to go to the

ballgame. Right? At least, right, to, like, reframe it with at

least. So undo it, at least it, disclose

it, normalize it,

distance it. So I'm gonna walk you through each one,

but the one is undo it. Just go back and fix it. As soon as

you realize you're making a mistake, go back and fix it. Repair

and restore back. At least it.

Reframe it for yourself. If you can't go back and fix it, reframe it.

Looking at the positive, what are the benefits of it? Like I just said, I

could look at that that decision with my son of him not

having access to technology in middle school

and be like, oh my gosh. I delayed him, and it's so terrible, and he

was really struggling. Or I can say, well, at least he had the

opportunity to learn how to communicate

in, you know, without tech. Right? I can reframe

it in a positive way, not to gaslight myself, but to just turn

that kaleidoscope a little bit one more time to see

the thing from a different angle. That disclose

it is just shame sharing it, being willing to

say that quiet part out loud, talking

about it. That is a way to, like,

deshame it. Right? You share it to unshame

it. So that disclosing it, normalizing it, just

being like, well, I think this is normal. I think moms have trouble with

this. That's one of the big things I do in my program is just normalizing

yelling, normalizing feeling like, God, I cannot wait to

get a break for my kids, normalizing not wanting to spend that much time with

them, normalizing being resentful

after they, you know, go away to camp and they come back and you're just,

like, bitter. Like, I'm normalizing as much as I can for

you. And then the distancing it is sort of

imagining it from someone else's perspective or imagining it 10

years from now, giving you some some space

from the problem. So those are those 5 ways I went through them real quickly,

and now I'm gonna break them down. But just in case you're, like, are done

listening to this episode, you know, you've got kind of the basics. So I wanna

talk you to you about my specific regrets in these

different areas. The first one is a little bit tender for

me and a little bit unresolved in some ways. I'm still

working through this regret. But

around 2020, so in the middle of the lockdown

and the pandemic, I got I

started to realize that I had been triangulating

myself between my younger son and my husband. I

had created a dynamic where they both talk

to me about them about each other, but they weren't

really talking to each other. And I was in this, like,

in between, you know, one would complain about the

other and they would complain about or they would, say how sad they were about

their relationship. I just was, like, the soundboard for both, but

I wasn't turning the conversation back to them

of, like, okay. You guys need to talk about this. I would just then also

play telephone and be like, well, you know, so Sawyer said this

about you or dad said this or he's were I just

what we call triangulated. I I put myself in the middle of their triangle,

And I regretted that, because

it prevented my husband from developing

the strongest relationship he could have. They have repaired a lot.

And that is because when I realized

I was doing it, and it was becoming a problem,

how I recognize it as a problem is I started to feel

resentful. So whenever I'm rescuing

someone from a negative emotion or from a problem,

I find myself feeling very resentful. And

that resentment is a clue to me. So I

have that rescuing, then I have resentment,

and then I can look at the regret I have about the rescuing. So

it's like this rrr situation. Rescue,

resent, regret. Right? So I have this, like, little

pattern. Anyway, when I realized

it, I finally stopped kind of, like,

if they were in an argument or in a fight, like, the 2 of them,

normally, I would jump right in. I would separate them. I would say, okay. You

go, you know, to my husband, like, enough, like, back off. And

I would kind of put myself in the middle, trying

to keep the peace and whatever whatever. And I realized, like, I

was doing it. I just was like, I regret doing this. I don't want to

do this anymore, so I am going to stop doing it.

And I talked to each of them about it. I explained what I had been

doing, and I said I'm not gonna get involved. I'm gonna let you guys find

your way to the other side because I believe they both love each other. I

know they want a good relationship. They've both told me that. I've told

both of them that. And so I just said, I'm out. You guys are

gonna have to figure out how to be in a relationship with each other.

I'm really glad I did that Because even though it has been

sometimes tumultuous and sometimes,

you know, things have been said that make me uncomfortable that I wouldn't

want and, you know, parenting decisions

that I'm not comfortable with, not in any way abusive or hurtful

hurtful, but just kind of, like, a little harsher or something than I would

do. What happened by my backing off is that my

husband then became the parent he wanted to be. He learned

how he needed to approach his son, what words he needed

to say. And he learned that by making the mistakes,

by feeling his own sense of regret and then switching gears on

himself. That would only have been possible

once I stopped intervening. So

my intervention, my rescuing was preventing my husband from

becoming the parent he wanted to be or he needed to be. We

all learn how to become the parent we wanna be

by not being the parent we wanna be by

having that discomfort by having that

regret, and then making a change.

So that's what's cool about this process is that you

can invite yourself into, like, oh, yeah. I've done this thing. I don't

wanna do it anymore. I regret doing it. Let me make

changes. This is one of the main reasons

that people hire me, that people join the Come on the club

or work with me 1 on 1 is because they finally realize I don't wanna

live like this anymore. I don't wanna live with this regret. I don't wanna get

to wherever I get to and make, you know, feel,

ma you know, mad about this, like or regret.

Right? They don't wanna they don't wanna feel regretful. Everyone who

works with me, I'm not kidding, often says, I wish I would have

found you earlier. Like, they'll say it if they have a 3 year old,

a 7 year old, a 10 year old, a 13 year old. I had a

mom that I worked with when her son was 32. And she said, I wish

I would have found you earlier. So what's cool is that you can always

repair anything. If you have regret, you can go through a process

and repair, which is so amazing. But you have to be honest with

yourself. So that goes with

disclosing it, sharing it to unshame it. So

for me, when Lincoln was 4 and I was that raging

mom, and I finally said the quiet part

out loud in a group of women of other moms that

also had 4 year old boys. And I said, I feel like I'm

being abused by my 4 year old. And

that is a pretty intense statement, but I just kinda said

it because I was so desperate And the all the women stopped and looked at

me with the, like, what did you just say? And I was

like, oh my god. I think I'm not supposed to say this part. But

then later in the parking lot, my

now best friend Tiffany said to me, I don't think what you're feeling is

normal, and you may wanna get some help. And I'm

so grateful that I said the hard part out loud. It makes me

teary actually because I was really embarrassed and ashamed. And I

think the other women didn't quite know what to do with the information either. But

then she said to me, you can

get help. You don't have to live in this pain.

And I was regretting

a lot of decisions at that time, like, not necessarily regretting

becoming a mom. I loved it, and I, loved the whole

time. But regretting a lot of my behavior, a lot of the ways I

was interacting with my son, I had so much regret. I had so

much guilt, and I was so ashamed of myself. And I finally said the

parts that I didn't wanna tell anybody, that I was struggling.

And then someone said, here is a hand. You

can get help. And that was incredible. So if you know someone who's struggling

and you hand them this podcast or you give them, you know,

a a gift to to join the Com Mama Club or whatever, just know that

you're saving somebody's life probably. Like, they're

they're maybe not their life life, but, you know, like, their whole

entire experience of motherhood can transform. Mine did.

That's why I do what I do, because it was so important.

But it only started with disclosing.

Right? So we can undo it if it's possible.

And but it starts with disclosing it, becoming aware for

yourself, admitting to yourself that you have a problem, admitting it to

others and getting the change and help that

you need. So, of course, I regret being

a rageful mom. But I can also then

go at least, right? So it's another strategy. I

can undo it if it's possible. I can disclose it or I can

go well, at least at least that experience

taught me how to become a calm mama. It

forced me to go on a journey of deep healing,

reparenting, trauma recovery, just so much

work. And now I have this podcast and this group program

and all of the clients I've worked with through all the moms I've worked with.

And I had this huge impact on the world because of my

mistakes, because of things I regretted originally.

I can definitely silver line that. I can

definitely say at least. Now,

another thing you can do when you have regret is normalizing it.

Right? Being kind to yourself instead of cruel.

Now, I have a lot of regrets around decisions I've made.

Like, I'll just give you a couple examples. For 1, I did not give

Lincoln braces when he was in middle school. There are reasons

he did not have 2 of his 2 of

his adult teeth aren't there. Like, they don't exist. And

so there I got a lot of mixed information about whether he should get

braces or not. Some people said wait until the jaw is fully formed, and you

don't know if those teeth are gonna fall out. Some people said just do it,

but they'll probably fall out. I mean, I just I didn't know what to do,

so I didn't do anything. And then his he grew. His

jaw grew. The teeth are still there that he never so he has baby teeth,

which is funny. He's 20 years old. They're still in good shape.

Going back to the brushing, teeth brushing. Did I did a good job with teeth

except for this one thing. He didn't get braces. So now he has

Invisalign, which is fine. Like, at least he can get

Invisalign. Right? I can at least it. But with

someone with ADHD and Invisalign, it's hard. It's hard for them to

keep keep on top of it. So I regret it. I just wish I would

have just done the teeth in the beginning. Right? I just wish I would have

gotten the braces. But then when I look back, and I think, well, I didn't

have enough information, I got bad information. I made the best

decision I could. And it's normal to not know

what to do. As a mom, you are not a

dentist, you are not an expert in how to teach a kid to

read, how you know, what chores they should be doing or, you know,

how to handle money or, like, all the topics we talk about on this podcast.

How do you set a boundary? How do you get your kids to listen without

yelling? When when should they get their vaccines? Like, should they do it all

at once or, like, delayed? Like, there's so much information out there and there's

so much conflicting information that it can be really hard

to know who to trust and who to listen to. And then you have to

trust your instinct and your intuition. You're like, okay. I'll

do the best I can, and you may make mistakes.

So normalizing, yep. I didn't give my kid

braces. Same thing with ADHD medicine. I sore

I don't sort of I regret not giving Lincoln

ADHD medicine in middle school. I am not saying

that if you have a kid with ADHD, that you will regret not doing it.

I am not saying that. Do not hear that. What I'm saying is when I

look back, I think, that would have helped him.

But at the time, I need to be kind with the

past Darlin, the Darlin who had a 13 year old,

the Darlin who had a 12 year old, and she didn't know what was

right. That darling didn't know that much information.

She didn't know a lot about about the medicine.

She didn't know what it was. She was afraid of medication.

That was how it was for me then. I could not have made a different

decision. But of course now I think, well, I would

have. And what's cool is I can then say to

my son, hey, this is your brain and body. This is how it works. You

get to make the best decision for you. And I have a lot more information

now, and he can now make his decisions. But

being kind with myself and not saying, oh, my gosh. You should have done the

braces. You should have done the ADHD medicine. You've totally ruined their

lives. If you would have done it, they would have had a better life.

I don't know that. That's a story that I'm telling. I can

tell any story I want. Why not tell a good one? So

normalizing, you're going to make mistakes. You're going to not know

information. Lots of moms don't know this stuff, and

you just do your best. I want you to practice

being as kind to yourself about your regrets

as you would your best friend. It's

funny because I talked to my best friend about our regrets

my regrets, you know, and she talks to me about hers. And we're so

nice to each other about it. Like, I'm like, oh, you don't need to do

that to yourself. You know? Of course, you do. You did your best.

Like, we're so nice to each other. We also are

honest. Like, yeah. Okay. Well, that's true. You did that. So, like, what do you

wanna do about it? You know, we kinda challenge each other, but it's so

kind. I want you to be as kind as

possible. And think about the mistakes that you make

as something that any mom would have made a mistake.

It's normal. It's being a parent is hard.

You don't know which preschool is best. You just

decide and you hope for the best. If it's not the best,

and you can retool it, you know, like, change gears, great. If you

can't, no problem. Now the last way that

we, you know, handle our regrets is keeping a

distance from it, like, creating distance from it. So,

for example, one of my regrets right now is and I think

I'm over it. But I didn't have my kids play sports

in high school. I had some misinformation about how hard it

was to get on the teams. Like, I thought it was really hard,

and they weren't that interested. I I don't

know. I just I kinda regret a lot of different things I did,

like, middle school and high school. And I never had a middle school

and high schooler before. I didn't know what I was doing. I was making it

up as I went along, as we all do. And

I always joke, like, I didn't have a darling. I don't have someone that I

go and talk to about stuff like this. Like, you have me. You know, it's

cool. But I just try to make the best decision that I

can in the moment. And so one one of

my regrets is, like, I didn't have my kids play sports in high school. I

didn't encourage it. I didn't challenge them. I didn't make it a limit. I

just it was, like, not on my radar. And also, to be honest,

COVID happened when my kids were in 9th 10th grade. So

there weren't any real sports. The only few were, like, already in sports, you stayed

in them, but you didn't, like, sign up for a team, you know, in the

middle of the pandemic. Anyway,

I didn't you could, I guess, but my kids weren't playing sports. Blah blah

blah. Okay? I didn't do it. And

I want you to think about how to help yourself

if you have this kind these kinds of regrets. You

can create distance. So here's what I mean by that.

How will I feel about this regret in 10

years? So, like, my kids are 18 and

20. I'm just kinda now going, they probably should have done sports. Like, I wonder

if I hurt them by not doing sports. So I picture them at 28 and

30. Like, are they gonna be like, they don't even

care. But am I gonna feel like, oh, they should have done sports in high

school. Like, no. There's so much distance and time will go

by. So many experiences. So much, like, life will be lived that

their high school won't matter that much. That's

true of, like, you know, Sawyer went to 3 preschools. I

have no regret about it. Like, you know, how many years later is

that? 15 years later, I don't even think about it. At the time, it

felt like, oh, am I hurting him? I don't know. But we moved and

like, you know, different reasons that we made those choices. But I have

no regret because I'm so far away from the decision. So you can

imagine how you will feel pushed forward into the future.

How will future you think about this decision? How

will how will you refer, like, reflect on it? And that

will help you take action in the present if you need to.

So that's a really cool way of giving yourself some

permission to, like, let it go and to release it and

to not let it hang over you. Like in 10 years, is this even gonna

matter? If it if you answer yes, then you might

wanna take action now. But if you answer no,

you know, okay, fine. Just leave it. A lot of things we

regret, we can't really take action. So that's why it's

going back and talking about it, you know, normal normalizing

it, being kind to yourself, talking about it,

apologizing for it if necessary, and then reframing it.

Like, what are the benefits of the mistake? Because there's

pretty much always a benefit to anytime we make a

mistake. You can always look for that silver

lining, and that can be really useful to release

the guilt, release the shame. That's what we're looking for

here. How do I let it go and love myself deeper?

How do I make things right when I can? And how do I

let the rest go? How do I use my past mistakes

to inform how I wanna move forward in the in the future? What actions

do I wanna take now to avoid this regret again and

again? How do I get out of this cycle? So you

have the opportunity to

reflect on your life in a way that is kind

and is loving. Thinking of you as your

best friend thinks of you and imagining

how much love and respect that person has of

you and giving it to yourself too. How much benefit of the doubt? How

much normalizing? How much kindness? That

is your job for yourself, especially on this mama day

holiday, especially during this particular winter break, especially as you

reflect and start thinking about next year. I don't want you to

come to your resolutions from a place of shame and

guilt and pain. I want you to go to your resolutions and

your goals for next year from a place of hope

and love and kindness towards yourself.

Okay. I wanted to give

you this book that helped me kind of, find some of the

language that I shared with you today, and it's called the power of regret

by Daniel Pink. And I really enjoyed the book,

and he gives you kind of some some strategies and some,

journal prompts and things like that that can help you understand the the

psychology of regret and how to use it for you instead of against

you. So great book recommendation. I am

wishing you a great winter break. If you are struggling with your winter break

time and you have some regrets about how

things are going with your family, of course, always reach out to

me atcalmamacoaching.com. You

can book a complimentary parenting consultation with

me, and I'll get into it with you. We can figure out where you're

making the mistakes and what you can do to change the trajectory of

your whole life. It's so cool. So be kind to yourself.

And I will talk to you next time.