There’s a simple truth about parenting that we have all come to understand; we all mess up. No matter how hard we try we will do and say things we wish we hadn’t. We will find ourselves sounding like our parents no matter how often we promised ourselves we would parent differently than we were parented.

Here’s the thing about that, we all mess up, but failure is very rarely, if ever, fatal. It is, however, an amazing opportunity for us to grow personally and in our relationship with our kids.

Here’s what I mean. The next time you yell at one of your kids, give them and yourself time to calm down, then apologize to them. Tell them what you are sorry for doing (name what you did) what you did and ask them to forgive you.

This may sound crazy to some of you, but I promise that it works.

When we sincerely and humbly repair our mistakes we are retraining our brains and coaching our kids by modeling right behavior. There are few greater lessons we can model for our kids than taking responsibility for our actions, humbly apologizing, and seeking forgiveness.