This Veteran Mom Shares The Top Three Mistakes She Made When Raising Her Kids

I try to live my life with little regret. What’s done is done, and I can’t go back and change it. Wishing I could go back and change things about my life is unproductive (at least that’s what my therapist says!). However, when it comes to our children, moms tend to beat themselves up over their “mistakes.”

One mom wanted to share things she wishes she would have done differently now that her adult children are grown, hoping to impart some wisdom to parents still in the thick of parenting young kids.

“Maybe someone can learn from my mistakes,” Lori (@loriscowsandtuff) says in her video.

First, she admits that when her kids were young, she and her husband didn’t do the best job teaching her kids how to apologize.

“We worked on it when they were in elementary school, but I feel like maybe that fell off in middle and high school, and it disappoints me that I didn't do a better job with that. I think that's an important skill to have,” she said.

Next, now that her kids are grown, she wishes that she had been more open and honest with her emotions in front of the kids.

“I always wanted to protect them from having to carry any burden that I was carrying. So I think I was a little too stoic and maybe should have shown them how I was feeling more. Now I think they think that I'm just a rock and nothing bothers me,” she admits. “But really I was just keeping it all inside so that I didn't burden them. I don't know, I'm not sure where the line is there, but I don't think I did it right.”

Lastly, she wished she would have saved more money when the kids were young.

“I feel like now, under 10, I would buy things that were secondhand. I would make Christmases really small. I would save that money for when it becomes more significant. You know, a kid at two years old, they don't know if they have three gifts or 10, it doesn't matter. So that's a mistake I feel like we made,” she said.

“I wish that we just put more money aside when they were little so that we were more prepared for when they were older.”

After her video gained traction, several TikTok users shared their own regrets as parents.

“I modeled my values, but didn’t talk enough about them. I also didn’t do enough to teach emotional intelligence. In the teen years I worried too much about rules and not about the connection,” one user wrote.

The OP replied, “Very insightful! These are big concepts to manage. It’s never too late!”

“I wish I knew how to teach my kids about handling anxiety. My daughter has done an AMAZING job w/ new techniques with my GrandDaughter…..,” another wrote.

One user shared, “My husband and I were both hesitant to fight in front of our kids, but realized that if they never see conflict, they never learn how to resolve them. It’s uncomfortable but I think you’re so right.”

Let’s give a standing ovation to a mom of grown children who can admit when she made mistakes as a parent because, as we all know, that is a rare species!