I understood.

My 5 year old wet his pants yesterday. It doesn't happen often (in fact it may have been his first time) but what I love is. I didn't react nor get mad. I understood.

Then just moments later when dealing with this mess I hear glass breaking. He has accidentally broken a glass. Again I didn't get mad, nor yell. I understood.

He didn't mean to do either one of those things and I knew he was sorry (his tears and crying told me this) so why yell or be angry?

If I had yelled at him and been mad it would achieve nothing but instill fear in him and result in me feeling crap. So I didn't.

If I had yelled and criticized him it would teach him it is WRONG to make a mistake. It would teach him it is BAD to make mistakes. Not its not. Mistakes happen and you know what ... I've broken quite a few glasses in my time and never once did I hit or yell at myself!

So instead I asked him how we can fix the problem to make it better and together we picked up the broken glass. This teaches him that when you make a mistake its ok, but you then need to try and fix the mistake and rectify it.

Mistakes happen and our children will make many. And they are not bad or evil little people for doing so. They are simply learning their way in this world like we all are, one break at a time.