March 18 is Forgive Your Parents Day

March 18 is Forgive Your Parents Day

John Cowan from The Parenting Place offers some comments and advice

I don’t know who declared March 18 to be “Forgive Your Parents Day”. I don’t know if they were intending it seriously or as a joke. But for many of us it could be a helpful thing to do.

Typically, relationships between adolescents and parents can be strained and cool. I doubt I was unusual in that I spent my adolescent years feeling mildly embarrassed about my parents. I was quite cranky at them for a whole range of terrible offences. I think their main crime was that they were old. It is amazing how much my parents improved after I became an adult! Of course, what really changed was my sour immature attitude towards them. Unfortunately they both died before I had my own kids because parenthood has really shown me what a hard job they had and given me a real appreciation of what they did. So, do I have to forgive them for much? Not really. But for some people it will be a lot harder: they might have very dark memories and scarred hearts from their upbringing. Here are some tips:

1. Don’t rush it. Maybe it cannot yet be ‘Forgive Your Parents Day’, but it might be “I’m Starting the Healing Day”. Resolve at least to start a journey because when you can eventually let go of that anger it is amazing the weight that will come off your heart.

2. Rerun the memories. We often only replay childhood memories in fragments; if we recreate the entire picture in our mind and apply some adult perspective maybe we might come to a different verdict about our parents.

3. Write a letter. Pushing your swirling thoughts onto a page really helps you get a grip with them and can be very therapeutic. After you have done it, sit on it for a while: think very carefully if you really have to send it to your parents. At the very least, don’t send the first draft!

4. Some of my sourest thoughts about my parents as an adolescent were actually resentments about myself. I needed to let my parents off the hook, stop blaming them for things I actually have control over and take ownership of my own problems.

5. Stop feeling like a child with your parents. Relax in the knowledge that you can relax and honour your parents but as an adult you make your own decisions and set your own course.

6. Break the ice. Do something nice for your parents. Take them flowers.

7. Acknowledge the tensions without dumping on them. “Things have been a bit rough between us at times. But I’m keen to move on.

One final thought: this whole process makes me wonder very much about my own performance as a parent. I just hope my kids are willing to forgive me!

Ends

© Scoop Media