“Can I Still Fix My (Grown) Children’s Childhood?”

My children aren’t little anymore, and I fear they didn’t always feel loved. I wasn’t equipped with proper parenting skills, and definitely didn’t know the 80/20 rule. I’m ashamed to admit that harsh criticism and firm discipline weren’t rare. In the hope that it’s never too late, what do you suggest I do to help my kids heal?

When we’re in the midst of raising our children, we’re young — sometimes hardly out of childhood ourselves! Hashem assigns us one of the most important, difficult tasks we’ll ever face when we have limited life experience and our knowledge and models are primarily sourced from a tiny handful of people (our own family of origin). We’re all lacking in crucial skills when we start off on the parenting journey.

Obviously, Hashem wants it that way. Now that you’re older and wiser, you’ve learned more; now you recognize that your parenting style may have left your children feeling inadequate, insecure, or otherwise unloved. Now you want to fix it.

Here’s the bad news: you can’t.