What to Say After Your Child Messes Up (Without Shaming Them)
What to Say After Your Child Messes Up (Without Shaming Them)
If your child makes a mistake and your first instinct is to correct them quickly, you’re not alone.
These moments are hard.
You’re frustrated. They’ve done something wrong. And you want to fix it fast.
But here’s the truth I want you to take away from this episode: what you say after your child messes up is one of the most important parts of effective parenting.
Because this is where learning happens.
Why Attention-Seeking Behavior Is Actually Normal
Let’s start here: attention-seeking behavior in children is not a sign that something is wrong.
It’s a sign that something is working.
All children have a deep need for connection. They are wired to seek positive attention from their caregivers because that attention equals safety, connection, and security.
But here’s the key: if they can’t get positive attention, they will settle for strong attention.
That’s why attention-seeking behavior in children often shows up in ways that feel annoying or disruptive.
Because even negative reactions still meet the need.
Why These Moments Matter So Much
When a child makes a mistake, we often jump straight to correction.
We say things like:
“Why would you do that?”
“You need to make better choices.”
“That was not okay.”
And while those responses come from a good place, they don’t always build the parenting skills our kids actually need.
What kids need in these moments is guidance, not just correction.
That’s where positive discipline strategies come in.
The Goal Isn’t Perfection. It’s Learning.
Mistakes are part of development.
Your child is not supposed to get everything right.
So when we think about effective parenting, the goal is not to stop mistakes from happening. The goal is to use those mistakes as teaching opportunities.
That means helping your child understand:
What happened
Why it didn’t work
What they can do differently next time
These are the parenting skills that build long-term behavior change.
Why Kids Repeat the Same Mistakes
One of the most frustrating things for parents is when a child makes the same mistake again.
And again.
And again.
It can feel like they’re not listening.
But often, it’s not defiance. It’s a lack of skill.
If a child doesn’t yet have the tools to do something differently, they will keep repeating the same behavior.
This is why focusing on how to get your child to listen isn’t just about obedience. It’s about teaching.
And that’s where positive discipline strategies make a huge difference.
What Effective Parenting Looks Like in the Moment
In the moment after a mistake, your job is not to lecture.
Your job is to guide.
That might look like:
Staying calm, even if you feel frustrated
Describing what happened without labeling your child
Helping them understand the impact of their behavior
This is effective parenting in action.
It’s not about being perfect. It’s about being intentional.
And the more you practice these parenting skills, the easier it becomes over time.
Separating Your Child From Their Behavior
One of the most powerful shifts you can make is separating your child from what they did.
Instead of:
“You are being bad”
You shift to:
“That choice didn’t work”
This is a core part of positive discipline strategies.
It allows your child to learn without feeling shame.
And when kids don’t feel shame, they are much more open to listening.
Which directly improves how to get your child to listen in future moments.
Teaching Better Choices
Once your child understands what didn’t work, the next step is showing them what to do instead.
This is where many parents stop too soon.
We correct the mistake, but we don’t teach the replacement behavior.
Strong parenting skills include helping your child practice:
What to say
What to do
How to respond differently next time
This is what turns correction into growth.
And it’s a key part of effective parenting.
Why Connection Makes Listening Easier
If your child feels attacked or ashamed, they are much less likely to listen.
If they feel understood and supported, they are much more likely to engage.
This is why connection is at the center of positive discipline strategies.
And it’s also why connection improves how to get your child to listen over time.
Because kids listen best when they feel safe.
Final Thoughts
If your child messes up, it does not mean you’ve failed as a parent.
It means you’ve been given an opportunity.
An opportunity to teach.
An opportunity to guide.
An opportunity to build stronger parenting skills.
When you approach these moments with effective parenting, use positive discipline strategies, and focus on how to get your child to listen through connection instead of fear, everything starts to shift.
Not overnight.
But over time.
And that’s where real change happens.
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[00:00:00] Leah Clionsky: All kids make mistakes, but figuring out how you're going to talk to them about their actions after the fact is the hard part. You don't want to shame them and ruin their self-confidence and make them feel like bad people. And at the same time, you want it to be very clear that you don't want that behavior to happen again.
[00:00:20] Leah Clionsky: So how do you balance those two things? That's what this episode of Educated Parent is all about. So here is another one of our chats, just you and me, no guests, and we're gonna talk about that difficult situation that every single parent falls into at times where our kids do something that we're really not okay with.
[00:00:40] Leah Clionsky: And we want them to know that they are good people and we want them to take different actions in the future. It's really hard to know how to talk about this. There's that traditional approach where you can scold your kid and tell them, I really, don't like what you did here? And you give them the reasons why.
[00:00:59] Leah Clionsky: Often this is where parents start talking about bad choices. So the language I hear parents say is, you are a good person, but you made a bad choice and I don't like your choices. Or we often tell kids. Make good choices, which is a relatively vague thing to tell kids to do. And I think the reason we're so vague is that what we wanna say is make choices that you think out in advance that are consistent with our value systems that don't harm anybody, but also you're thinking about the incidental harm you could cause.
[00:01:32] Leah Clionsky: Right? Making choices and knowing what to do in different situations is ultimately challenging. For kids and for all people if we're being honest with them, with ourselves about how tough it can be. And so after the fact telling a child they made a bad choice, next time to make a better choice, might not.
[00:01:50] Leah Clionsky: Get them where you want them to go. But we also don't wanna make them feel like they're terrible. We don't wanna say, like, you are a bad boy, or you're a bad girl. You make bad choices. Look at the bad choice you made there's this mix, this intermediate place of how do we have.
[00:02:07] Leah Clionsky: This kind of healthy discussion. And so when I think about the decisions people make and why we don't like some of those decisions, there can be a couple reasons why we don't like them. Sometimes the decision is clearly against a value system. For example, if your child hits another child. That's one of those situations where it's clearly something that most adults would categorize as a bad choice.
[00:02:35] Leah Clionsky: 'cause we don't wanna hurt people and aggression is not tolerated in our culture. It's a little bit nuanced. Like for example, if your child was being bullied and then your child hit them, would you really be too mad about it? Or if someone was bullying your child and their siblings stood up for them, would you really be mad at that?
[00:02:52] Leah Clionsky: So there's nuances, even in the things that feel like a clear cut situation. But there are those behaviors. Those behaviors like lying, like hitting, where we don't like the choice this child made. This child did something and it didn't work out for them. Then there are also those kinds of bad choices where you make a decision that you think makes sense at the time, and then it doesn't work out because children are impulsive, don't understand the full social context, and are unaware of the potential repercussions.
[00:03:23] Leah Clionsky: For example, like inviting someone to a sleepover in front of their other friend and then having that friend get mad. That could be a confusing situation. That could be an accidental situation. So it's not really a quote unquote bad choice, like it's a choice. Your child did not necessarily intend harm, but maybe did cause harm through their behaviors.
[00:03:44] Leah Clionsky: So again, it's really nuanced and that's why I think we struggle to figure out how to talk with our kids about these kinds of decisions and these choices that they make, that sometimes cause problems, sometimes really inconvenience us and are sometimes behaviors that we want to try to adjust right now so that we don't have a child who continues to hit people or continues to make social mistakes that ultimately hurts them in their relationships.
[00:04:10] Leah Clionsky: If we're using those two examples to start off with, so what do we actually do? How do we talk to kids about the choices that they're making, the behaviors that they choose that we don't love? one thing that I always think about when having these discussions with my own kids or talking with other parents about how to have these kinds of discussions is that we want to balance.
[00:04:35] Leah Clionsky: The fact that your child is inherently a good person who's trying with the potential outcomes of the decision that they're making, and we wanna try to teach them how to make a decision that will work out better in the future. So I like to think about the decisions as not working, or not working the way you want them to work instead of bad.
[00:05:00] Leah Clionsky: So here's an example of something I could say. The first thing you want to do is you wanna reassure your child that they're a good person and you still love them. So you can say to your child, I am angry with what you did, and I love you and will always love you, no matter what you do. And I know that you're a really good kid.
[00:05:19] Leah Clionsky: So you're like, not saying I'm not mad at you about it, but you're also working in the fact that your love is unconditional and those two things are important and that their identity is positive. So I don't like that you hit your sister and I'm angry with you about it, and I will always love you, and I know that you're a good person.
[00:05:39] Leah Clionsky: So holding those things together in one sentence, the next thing you can do is really try to validate why your child might have made a choice that you don't agree with. So validation is one of those really hard, misunderstood topics. I have an entire episode about it. We can stick it in the show notes, but the challenge with validation is what we're telling kids or anybody that we're validating.
[00:06:03] Leah Clionsky: That their behavior makes sense in context, right? We can understand why almost anyone would do almost anything, but we're not saying we agree with it. So for example, if someone has hit someone else, you can say to them, I understand why you hit your sister in that moment. I know you were getting really frustrated.
[00:06:23] Leah Clionsky: I know that, you've been really frustrated all day. And in that moment. You took an action and you hit her. So you see how I'm not saying, and I'm glad you did it, and I stand by your choice, right? It's like this is what was going on for you at that time and I can see it. I'm angry with you for hitting your sister, and I will always love you and you're a good kid.
[00:06:44] Leah Clionsky: I can see why you made that choice and it makes sense and. Then you explain why that choice didn't work out, why that behavior did not get the desired effect. So then you say you, but you hit your sister and we can't hit people. It hurts their bodies, it hurts their feelings. It makes your sister not wanna play with you.
[00:07:03] Leah Clionsky: And it's not a safe, and I can't allow it. I don't let kids hit other kids in my house. So you see how you have it all together, like you're really doing some teaching in here. It's like, okay, I love you. I get why you did this and it's not okay. So you're not saying you made a bad choice by hitting your sister, and so now you're in trouble.
[00:07:23] Leah Clionsky: You're laying out more detail about what the problem is and why it's a problem. And then if there's a consequence, and honestly for hitting, I think there often should be a consequence. Then you enact that consequence so you're not gonna get to watch the next TV show. So you need to go apologize to your sister.
[00:07:43] Leah Clionsky: I'm gonna put this stuffy in timeout for a minute, right? Whatever the consistent consequence in your house is for that behavior, but that's how you can talk about it after the fact so that you don't have this conflict going on internally where you're like, am I shaming and making my child feel like a bad person?
[00:08:00] Leah Clionsky: But also I'm also clearly laying out why it was a problem. This would work for a teenager too, if you said to them like, . Let's pretend they cheated on a test and the school found out about it, right? Again, it seems like that quote unquote bad choice, but you can talk about it differently.
[00:08:18] Leah Clionsky: I'm really frustrated and disappointed right now, and I'll always love you no matter what you do, and I know you're a good person, and that will never change. That's part one, part two, I can see why it was really tempting to cheat on this test. I know you were really stressed about it and you were working really hard, and you were afraid you wouldn't get a good grade.
[00:08:37] Leah Clionsky: So I can see why you would've wanted to cheat. So the validation part, and then that end part where you know it was really a problem that you cheated on this test. Now the teachers won't trust you anymore. You're gonna get a bad grade. It goes against our family value of honesty. It's a way of really lying and I'm not okay with that.
[00:08:59] Leah Clionsky: And so here is the consequence for cheating on your test. Now you can't go to that birthday party you wanted to go to. So however you are setting that up, that's how you balance that while also explaining and teaching. What it was about that choice that didn't work out, why it goes beyond good and bad choices, and also how you preserve your relationship and your child's identity while understanding and helping them understand why they did what they did, and also helping them to learn that lesson around why that behavior isn't acceptable and why it can't continue.
[00:09:32] Leah Clionsky: So it's these three kinds of steps. You don't have to do this perfectly, you really don't. In the heat of the moment, most people aren't gonna do this perfectly. But if you think, and you're like, all right, what's important here is that my kid knows that I love them, and I think they're good.
[00:09:45] Leah Clionsky: That I think their behavior could make sense. That this behavior is not something that it's okay to continue with because of these reasons, right? If you can think about, that's my goal in this conversation is to highlight these things, then , you'll really get pretty far with it. And again, nobody's perfect.
[00:10:03] Leah Clionsky: I don't have this conversation perfectly, especially if I'm angry, especially if I've had recent discussions along similar lines. But if you're really thinking, how do I have this more nuanced conversation? Maybe listen to this podcast episode right before, and if you're struggling with this, if you're having a hard time knowing how to have these kinds of conversations with your kids, this is where we can really help you.
[00:10:25] Leah Clionsky: At Thriving Child Center, we can help you figure out how to have these conversations. We can also help you if your child is engaging in a lot of these challenging behaviors. We can help you figure out ways of managing them and having consistent, safe boundaries while also that love and unconditional support.
[00:10:42] Leah Clionsky: So I hope this episode has been helpful to you. I hope you have an absolutely amazing week, and I will talk to you next time.