Never said anything wrong in front of your kid? You're lying

Every day heading into my daughter’s school, I hold my breath.

Before I get out of the car, I whisper — daily — "Lord, I hope she had a good day."

My child isn’t bad, but she has her moments. Let’s just say she often tests the bounds of authority, mainly mine.

At the end of her first week of pre-k, I could not have been prouder when her teacher told me she’d had an excellent week. That was very uncommon in preschool, so this was a big deal y’all.

But on the first day of the second week, the teacher said to my little one, “Tell your mommy what you did today.”

Oh no, I thought. And we were doing so well. What now?

Don’t you hate that feeling? You hope for the best every day, and one little thing makes you think (unreasonably, I might add) that it’s all downhill.

My little one didn’t fess up. Instead, she gave me that "I don’t know" shrug of the shoulders and a kiss, her way of trying to throw me off.

The teacher told me my daughter yelled to another little girl: “Stop crying. You’re acting like a big crybaby.” Oh and she’d placed heavy emphasis on the word baby.

Ouch. At first you might think she has some mean girl tendencies.

But let me go straight to the altar of confession and tell you I know exactly where she got that from. Me! Because mommy says it. All. The. Time. If she’s crying for no reason, pouting and whining, I’ll often ask her if she’s going to be “my big girl or a crybaby.”

OK, I’m sorry. I know, I know, it’s wrong. I’m ashamed. Busted.

I could have slapped my own hand when the teacher told me about the incident. My sponge-brain child heard me say it, and she repeated it.

You’re lying if you say you’ve never uttered something inappropriate in your child’s presence. What about that time someone cut you off in traffic and you yelled out “Idiot!” If your child is like mine, you know you’re busted when she asks, “Who are you talking to?”

I know other parents do it, too, because every time my little girl comes home repeating something inappropriate, I know it came originally from some child’s mama or daddy or another adult.

The first time my little girl yelled out in public, “Mommy, I farted,” I was mortified. It was loud, because she has no “inside” voice. But that didn't come from me.

My sweet little darling 4-year-old has no idea what she’s really saying most times, or why some of the things she says are inappropriate. She once told a woman wearing sunglasses, “Let me see your eyes; look at me when I’m talking to you.”

Yeah, she got that from me, too.

But that time she came home and put her hands on the ground and bounced her butt up and down in the air (the little rascal was twerking) and yelled “Look, Mommy!” ... Oh no, she did NOT get that from me. I’m not saying I haven’t done it, but she didn’t see me. Yep, that came from seeing adults do it at a cookout at her godmama’s house. (Yep, I’m calling out godmama!)

We’ve all had that moment when our children get in trouble for things that we have to blame ourselves for. Our impressionable children are always looking and watching and listening and learning from us.

But sometimes we forget. It can be hard to admit that our children process every single thing we do and say. We have to beware of the impact we have. They are master imitators, and we’re under constant observation.

Not just in our words, but also in our actions, in our lifestyle. I have a tattoo, and my little girl often says she wants a flower tattoo, too. I simply tell her we will talk about it when she gets older.

I think the lesson here is that our children are more likely to have discipline issues when we say one thing and expect or demand the opposite.

I read in one of my many parenting books that we have to use our kids’ imitations of us as a force for good, bearing in mind that modeling – teaching by example – affects behavior far more than telling children what to do (and far more than punishing them).

Why I have all those parenting books and why I look at them at all is a subject for another day. I haven’t learned anything from them except that I’m better off not reading them. They all have the secret sauce to raising children —and yet, there is no such thing. Still, the books keep coming because people are desperate for solutions and quick fixes.

Hey, we all have a few bad habits we need to surrender. But even though we can’t always wear angel wings around our children, we can’t give up. There are ways to deal with it, ways around it.

For one thing, we can remember that we are their best role models. Think about it when the radio is on; what you’re listening to, they are listening to. Perhaps cut down on television time. When you see adults doing or saying things you don’t want them to do or say, address it with the child (or the adult) when it happens. Just remember to always be thinking about it.