The 60 Seconds that Shape Your Relationship with Your Kids

When everything goes wrong in a parenting moment, what matters more—the mistake or your response to it?

As busy parents, it’s easy to react in the heat of the moment, especially when our kids make mistakes that cost time, money, or peace of mind. In those tense situations, frustration can take over before we even realize it.

But what if those same moments, the ones that feel overwhelming, are actually some of the most powerful opportunities we have to shape our relationship with our kids?

In this episode of Parents Making Time, Anthony shares a real-life parenting story that started with a 5:30 a.m. phone call and ended with a $2,000 lesson in staying calm, choosing connection, and practicing intentional parenting when it matters most.

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL DISCOVER:

•  How your initial reaction as a parent can shape your child’s long-term trust and openness 
•  Why staying calm in stressful parenting moments leads to better outcomes than anger or frustration 
•  How to turn parenting mistakes into meaningful teaching moments instead of missed opportunities 

When you’re in the middle of busy parenting, it’s easy to focus on the mistake. But what your child will remember most is how you showed up in that moment.

Easily improve your intentional parenting efforts at mealtime with our FREE resource, Dinner Conversation Starters.

Download our FREE resource, 30-Second Micro Moments of Intention with Your Kids, created for busy parents like you who need easy, actionable ways to have daily meaningful connections with their kids in less than a minute!

Parenting Questions? Email us at parentsmakingtime@gmail.com (Please note, your question may be featured on the show).

For parenting inspiration, time management ideas, and encouragement for families, follow the hosts' individual accounts:

Anthony Craiker: Instagram | LinkedIn

Jennifer Craiker: Instagram

Interested in joining our free online parenting community? Send us a DM to receive an invite!

VISIT OUR WEBSITE: https://www.parentsmakingtime.com/

Enjoy the show? Leave a rating & review: Apple | Spotify

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Transcript

Parents Making Time Ep. 27

Jennifer: [00:00:00] Have you ever had one of those parenting moments when your child makes a mistake and suddenly everything feels like it's spiraling? Today's episode is a little different than our normal ones. Anthony's gonna share a story from our own parenting journey about a stressful situation that came on suddenly and what it taught us about staying calm when our kids mess up.

It might actually be a little funny too.

Anthony: This is parents making time. The show that helps busy parents put family first without burning out. We are Anthony and Jennifer Craiker. We don't just give parenting tips. We help you become the parent you want to be.

Jennifer: Like I said, today's episode's gonna be a little bit different. So instead of our usual back and forth conversation, Anthony's gonna share a story from our own parenting journey. And it's a story about a stressful situation. It happened about just over a year ago, and it wasn't one that we saw coming.

It was a mistake that could have easily turned into a much bigger problem. Had Anthony not stayed calm [00:01:00] and prompted me to as well. I think sharing stories between parents is important. Stories have a way of connecting parents to each other. When we hear someone else's experience, it reminds us that we are not the only ones navigating messy moments with our kids.

Stories break down the walls of comparison. They remind us that behind every put together family are real parents dealing with real situations. Now, if you are listening to this story today and you think that would never happen to us, we gently suggest this. In parenting, it's rarely a question of if you'll face a stressful moment like this.

It's usually when. So today we are sharing one of ours, and as Anthony tells the story, we want you to think about this question. What kind of parent do you want to be when your child makes a mistake? Because those moments when everything feels tense and uncertain are often the moments our kids remember the most.

Anthony: Okay, so last time I teased this [00:02:00] episode and said it was how I paid $2,000 to become Father of the Year. So that's obviously a little bit of a joke and we'll explain why in a minute. But this happened on a day when I was incredibly busy. I had a lot that I needed to get done, and it tends to, these kinds of things tend to always happen on the days where.

You at least want them to happen. But it started early in the morning. So Ethan, our son who was a junior in high school at the time, he goes to an early morning church class where they study scriptures and things together. And so he leaves early in the morning, so this is before school starts.

And so he's out the door by about five 30 every morning. And like any other day, he was up and ready to go and he's really good about getting up and going in the morning. And [00:03:00] he leaves and he drives himself to this church class at our church. And I was gonna get a headstart on the day 'cause I had a really busy day and I had some projects I was working on and I was excited to just.

Get in and get the things done that I needed to do. Well, a few minutes, not even a few minutes maybe a couple of minutes after he left again, this is around five 30 in the morning. I got a phone call from him. 

Jennifer: You never wanna get a phone call from your kid at five 30 in the morning? 

Anthony: No. No. And of course that wasn't normal for him.

He didn't. Normally call me on his way when he was driving to the church or anything like that. So I knew something was up. And so seeing his name pop up on the screen, filled me with adrenaline and I am worried that something had happened.

So I answered the phone and his voice was panicked and he said, dad, I hit something. Oh my gosh. And so my first concern was, of course, are you okay? [00:04:00] Right. That's the first reaction that I had was are you okay? He was fine, but the car apparently wasn't, and he wasn't quite sure and it was dark.

And I was like, okay, where are you? And he was just like, he was still on our street. He was just. Down a, a little ways. I 

Jennifer: think I've counted. It's like. Four houses. 

Anthony: Yeah. Yeah. 

Jennifer: That's all. He got four houses, 

Anthony: about four houses down. And I'm thinking, what in the world could you have hit, just four houses down, because cars don't, in our neighborhood, car cars aren't allowed to park on the street during the middle of the night, so there shouldn't have been any other cars there.

And I'm like, what? What in the world? So I was like, okay, just stay there. I'll be there in just a minute. So. Put my shoes on and get out the door and get down a few houses down as quickly as I could. And he had hit a curb and it had had blown out the front. Passenger side tire.

And it looked [00:05:00] like it, it had like kind of bent the what should we call it? The frame. The frame. Thanks. And I was like, oh boy. But I, I couldn't tell for sure 'cause it was dark. And I'm like, okay, well let's get the car back. And so I was able to. Drive the car EE enough to where I could turn it around and head back to our house and get it into our garage safely.

And sure enough the tire was completely blown out. And, I'm thinking this is not the day for this to happen, but, and this is important. I knew that this was something that I could easily lose my temper over, and because it was obvious that. The mistake he made was not paying attention while he was driving.

Because there's no way if he had been paying attention that he would've like, hit this curb and, I don't know if he was looking at his phone or what. He never admitted to that, or 

Jennifer: sleepy. 

Anthony: Or maybe he was sleepy, but he [00:06:00] does this drive every morning. Yeah. So it wasn't like this was a, he wasn't driving in a new environment or anything like that.

And I knew that I could have lost my temper pretty easily, but thankfully I kept my cool and I reassured him, ev think everything's gonna be all right. We'll get this figured out. And anyway, so I wake up Jennifer to let her know what happened and also. I think I said something like, let's, not be too hard on him about this.

Jennifer: What I remember you saying is Ethan's hit something with a car. The car is damaged. Don't get mad. He needs his mom right now. Yeah. I just, I, that's what I remember you saying is he needs his mom right now and so. I got up, got dressed, went out to the living room, and he just cried on my shoulder for quite a while.

Anthony: He was pretty upset about it.

Jennifer: Actually he told me, this is kind of funny. He told me, mom, the road curved [00:07:00] and I did it. Okay. That was a good explanation for it. Right? 

Anthony: That's one way to explain it, I guess. So anyway, this is where the story gets worse, so 

Jennifer: if it Yeah, it does. 

Anthony: So. I the car's in the garage and, I inspect it and I'm like, okay, we're gonna have to change the tire.

We don't have a spare tire, so that's a problem. And so we decide that while I'm getting the tire off and stuff and, getting ready to replace that you would run to the store and buy a new tire. By this time, the auto shops are starting to open up, I think they open at 7, 7 30, something like that.

Jennifer: Yeah. We waited a little bit to console him and to let it get light outside. 

Anthony: Yeah. And so. I get the tire off and it did look like the frame was bent a little bit, but I, I couldn't tell for sure. I'm not a car guy and it had been a long time since I had changed a tire. [00:08:00] I do know how to change a tire, but it had been a long time.

And I should preface this by saying that the only jack, kind of jack that I had was those cheap. 

Jennifer: The one that comes with 

Anthony: the car. The one that comes with the car, right? Yes. And so I had jacked the car up on with the jack and got the tire off. What I didn't do that I should have done, and keep in mind it was early in the morning, but I didn't put the parking brake on.

And so what happened was the car slips off the jack and comes crashing down. And, but the wheel is now off so it crashes down in that corner. , 

Jennifer: Thankfully no one was under the car when that happened. 

Anthony: Yeah. Thankfully. Nobody, I wasn't under the car.

Nobody was underneath. Thankfully nobody got hurt. But, but 

Jennifer: all three of us were standing there when it happened and we just all looked at each other and I think I just walked inside and walked away. 

Anthony: Yeah, I mean, I was just like, this can't be happening today. And I [00:09:00] knew when the car came crashing down, I knew that it did damage to the car.

I mean, you could hear it. And so I was like, okay, we gotta figure this out. So we had gotten the tire, Jen got the tire from the tire shop. So I had that, but I wasn't about to jack the car up again with the cheap jack that I had. So I go to Home Depot and I spend like $250 or something on a new Jack.

It's like this. Three ton Jack. Nice. Jack. I still, we still have it. We still have it. Only used had to use it that one time, but 

Jennifer: knock on wood. 

Anthony: Yeah, 

Jennifer: you just jinxed us. 

Anthony: I know. So by this time I'm pretty frustrated. But I got the car jacked up. It was a lot easier with this new fancy jack that I bought and I put the tire on the car and I was like, okay, maybe.

Maybe it'll be okay. 

Jennifer: Fingers crossed. 

Anthony: And, 

Jennifer: and some prayers said, 

Anthony: I'm ready. So [00:10:00] I decided to take it for a test drive. And keep in mind, we're now much later in the morning. And so my busy day that I had with work and some other projects had not even started yet. 

Jennifer: Well, and I've taken, I'd taken Ethan on to school and he was a wreck, 

Anthony: right?

Jennifer: I think the whole day at school, he was nothing but a mess, 

Anthony: right? And so I go test drive the car. And I mean, it was jacked up. It, it was, I I had to hold the steering wheel at like a 45 degree angle to get it, to drive straight. It didn't 

Jennifer: sound right either. 

Anthony: Yeah. And it didn't sound right. And so I was like, oh my gosh, you know, this is gonna be expensive.

So Jennifer followed me to the repair shop. We were able, I was able to drive the car there. Couldn't have been slowly, yeah, slowly and not safely. But I didn't want to have to hire a tow truck to tow it, so I was able to drive it. And the technician. He basically took one look at [00:11:00] it and was like, yikes.

Remember 

Jennifer: he called us back and he is like, let's, let's look at this together. 

Anthony: Yeah. Yeah. So they, they put the, the car up on the big lift and he Yeah. Actually had us come out and showed us where all the damage he was. 

Jennifer: He did some pretty significant damage to this car. 

Anthony: Oh yeah. So like the whole chassis was damaged and I mean, it was bad.

And so any, anyway, all together with the repairs and the money we spent on the new Jack and all that it came to about $2,000.

Jennifer: And remember that was in 30 seconds of driving. Yeah. He drove for 30 seconds and cost $2,000 worth of 

Anthony: damage. Yeah. And didn't, I mean, thankfully. Didn't hit another car 

Jennifer: or any property 

Anthony: didn't hit property there, there was a, there is a pretty big, scrape, scratch, looking on the curb.

Jennifer: Oh, I think of it every time I see that. 

Anthony: Yeah. 

Jennifer: Which is every day. 

Anthony: But, no one was injured. Thank [00:12:00] goodness. It wasn't. Relatively speaking, it wasn't that big of a deal, but it was just something that happened on a really busy day and something that had a really hefty price tag.

Jennifer: Yeah. 

Anthony: And so Ethan, poor kid was dreading coming home that day. 'Cause he, he knew that. The car was likely to require quite a bit of repair. And so we set him down that, that evening. And, he was kind of nervously awaiting the outcome the fallout. And I think thought we were gonna be really mad.

And he was very apologetic for what happened. And, instead of getting upset with him, we had, we took the opportunity to have a really good conversation with him about the importance of paying attention while driving and not being distracted and the importance of [00:13:00] safety pointing out that, something.

Much worse could have happened, and thankfully it didn't. And that he needs to be really mindful when he is on the road and, we just had this calm, conversation that was more of a lesson for him than it was a lecture or any kind of us. You were getting upset with him or something like that.

And so later that night Jennifer and I were kinda debriefing on the whole thing and high fived each other for not losing our tempers. Even once during that whole, the whole ordeal, we didn't lose our tempers. And we joked that I had won. Father of the year and that it only cost about $2,000.

So that's the story. And the big takeaway is a lot of times when our kids do something dumb or make a mistake, there's a very short window of time that you have to decide how you're gonna react to [00:14:00] that and how you react. Can really. I mean, it, it can have big consequences in your relationship and I'm so glad that I recognized quickly that I needed to keep my anger and frustration in check and let this kid who, made a dumb mistake.

Like all kids do know that it was gonna be okay and just use it as a teaching opportunity instead of a beat down. 

Jennifer: Right, right. And we did show him, we showed him the bill of how much it costs and we said, we're not gonna ask you to pay for this. This is why you have parents. We did tell him we would no longer pay for him to mow the lawn.

But yeah, that was really the only consequence. Of a punishment. I, it was really wasn't a punishment, it was just an explanation of why we were going to just ask him to do that for 

Anthony: free. And, and we showed him how much it was gonna cost, not to make him feel guilty, but because we wanted him to understand the serious consequences of not paying attention while driving.

Jennifer: Oh yeah. And to [00:15:00] understand like he wasn't, he's not that far from leaving the house, and we're not always going to be there to catch those consequences. And he needed to know. What they were what did come from that? And we could have made that mistake, like you said. Of getting mad. 'cause of course we felt anger during that but you had the presence of mind not to act on it and to help me not act on it either.

And really, it comes down to, what would it have done had you gotten angry? What would that have done in this situation? It wouldn't have done anything but escalate it. And we have to remember in those moments, I think as parents remember ourselves as teenagers, remember the mistakes we made, remember how we would've felt in that situation.

And I think that helps give some clarity on how to move forward. 

Anthony: Yeah, 

Jennifer: so I think it's a really great story. It's funny now it, we still, 

Anthony: we can laugh about it now. 

Jennifer: We can laugh about it now. We even tease Ethan about it from time to time. And like I said, every time I pass that curb in our neighborhood, I. I think about it.

So if you enjoyed that story, if you're related or if you might relate in [00:16:00] the future to that story, leave a rating and review about this podcast wherever you've listened to it, but also share it with someone else who might relate to that, because we know sharing these stories is important. Next time on parents making time, we are gonna talk about something that surprised us.

We recently heard a psychology professor explain that the typical trajectory of marital satisfaction actually starts high in the beginning, but then drops after the first child is born, and then it doesn't really climb back up until the kids leave the house. That got us thinking, why does this happen to so many couples and does it have to be that way?

Join us next time as we talk about what parenting does to marriage and what couples can do to stay connected along the way. Until next time, make time to become the parent you want to be.