One of the big joys — and challenges — of parenting is the same for me. The older M gets the more her personality shines, and it’s thrilling to see her emerge. It’s also terrifying. The kid who shows off her dance moves in the grocery store is the same kid who is so headstrong that she gets kicked out of dance class for timeouts twice in one session.

I’m a socially anxious person. I’m okay in the moment but I analyze interactions to death after the fact, spotlighting any wrongdoings or awkwardness in my own personal postmortem. Parenting a preschooler with buckets of personality makes the anxiety spill over, sometimes.

I love my child. I love all of her, even the challenges. But I will admit to feeling the burden of shame when I hear about or witness things that she’s doing that aren’t in line with our family values or our expectations. For instance — in the span of a few days she brutally insulted a staff member at her daycare, had the aforementioned dance class issues, and I discovered just how awful a previous playdate was with a friend (Mac Daddy was the parent in charge that day so I didn’t know exactly how much of a terror she’d been until I spoke with the other parent).

And I’m sitting here thinking, she’s three and a half. She’s a kid. This is normal. It’s okay. But at the same time, a large part of me is screaming that we can do better and be better than this. And I am holding it in so as to not shame HER, but internally my thoughts are along the lines of “nobody is going to want to associate with us.”

I feel like so much of myself is tied up in my daughter, that if she missteps, even in a very human way, it reflects poorly on me. And as an anxious person who does not want to pass those feelings on, it’s hard as hell. For M, a rough moment or even a rough day are just that — a moment, or a day, and then it’s over. I don’t think she mulls it over and wonders if people think we’re screwing up. And I don’t want her to think that.

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It also breaks my heart to see her mad because she got a time out from class, or in tears because her friend isn’t coming to play. That shatters me more than the anxiety. And so I find myself lost. I want my child to be able to shake off the negatives, but I also want her to be able to fit in. I want her to be herself but I don’t want her to be disruptive. And again, again, she’s only three. She’s a child. She’s allowed to be a child.

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I’ve read some of Brené Brown’s writing on shame versus guilt, and I know she has a parenting-focused work that I am desperate to find the time to read. One of her overall philosophies is that we need to allow ourselves to be vulnerable, to work past that idea of shame for simply existing. Guilt is a different story; it comes with the territory of having actually done wrong.

But shame is something to shake off. Shame should not prevent me from putting myself — and my child — out there. Because the right people are the ones who can deal with my three-year-old acting like a three-year-old. And I need to be one of those people, too. I need to have realistic expectations, and I need to cut everyone some slack. We’re all human and that’s okay.

I realize this may be a challenging topic, but if anyone is willing to share, I’d love to hear if other parents have gone through similar struggles, and what helped.