Amen.

As to your daughter, in the end you did the right thing, giving her comfort when she needed it and was confused and stressed and in a situation beyond her control. She is only seven …

LRC has it right.

As we get older and have children of our own we find out that our parents knew and know a lot and most have tried to do their best.

The atonement is for all of us. Our children, and ourselves. The very nature of our experience here is that we will make mistakes. Even if we follow the guidance of the Holy Ghost in every thought and act, our children have experiences and thoughts that give them pause to evaluate thoughts and actions of their own and those around them. Their experiences can help them develop and obtain testimonies of their own.

The thoughts I had as I read your experiences. I love that the atonement works for me each day. I hope your experience brings you closer to the saviour and to each other.

In my life I’ve struggled a lot with what I call relationship perfectionism–the idea that I have to be perfect in a relationship, to always do the right thing. Which of course leads to a lot of guilt and self-recrimination, as I am far from meeting that ideal. But lately it’s occurred to me that that ideal itself might be problematic; if my focus is on always getting it right, being the perfect sister or friend or whatever, it actually undermines the relationship–because genuine relationships involve two real, vulnerable human beings. I don’t want my friends to be some ideal of the perfect friend; I value them because of who they are as real people.

I don’t know what I think about this in the context of divine-human relationships. But I do wonder–if God always does the right thing, makes the ideal response, what does it mean to have a relationship with him in particular, as opposed to any other exalted being (who would presumably also always do the right thing)? Not that I necessarily think that God is sometimes getting it wrong. But I want a different way to think about this.

To me, there is something beautifully sublime in knowing that, at some point in my existence, probably long after I have passed through the veil, I will be able to cast of the shackles of my imperfect methods of learning and come to live as God lives, to learn as He learns, and to love as He loves. In the meantime, I expect do the best with what I have, knowing that my best will never be good enough, but that God loves me enough to accept my offerings anyway.

Wishing you and your family peace and love during this time.

I agree with Kiskilili (#5) that the image of a persuadable God is appealing. So I really like that you were persuadable and went back and gave your daughter her book. I don’t know if I’ve ever thought about it in quite these terms, but one thing I’ve tried to do as a parent is show that in the end behind all the rules I may make up for them, I’m trying to be human and understand that there will need to be exceptions. I don’t know if I’m explaining that very well, but it’s that part of your story that really resonates with me.

However, I disagree with Bill’s comment above (#1) that even if parts of your reaction were wrong, they weren’t wrong, because thats just life. Life involves a series of right and wrong choices, and we have to take responsibility for those, regardless of the extraneous circumstances. I think it is good, and important, that we are willing to fess up to our mistakes. That said, after making a few early mistakes, I think you did a good job of rallying and making up with your daughter, and my guess is she does and will respect you for that. So I think there were elements of both right and wrong in this situation, which I think is common in parenting.

I also have to disagree with your analogy to Godly parenting. I think the notion that God deals with us in an interactive learning process has a lot of appeal, and the first time I learned of this “open-god theory” of divine nature, I really wanted to believe it. But as someone noted above, in order for this to be true, we would have to manipulative the doctrine to a tedious and untenable degree. While we can progress eternally, as can God, I’m willing to accept the fact that the nature of God’s eternal progression is something that transcends my current ability to understand. That his eternal progression may be “boring,” however, is entirely irrelevant to its veracity.

My condolences to you and your family for your loss. I hope everyone is doing okay.