One of my epic failures as a parent happened when my daughter was going through her rebellious teen years. It was ironic that the day she came home from her friend’s house with streaks of purple running through her hair was the same day that a column appeared in a local daily newspaper about how a parent can best deal with their freaky-haired teen. The problem was that I was on the panel of “experts,” and I was about to eat my own words.

My daughter bounded happily through the front door sporting a short bob haircut of jet-black hair glimmering with purple haze. (She was blonde only 12 hours earlier). “Hi, Mummy! How do you like my hair?” she asked. “Isn’t it cool?”

My jaw almost hit the floor. Everything I said in the column that morning - staying calm, asking open-ended questions, not passing judgment - went right out the window. My advice to the parent who posed the question in the article was to keep things in perspective. Teenagers need to express themselves and experiment with different persona. And really, hair grows back, doesn’t it?

Instead, I went into a tirade, demanding she change her hair back to its original color immediately lest we cancel her summer program in Boston. As do most teens when confronted, she yelled back. I yelled more, and she stomped her way up the stairs to her bedroom, slamming the door so hard that it passed the door jamb. She was stuck inside until her father came home and removed the door from the frame. It was probably a good thing since I was so furious.

That afternoon I took my son to the pool and met up with some other moms and their kids. One of the moms introduced me to a friend whom she had brought along for the day. As the boys ran off to the water and we settled into our spot, I began relaying the events of my morning to the group of women. The one I had just met piped up with, “Hey, there was just a great column in the paper this morning about that! You ought to read it!” I couldn’t bear to tell her that I wrote it.

That night I did sit down with my daughter, streaked hair and all. And we talked about why I reacted so strongly and what I should have done instead. She did not change her hair color, and we did not cancel her Boston trip. I had to learn to understand she is a child who marches to her own beat and she had to learn how to deal with a mother who is more of a conformist than she.

Parenting is not about doing the right things all the time. It is all about making mistakes and learning from them. Parents grow as their children grow. Even though you might know the “right” thing to do in any situation, there are times when parents are caught completely off guard and do something else or do nothing. That’s OK. The relationship you have with your child will allow you to unjam the door and reopen the conversation.

If you build a strong relationship with your teen before they reach adolescence, you will be glad you did.