Yes, the former New York governor lost his job in a prostitution scandal, and he was forced to make awkward public appearances with his wife, Silda. But Spitzer will have to work through repairing another important set of relationships, ones that will continue no matter what happens to his marriage: the relationships with his three daughters.

Moms and dads are supposed to teach their kids right from wrong, lead by example and put their children on a strong moral path to adulthood.

When a parent smudges this blueprint through recklessness, it will take work to regain the moral authority in the household.

Parents who make big mistakes need to own up to them, said Anne Jones, a clinical assistant professor in the School of Social Work at UNC-Chapel Hill.

"They need to come clean and admit that there was a terrible error in judgment," she said.

They can't blame it on anyone or anything else. No "if your mother didn't make me so angry" or "work is too stressful."

Lesli Doares, a marriage and family therapist in Cary, agrees.

"If you squirm and equivocate and not really own it, then what you're teaching them is, 'Oh, I don't have to do what my parents have been telling me all these years.'"

Both women say that wayward parents need to apologize to their children but realize that words by themselves won't cut it. Parents shouldn't expect that children will hear the apology, and then never again bring up the transgression. It can take time and effort to patch the relationship.

"Saying you're sorry is not going to do it alone," Jones said. "Most of the time children are very forgiving. But they need to do it on their own time."

The amount of detail an apologetic parent should reveal depends on the age of the children, Doares said. But within an apology, kids can see what their parents are made of.

"It really takes courage to say, 'Yeah, I messed up,'" she said. And if the parent shows the ability to accept consequences, "then you can become a hero in your kids' eyes."

Consequences might be legal or marital or otherwise. The way a parent handles them provides an example to their children.

"We're more or less the moral figures in our children's lives," Jones said. "When we make mistakes we have to let our children know that we made a mistake and set the example of acknowledging that and asking for forgiveness, in the same way we want our children to."

Once a parent has acknowledged the mistake, apologized and shown a willingness to accept the consequences, there's still something else that can be done: not doing it again.

If a struggling parent wants to regain the trust of their children, to get them to listen to their lectures of what's right and what isn't, that parent can't continue to make the same mistakes.

"In life you're going to fall, but you have to fall forward," said the Rev. Kelvin Redmond, pastor of Body of Christ Church in Raleigh.

Parents need to show their children that mistakes can be turned into learning experiences.

"They have to understand there are plenty of pop quizzes in life," Redmond said. "It's not the final exam. You have to learn how to recover."