A parent shares why showing up fully matters more than getting parenting right. Playing Candyland with real attention, or listening when your kid had a bad day at school, teaches them they're worth your focus. That presence is what builds trust and lets them talk about what's actually going on.
I just look at parenting as a form of meditation of like, I'm gonna get bored playing Candyland. Like, that game sucks. My daughter can play that game 1,000 times and she's having a blast. And all she cares about is me being there with her. It's being present without having my work to-do list going in the back of my mind. It's in those moments, if I can create that presence, all of a sudden she'll just blurt something out like, you know, I had a really hard day at school. And then just like, tell me about these things. You really have to create that space for them to come to you with these things and just watching the way their brain works. For me, it's really trying to create those moments where all of a sudden they're safe enough just to tell me and clue me into what's going on in their lives.
