A parent describes playing Candy Land over and over with his daughter, and how she only opens up about hard days when he's fully there, not thinking about work. Presence, not perfection, is what makes kids feel safe enough to share what matters.
I just look at parenting as a form of meditation of like, I'm gonna get bored playing Candy Land. 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.
