I Wish I Worried Less

I Wish I Worried Less

The advice I give parents most often is simple, yet hard to practice in the moment: “I wish I worried less as a parent when my children were young.” The energy spent agonizing over every single decision I made or didn’t make was exhausting.

As parents, we so easily get trapped in the exhausting cycle of, “What I should have done,” or “What I could have done better.” We carry the weight of trying to build a flawless world for our children, forgetting that true growth doesn't happen in a vacuum of perfection.

What matters most is not that you are a flawless parent, but that your children have a perfectly imperfect YOU. It is about learning and laughing from our mistakes, having the humility to admit to the moments we didn’t get right, and holding space to celebrate the moments we did.

When we demonstrate both our confidence and our imperfections, we give our children a profound gift. We show them how to navigate the world with resilience. They learn to challenge themselves, to succeed, and to fail, knowing deep in their bones that they have our unconditional love regardless of the outcome.

I truly wish I had worried less. We cannot control every single thing our children experience, and we will undoubtedly make mistakes along the way. But we can control how we react, how we pivot, and how we choose to learn and grow alongside them. It takes a village to raise a child, but it also takes a village to support a parent in letting go of that heavy armor of worry.

Action Items to Try at Home:

Normalize the Pivot: Share an “Oops” moment you had during your own day at the dinner table. Show them that adults mess up and move forward, too.

Co-Regulate the Mistakes: When your child makes a mistake, step away from fixing it immediately. Instead, pause and help them name exactly what they are feeling in that moment.

The 10-Year Rule: When you find yourself completely stuck on a decision regarding your child, take a deep breath, pause, and ask yourself: How important will this decision feel in 10 years? Let the answer guide your energy.