Last week, I found my daughter sitting on her bedroom floor, tears streaming down her face after her tower of blocks had collapsed for the third time. But what stopped me in my tracks wasn’t her crying—it was what she said next. “I’m sorry, Mama. I’m being silly.” She wiped her eyes quickly, forcing a wobbly smile. “I’m okay now.”
She’s five.
My heart shattered in that moment because I saw myself. Not the mother I am today, but the child I was, the teenager, the young adult who learned to swallow tears like they were something shameful.
And worse, I realized she’d learned this not from my words but from watching me do exactly that—push through, smile when I wanted to cry, and treat my emotions like inconveniences to be managed rather than experiences to be felt.
That’s when it hit me: the patterns we think we’ve broken have a way of sneaking through the cracks, teaching lessons we never meant to pass on.
The invisible curriculum we teach
You know how kids absorb everything? They’re like little emotional sponges, picking up not just what we say but how we breathe when we’re stressed, how our shoulders tense when we’re overwhelmed, how we quickly blink away tears when something moves us.
I spent seven years teaching kindergarten before having my daughter, and I thought I understood how children learned. But nothing prepares you for watching your own child mirror your unspoken habits—especially the ones you’ve been trying to unlearn your whole life.
My mother was a wonderful woman who made everything from scratch and created a warm home for us. But she was also anxious, always worried about what others thought, always making sure everything appeared perfect. I watched her suppress her own needs and emotions to keep everyone else comfortable.
And despite my best intentions, despite years of working on these patterns, here was my daughter apologizing for having feelings.
The truth is, we can read all the parenting books, attend all the workshops, and still accidentally teach our children that certain emotions are more acceptable than others—simply by how we handle our own.
When “being strong” becomes being disconnected
There’s this cultural myth that being emotionally strong means not crying, not showing vulnerability, not admitting when we’re struggling. But what does this actually teach our children?
A few months ago, I lost a dear friend unexpectedly. When I got the phone call, my kids were in the living room building a fort. My instinct was to hide in the bathroom, pull myself together, and emerge composed. That’s what I’d always done. That’s what I’d watched my mother do.
But this time, I sat down on the couch and let the tears come. My daughter climbed into my lap, confused and a little scared. “Mama’s sad,” I told her. “My friend died, and I’m going to miss her very much.”
“Is it okay to be sad?” she asked.
“It’s always okay to feel what you feel,” I said, holding her close.
That afternoon, we talked about feelings—how they come and go like weather, how crying helps our bodies release big emotions, how being sad doesn’t mean we’re weak. My two-year-old brought me his favorite stuffed dinosaur, his version of comfort. My daughter drew me a picture of a rainbow “for when you feel better.”
They weren’t uncomfortable with my tears. I had been.
Breaking the cycle starts with us
Here’s what I’m learning: we can’t give our children permission to feel if we don’t give ourselves that same permission first. Every time we push through exhaustion instead of resting, every time we say “I’m fine” when we’re not, every time we hide our struggles, we’re teaching them that emotions are something to be managed, not experienced.
This doesn’t mean we dump our adult problems on our kids or treat them like emotional support animals. But it does mean being human in front of them—appropriately, honestly human.
Now when I’m frustrated, instead of pretending everything’s fine, I’ll say, “I’m feeling frustrated right now. I’m going to take three deep breaths to help my body calm down.” When I’m sad, I let them see me cry sometimes. When I’m overwhelmed, I model asking for help.
The shift has been remarkable. My daughter now comes to me with her feelings instead of apologizing for them. “Mama, I’m feeling angry because…” or “I’m sad and I need a hug.” She’s learning that emotions aren’t emergencies to be fixed but information to be understood.
Creating space for all feelings
One of the most powerful tools I’ve discovered is simply saying “tell me more” when my children express difficult emotions. Not “you’re okay” or “don’t cry” or even “it’s going to be fine”—just “tell me more” and “I’m listening.”
This morning, my daughter was upset because her brother knocked over her carefully arranged leaf collection. Old me would have immediately tried to fix it, distract her, or minimize the situation. Instead, I sat with her and said, “You worked really hard on that. Tell me how you’re feeling.”
She talked for five minutes about her leaves, which ones were her favorites, how she’d organized them by size. She cried a little. She expressed her frustration with her brother. And then, on her own, she decided to rebuild the collection and teach him how to help.
When we make space for feelings without rushing to fix or change them, our children learn that emotions aren’t problems to solve but experiences to move through. They develop emotional resilience not by suppressing feelings but by feeling them fully and learning they can survive them.
The power of repair
I still catch myself defaulting to old patterns sometimes. Just yesterday, I started to brush off my own tears when a song on the radio reminded me of my grandmother. But then I caught my daughter watching me, and I made a different choice.
“This song makes me think of my grandma,” I told her. “Sometimes when we miss people, our eyes cry happy-sad tears.”
“Happy-sad?” she asked.
“Happy for the memories, sad that they’re not here. Both feelings can be true at the same time.”
She nodded solemnly, then asked if we could listen to the song again.
The beautiful thing about parenting is that it’s never too late to shift course. Every moment is an opportunity to model something different, to repair old patterns, to show our children that feelings—all feelings—are welcome here.
Moving forward with intention
Breaking generational patterns isn’t about perfection. It’s about awareness, intention, and lots of gentle practice. It’s about catching ourselves in those moments when we’re about to repeat what was modeled for us and choosing something different.
I’m still working through my own patterns of people-pleasing and perfectionism, still learning to feel my feelings without apology. But now I’m doing it out loud, with my children as witnesses to my humanity rather than my performance of having it all together.
Last night, my daughter was building with blocks again. This time when her tower fell, she let out a frustrated growl, took a deep breath, and said, “I’m disappointed. I worked really hard on that.” Then she looked at me and asked, “Will you sit with me while I feel disappointed?”
I sat with her, holding space for her disappointment without trying to fix it. After a few minutes, she decided to try again, this time with a wider base.
That’s the generation I want to raise—one that knows feelings are meant to be felt, tears don’t require apologies, and being human is not something to hide but something to honor. One conversation, one tear, one moment of authentic emotion at a time.
