Some sentences leave your mouth before your better self can catch them. You’re tired, you’re late, you’re worried, and then—there it is—the sharp little phrase you swore you’d never say.
In my sixties, with grown kids and grandkids who now tug at my sleeves in the park, I can still hear a few lines I wish I could pull back. I wasn’t a monster. I was a dad doing his best on a thin margin.
But if I could go back in time, I’d retire these eight sentences and swap in kinder, sturdier ones.
1. “Because I said so.”
At the time it felt efficient—a verbal gavel when the room was getting loud. Dinner on the stove, homework undone, a science project that seemed to multiply while my back was turned. “Because I said so” shut the door on the argument, but it also shut the window on understanding. It taught my kids that power beats reasons, and curiosity is a risky hobby.
If I could go back, I’d aim for one sentence of why: “No bike after dark; drivers can’t see you.” And when I truly didn’t have the bandwidth for a lecture, I’d at least name the truth: “I can’t explain right now. My answer is no, and I’ll tell you why at bedtime.” Kids don’t need a TED Talk. They need to know the grown-up has a reason and that reasons are a thing we share in this house.
Years later, when my daughter asked her boss, “What’s the ‘why’ so I can do it well?” I realized that explanation breeds confidence. Orders breed compliance. One grows an adult.
2. “Stop crying.”
I didn’t say it to be cruel. I said it because feelings make noise and noise complicates the schedule. Also, if I’m honest, crying scared me. What if I couldn’t fix the thing underneath it? What if the tears lasted forever and the pasta boiled over and then the evening fell apart?
Tears are not a malfunction. They’re a request for company. The better line—learned late, practiced now with the grandkids—is, “You’re sad. I’m here.” Breathe together. Sit on the edge of the bed for a minute. Name the feeling like you’re labeling a drawer. The funniest discovery of parenthood is that giving a feeling room makes it leave faster. Telling it to leave makes it unpack.
I wish I had let more tears happen without trying to win. It would have taught my kids that their inner life wasn’t an inconvenience. It was a place we could visit together without fear.
3. “You’re fine.”
This is the kinder cousin of “Stop crying,” and it’s just as dismissive. My son would take a soccer ball to the stomach, fold over like a card table, and I—wanting to help—would say, “You’re fine! You’re okay!” He wasn’t. He was startled and hurt. I was narrating the outcome I preferred, not the reality he was living.
If I could do it again, I’d try: “That looked like it hurt. Are you okay, or do you need a minute?” It’s a small shift that respects their body as the authority. Confidence grows faster in kids who aren’t argued out of their own experience. And to my surprise, when you let a child be “not fine” for thirty seconds, they return to “fine” with their dignity intact.
4. “Why can’t you be more like your brother/sister?”
I didn’t say this often, but once is too much. Comparison is the thief that sneaks into a child’s room and swaps their mirror for someone else’s. I remember a night when my daughter’s backpack looked like a paper factory had exploded. I praised her brother’s neatness out loud as if that would inspire her to become him. It didn’t. It just taught her that who she was missed the mark.
What I wish I had said: “You’re great at starting big. Let’s build you a system to finish small.” Then sit and help her sort the papers into “keep,” “toss,” “do.” The trick is to talk about behaviors, not identities. “You were noisy in the library,” not “You are noisy.” “You left your gear everywhere,” not “You’re messy.” Kids will write your adjectives into their bones if you’re not careful. Better to hand them verbs.
5. “You’re too sensitive.”
When one of my kids took something hard—an offhand comment from a teacher, a playground snub—I sometimes responded with that line. I thought I was toughening them up. What I did was teach them that their radar was faulty and their emotions were liabilities. Sensitivity isn’t a flaw; it’s an instrument. It just needs tuning.
Now, when my granddaughter’s eyes fill because a friend didn’t wave back, I say, “That stung, huh? Your feelings work. Let’s figure out what helps.” Then we practice the “what helps” list: a walk, a book, a hug, a silly video, a snack. I wish I’d offered more of that menu to my kids. Sensitive kids don’t need thicker skin; they need better tools.
6. “We don’t talk about that.”
Some topics made me nervous—money, sex, mental health—so I deflected. “Not now.” “Later.” “We don’t talk about that.” It wasn’t morality; it was discomfort wearing a tie. The problem is that silence has a curriculum. When you don’t teach, the world does, and the world doesn’t always have your child’s best interest in mind.
If I could rewind, I’d keep the door open with a boundary: “We can talk about it. I’ll keep it age-appropriate.” Then tell the truth without theatrics. “Money pays for the lights and the food. We’re okay. We save for big things.” Or, “Bodies are private. Questions are welcome.” Or, when the fog rolled in during the teen years, “Sad can look like lazy. If sad sticks around, we get help.”
I learned, late but not too late, that questions aren’t threats. They’re bridges. Keep them open.
7. “Hurry up.”
There are days when family life runs on urgency. Shoes vanish in a two-room apartment. Someone remembers a permission slip at 7:58 a.m. Traffic pretends you’re in a video game. “Hurry up” becomes the soundtrack. I wish I’d used it less. Children who live in a constant wind tunnel learn to tie their worth to speed.
I can still picture my son on the sidewalk, fixing his sock because it was “wrong.” I barked, “Hurry up!” We made the light. We lost something else. If I could redo that morning, I’d build a margin where “Sock emergency” fits, or I’d name my part in the mess: “I didn’t leave us enough time. Let’s fix the sock.” Time can be a weapon or a structure. I wish I’d used it more as the latter.
These days, I still run late sometimes. But I try to say, “We leave in ten—want a two-minute warning at five?” They grow up, yes. But they remember how it felt to move through the world with you.
8. “I’m disappointed in you.”
I pulled this one out exactly twice, and I regret both. It lands like a verdict: not “that choice was off,” but “you are off.” Shame is a lazy teacher; it gets quick compliance at the cost of self-respect. The two times I used it, I watched my kids fold in on themselves. The behavior changed. The weather inside them worsened.
What I wish I’d said: “I’m surprised by that choice. Help me understand.” Or, “That’s not like you to be unkind. What was going on?” Or, if the moment called for firmness, “This crossed a line. Here’s the consequence. I still love you.” Separate the deed from the doer. When love is steady, boundaries are easier to hear.
I remember the night my son came to me, years later, about a mistake I never learned about in real time. He didn’t need punishment; he needed a map. We sat on the porch steps. I said, “I’m on your side. We’re going to fix this.” We made a plan. He exhaled like he’d been holding his breath for a decade. I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder than I was in that quiet repair.
What I’d tell my younger self
If you lined up all the things I wish I hadn’t said, they’d share one theme: they tried to compress unruly human life into a tight little box where dinner stays hot and feelings don’t spill and time behaves and children act like cheerful employees.
That box doesn’t exist. There’s only the messy room we live in, where pasta boils over and permission slips hide and someone cries at 8:03 a.m. and you are a person with a tired back trying to do right by people you would gladly jump in front of a bus for.
I’m gentler with the younger me now. He was using the tools he had. If I could go back, I’d hand him a few better ones.
I’d whisper, “Give one reason.”
I’d say, “Name the feeling.”
I’d nudge, “Describe behavior, not identity.”
I’d remind him, “Questions aren’t mutiny.”
I’d show him how to build margins on school mornings.
I’d give him three repair lines and tell him to use them often: “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.” “Here’s why I said no.” “I’m on your side.”
And I’d tell him the thing I only learned by getting older: the goal isn’t to raise a child who never struggles. It’s to raise a child who knows what to do with struggle and who believes your love isn’t a weather pattern that changes when they’re inconvenient.
A small story from the park
The other day, a little boy dropped his ice cream and stared at the world like it had betrayed him personally. His mother winced, opened her mouth (I knew that look), and then she edited in real time.
Instead of “You’re fine,” she knelt and said, “That’s a terrible moment. Want a hug or a spoon to rescue what we can?” He chose the spoon. It was a massacre. They both laughed anyway. Five minutes later, he was chasing pigeons. No scar. Just a sticky shirt and a new story: bad moments can be met with company and options.
I walked home feeling like the universe had put on a little clinic just for me.
If you’re parenting now—or they’re already grown
If you’re in the thick of parenting right now, you won’t get this right every day. Neither did I. You’ll say something sharp. You’ll fix too quickly. You’ll hurry someone who needed two extra minutes to find the right sock. Fine. Circle back. Try again. Kids are generous with do-overs when you model them.
And if your kids are grown and you wish you could take a sentence back, you still can in a way. Call them. Tell the truth: “I wish I hadn’t said X. I was tired and scared. I’m sorry.” Don’t expect fireworks. Expect a little more air in the room between you.
Repair beats perfection. It’s also the only parenting standard I’ve found that travels well into grandparenthood, into marriage, into friendships, into the conversations you have with yourself when you catch your reflection in a window and think, “I can do better than that.”
If I could go back in time, I’d trade cleverness for clarity, speed for calm, shame for boundaries, silence for honest talk, and certainty for curiosity. I can’t go back. But I can start each morning on a little bench by the window, coffee in hand, and decide which tools I’ll carry downstairs. My grandkids don’t know it, but they’re making me better at this every week.
Maybe that’s the quiet grace of getting older: you can’t rewrite the past, but you can change the sentences you say today. And those are the ones your family will remember next.
