There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that settles into your bones when you’re convinced you’re getting this whole parenting thing wrong.
Maybe you lost your patience at dinner. Maybe screen time crept past your limit again. Maybe you served cereal for the third night this week and called it a balanced meal because there was milk involved.
But then something happens. A thunderstorm rolls in, or a nightmare jolts your child awake, or they trip and skin their knee on the sidewalk. And without hesitation, they run straight to you. Not away from you. To you.
That instinct, that reaching, tells you something important. It tells you that beneath all your perceived failures, you’ve built something real. You’ve created safety. And that matters more than you might realize on the hard days.
1) You’ve established yourself as their safe place
When a child is frightened, their nervous system takes over. They don’t stop to think about who gave them the most organic snacks or who planned the best sensory activities. They go to whoever feels safest. That’s biology at work, and it’s pointing directly at you.
Attachment research has consistently shown that children develop what’s called a “secure base” with their primary caregivers.
As noted by developmental psychologist Dr. Kent Hoffman and his colleagues at Circle of Security, children need to know they have a safe haven to return to when the world feels overwhelming. When your child runs to you in fear, they’re demonstrating that you are that haven.
This doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because of countless small moments you probably don’t even remember.
The way you responded when they cried as a baby. The times you sat with them through big feelings. The ordinary Tuesday afternoons when you were just there, present and available. All of it adds up to this: you are their person.
2) You’ve shown up consistently, even imperfectly
Perfection isn’t what builds trust. Consistency is. And consistency doesn’t mean getting it right every single time. It means being there, again and again, in whatever way you can manage.
Think about what consistency actually looks like in real family life. It’s not a Pinterest board. It’s showing up for breakfast even when you’re tired. It’s reading one more story even when you’d rather collapse on the couch.
It’s apologizing when you mess up and trying again tomorrow. Children don’t need flawless parents. They need parents who keep showing up.
I think about the nights when I’ve been short-tempered, when I’ve rushed through bedtime because I was touched out and desperate for five minutes alone. Those nights happen.
But my kids still reach for me when they’re scared because the overall pattern has been one of presence. The hard nights don’t erase the foundation. They’re just part of the messy, real picture of family life.
3) You’ve made space for their emotions
Children don’t run to people who dismiss their feelings. They don’t seek comfort from adults who tell them to stop crying or insist they’re fine when they’re clearly not.
If your child comes to you with their fear, their sadness, their overwhelm, it’s because somewhere along the way, you taught them that their emotions are welcome with you.
This is no small thing. So many of us grew up learning to stuff our feelings down, to perform okayness even when we were falling apart inside. Breaking that cycle takes intention. It takes biting your tongue when you want to say “you’re fine” and instead saying “that was really scary, wasn’t it?”
Research on emotional coaching from The Gottman Institute shows that children whose parents acknowledge and validate their emotions develop better emotional regulation skills and stronger relationships.
When you make space for your child’s feelings, you’re not coddling them. You’re teaching them that emotions are information, not emergencies. You’re showing them that they don’t have to face hard things alone.
4) You’ve prioritized connection over control
There’s a version of parenting that focuses primarily on compliance. On getting kids to behave, to listen, to fall in line. And sometimes that approach might produce outwardly “good” behavior. But it rarely produces the kind of deep trust that makes a child run toward you when they’re afraid.
If your child seeks you out in vulnerable moments, it’s likely because you’ve prioritized your relationship over your authority.
You’ve chosen connection even when it would have been easier to just lay down the law. You’ve gotten curious about their behavior instead of immediately correcting it. You’ve remembered that they’re not giving you a hard time, they’re having a hard time.
This doesn’t mean you have no boundaries or that you let chaos reign. It means that when you do set limits, you do it with warmth. You hold the boundary and you hold your child at the same time. That combination of firmness and compassion builds the kind of trust that lasts.
5) You’ve repaired when things went wrong
Here’s something that might surprise you: ruptures in your relationship with your child aren’t just inevitable, they’re actually valuable. What matters isn’t whether you ever lose your cool or make mistakes. What matters is what happens next.
As child development expert Dr. Dan Siegel has noted, the repair process after a conflict can actually strengthen the parent-child bond. When you come back after a hard moment, when you say “I’m sorry I yelled, that wasn’t okay,” you’re teaching your child something profound.
You’re showing them that relationships can withstand difficulty. That love doesn’t disappear when things get hard. That people who care about each other take responsibility and make things right.
If your child still trusts you enough to run to you when they’re scared, it’s likely because you’ve done this repair work.
Maybe not perfectly, maybe not every single time, but enough. Enough that they know the hard moments aren’t the whole story. Enough that they believe in your love even when things get messy.
6) You’ve loved them in ways they can feel
Love isn’t just a feeling we have for our children. It’s something we demonstrate through action, through presence, through the thousand tiny choices we make every day. And sometimes we get so caught up in the doing of parenting that we forget to check whether our love is actually landing.
But when your child runs to you in fear, you have your answer. Your love is landing. They feel it. It has become part of their internal architecture, a foundation they can stand on when the ground shakes beneath them.
Maybe your love looks like the way you always check for monsters under the bed, even though you know there aren’t any.
Maybe it’s how you remember that they like their sandwich cut into triangles, not squares. Maybe it’s the songs you sing or the way you smell or the particular rhythm of your heartbeat that they’ve known since before they were born.
Whatever form it takes, your love has reached them. And that’s why they reach back.
Closing thoughts
On the days when you feel like you’re failing, when the voice in your head catalogs all the ways you’ve fallen short, I want you to remember this one thing. Your child runs to you when they’re scared. Not away. To you.
That means something. It means you’ve done the invisible, unglamorous, utterly essential work of building trust. It means that despite all your imperfections, your child knows in their bones that you are safe. That you are home.
So the next time you’re lying awake at night wondering if you’re doing enough, let this be your answer. You are.
The proof is in the reaching. The proof is in the small arms wrapped around your neck during a thunderstorm. The proof is in the way they call for you, and only you, when the world feels too big. You’re doing these things right, even when it doesn’t feel like it. Especially then.
