The way you handle your feelings teaches your kid how to handle theirs.

When I first became a parent, I thought my job was to guide, teach, and help my kid become a kind, capable human. Still true. But what I didn’t realize was how much of that work starts with me—not them.

We’re often told that “good” kids are quiet, polite, easy to manage. And without meaning to, we start chasing obedience like it’s the goal. Be pleasant. Stay calm. Don’t cause a scene. But kids aren’t robots. They’re brand new humans. With big feelings, strong needs, and zero filter.

They come into the world wide open—crying, laughing, falling apart, trying again. And it’s on us—the adults—to show them how to be with all of that. Not perfectly. Just honestly.

The catch? Most of us didn’t get that kind of guidance growing up.

We were raised to keep it together. Be helpful. Be good. Don’t cry unless you have a reason. Don’t get mad unless you can explain it. Our parents weren’t villains—they were doing their best, often under pressure. But feelings weren’t always safe or welcome. So we learned to push them down.

Now here we are, raising kids while still trying to figure out how to feel things ourselves.

So when your child has a meltdown in the cereal aisle, it’s not just about them. It stirs something in you. Old reactions. Old patterns. That internal voice that says, “Keep it together. Don’t make it worse. Get them to stop.”

That’s why so much parenting advice leans toward control. “Calm them down.” “Teach them to behave.” But what kids really need is something most of us never got: an adult who can stay present while they fall apart.

Not fix it. Not shut it down. Just stay with it.

Because when we react from our own unprocessed stuff, we teach them to shut down too. To bottle it, hide it, push through. And that’s how the cycle keeps going—kids growing into adults who don’t know how to feel what they feel.

We don’t need more perfect parents. We need more human ones.

Ones who pause when their kid is yelling instead of yelling back. Who take a breath before repeating what they heard growing up. Who say, “I’m feeling a lot too, and I’m working through it,” instead of pretending they have it all figured out.

That kind of modeling matters. It shows kids they don’t have to be afraid of feelings. That sadness doesn’t mean something’s wrong. That anger doesn’t make them bad. That calm is something you can come back to—not perform.

This is why I built Unsnag. Not for the easy moments, but for the charged ones. When everything in you wants to react fast, Unsnag gives you a quick way to slow down, feel it through, and reset—so you can meet your kid where they are, not where your nervous system panicked.

No one’s asking you to be a Zen master in every grocery store meltdown. Just a human, doing your best to feel your own stuff so your kid doesn’t have to carry it.

Little by little, that’s how we break the cycle. That’s how we raise humans who stay connected to themselves—because they watched you do the same.