Stop Pretending Everything is Fine

Authenticity creates the emotional safety your family actually needs

I have been having a hard time lately, and the heaviest emotion in the room has been grief. In the past few weeks a good friend’s father passed, a beloved family member got some hard medical news, and building my own business has made me miss my sister multiple times a day, every day. We lost her very suddenly a few years ago when she was just 40. She was (is? I still never know how to talk about tenses) an amazing entrepreneur and among the millions of things I miss about her, I find myself wanting to call her every day to talk about my own business and then I get stuck mourning not only her absence, but how much our shared business building paths would have added a whole new depth to our relationship. It has not been an easy few weeks, and the other day my 5 year old noticed. She is a pretty emotionally aware kid and asked me what was wrong. And I told her, straight up. “I have just been feeling more sadness mixed in lately and it makes things feel heavier.” She asked why I was sad, and I told her. “Someone I love is sick. Someone I love lost someone special. And I just really miss Aunt Annie. Sadness isn’t the only thing I feel right now, but it’s showing up bigger.” She hugged me and said we should snuggle and watch Moana because we both love it. I agreed.

The Illusion of Protection

We think we're doing our kids a favor when we shield them from life's harder moments. When grief visits our family, when stress overwhelms us, when disappointment cuts deep, our instinct is to close the door, lower our voices, and present a composed face to our children. We tell ourselves we're protecting them, preserving their innocence, keeping their world light and safe.

But what message are we actually sending?

When we hide our struggles, we inadvertently teach our kids that difficult emotions are dangerous, shameful, or unmanageable. We model that the appropriate response to life's inevitable challenges is concealment and avoidance. Without meaning to, we communicate that feelings should be hidden away, dealt with in isolation, and never shared with the people who love us most.

This becomes particularly problematic during adolescence, when emotional intensity naturally peaks and young people are developing their own emotional vocabulary and regulation skills. If we've spent years demonstrating that hard emotions get tucked away, we shouldn't be surprised when our teenagers retreat to their rooms during their most challenging moments, convinced that their big feelings are too much to share.

The Real Gift: Modeling Emotional Courage

What if we've had it backwards? What if the gift isn't protection from difficulty, but rather witnessing how people we trust handle difficulty with grace, honesty, and connection?

Research in emotional granularity shows us that adolescents who can identify and distinguish between their complex emotions have better mental health outcomes and stronger regulation skills. But here's what's fascinating: they don't develop this emotional sophistication in isolation. They learn it by watching the adults in their lives name, navigate, and ultimately move through challenging emotional terrain.

When we model sitting with discomfort rather than avoiding it, we teach our kids that feelings, even the hard ones, are survivable and temporary. When we show them how we reach out for support during difficult times, we demonstrate that connection, not isolation, is how humans are designed to heal. When we name our emotions with specificity, ‘I'm feeling overwhelmed and a little scared about this change, but also hopeful’ we give them the language they'll need for their own emotional experiences.

As Dr. Susan David reminds us, "Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life." Our children need to learn this truth not from a lecture, but from watching the adults they love model it day after day, choice after choice.

Belonging Through Shared Humanity

The research on dignity tells us that psychological safety, feeling free from humiliation and valued for who we are, is fundamental to healthy development. When we hide our struggles from our children, we accidentally communicate that there are parts of human experience that are unacceptable, shameful, scary, or too much.

But when we share our emotional reality appropriately, not burdening them with adult problems, but letting them see that we experience the full spectrum of human emotion, we create belonging through shared humanity. We show them that their own intense feelings don't make them broken or different. We normalize the experience of being human.

This is especially crucial for adolescents, whose developing brains are primed for emotional intensity and social connection. When they see us handle grief, stress, disappointment, or fear with authenticity and resilience, they develop a blueprint for their own emotional navigation. They learn that feelings pass, that support helps, and that vulnerability builds connection rather than destroying it.

Building Tomorrow's Caregivers

Here's what happens when we let our kids see our struggles: they learn that challenge is a signal to move closer, not further away. They develop empathy not through lectures about kindness, but through real opportunities to practice support and compassion within their own family.

Parents often lament that adolescents are self-centered, yet we rarely give them genuine chances to practice being the support person at home. When we share our emotional reality appropriately, we create space for our kids to step into their developing capacity for care. We teach them that it's not only appropriate but necessary to support the people they love, including their parents.

You're not just managing an adolescent you're coaching a future contributor. You're helping to build the next generation of community members, caregivers, and changemakers. When your adolescent learns to respond to your grief with a hug, to your stress with a thoughtful question, or to your vulnerability with presence rather than retreat, they're rehearsing the emotional skills that will define their adult relationships and their capacity to heal the world.

Your children are watching you navigate life's challenges. The question isn't whether they'll face difficulties. They will. The question is whether they'll have witnessed someone they love handle those difficulties with courage, connection, and the deep knowing that all feelings, even the hardest ones, are temporary visitors that deserve acknowledgment rather than avoidance.

When we teach our children to respond with empathy to the struggles happening right in their own home, we're also teaching them not to turn a blind eye to suffering wherever they encounter it. The adolescent who learns to notice when their parent needs support is the same young person who will grow up to recognize when policies dehumanize others, when communities are struggling, and when dignity is under attack. Caring starts close to home, but it doesn't stay there.

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Making It Happen IRL 🌈 💫: Practical Ways to Model Sitting with Hard Stuff

Name it to tame it: When you're experiencing difficult emotions, use specific language. Instead of "I'm fine," try "I'm feeling really sad about this loss, and that's making it hard to concentrate today."

Show your process: Let your kids see you take deep breaths, call a friend for support, or take a walk to process emotions. Narrate your coping strategies: "I need a few minutes to feel this disappointment, and then I'm going to figure out what to do next."

Normalize temporary discomfort: "This feeling is really intense right now, and I know it won't last forever. Feelings always pass, even the hard ones."

Demonstrate connection over isolation: Reach out for support in front of your kids. Let them see you call a friend, ask for help, or share your struggles appropriately with trusted people.

Acknowledge their emotions too: "I can see you're really frustrated. That's such a hard feeling. Want to tell me more about it?"

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If this resonates with you, if you're ready to move from managing your teenager to mentoring them, from surviving adolescence to truly connecting through it, I'd love to have you join me in It's Gonna Be Great.

This isn't another program telling you how to fix your teen. It's research-backed tools and real-world strategies to help you show up as the emotionally intelligent, authentic parent your adolescent needs. Together, we'll explore how to build the kind of relationship that doesn't just survive adolescence, but creates a foundation for lifelong connection.

Something I know for sure: when we stop pretending everything is fine and start modeling what it looks like to be beautifully, messily human, everything changes. Your kid stops hiding. You stop worrying. And your family discovers that adolescence isn't a crisis to endure, it's an incredible opportunity to grow closer together.

Learn more about It's Gonna Be Great Here 🩷