My Kid’s Crisis is Always Urgent

Nope. Not every big feeling needs a first responder.

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Summer intensifies everything, especially the noise.
More meltdowns. More mess. More moments that hit harder than they probably should.
And some days, it’s not just the chaos that rattles us.
It’s how quickly our response system goes into overdrive.

This is part three of a five-part series naming the myths that make parenting feel harder than it has to. And this one doesn’t just drain our energy—it trains us to believe we’re failing if we’re not fixing.

Why do I feel like every outburst is an emergency?

From the moment they’re born, we’re wired to respond. They cry, we move. They scream, we scramble. The urgency is real in the beginning, because it has to be.
Crying equals need. Distress equals danger. Responsiveness is love. Safety. Survival.

But the urgency doesn’t fade.
It just evolves.

Now they’re not crying in a crib—they’re slamming doors, melting down over socks, panicking over a missing water bottle.
And even when we know it’s not life-threatening, our bodies don’t always get the memo.

We hear distress—and we react.
Immediately. Emotionally. Sometimes disproportionately.

Because the myth we’ve internalized says:
If my kid is upset, I need to be upset, too.

Not because we think they’re fragile.
But because we’ve learned that a calm child reflects a competent parent.
We’ve confused our kids’ emotional regulation with evidence that we’re getting it right, and dysregulation as a sign we’re doing it wrong.

So we rush in.
Problem-solve. Absorb. Intervene.
Even when it’s not needed.
Even when it backfires.
Even when it empties us out.

Sometimes, our urgency isn’t even about their pain. It’s about escaping our own discomfort in the presence of theirs.

Sometimes the most loving thing we can do—for our kids and ourselves—is pause.
That pause isn’t neglect.
It’s training.
It’s how kids learn their feelings don’t have to control the room, or define them.

So why does our kids’ distress feel so overwhelming?

We don’t just hear them—we feel them. In our chest. In our breath. In the silence that follows. Their distress hijacks our emotions before we even know what we’re reacting to.

That internal alarm isn’t imagined—it’s built.
It’s been shaped by our own nervous systems.
By trauma. By anxiety. By cultural messaging that says good parents are always attuned, always responsive, always “on.”

So when a child is angry, sad, or scared, we don’t just see a feeling.
We see a red flag. A crisis.
A threat to attachment, to identity, to their sense of safety.

We forget that the volume of a feeling isn’t always equal to its urgency.

And in doing so, we deny our kids two essential truths:
That emotions are signals, not sirens.
And they can learn to listen without spiraling.

So what do we do with that urgency?
We reframe the goal.
Our job isn’t to eliminate distress.
It’s to help our kids learn to navigate it, without assuming every spike in emotion is a code red.
That starts with a beat.
A pause.
A reminder: Big doesn’t mean bad. Loud doesn’t mean urgent.

Unless they’re at risk of hurting themselves or someone else, we can slow down.
Not to ignore. Or dismiss.
But to resist the reflex to fix—and offer something else instead:
A steady presence.
A boundary.
A calm mirror.

Sometimes that sounds like:
“I hear that you’re upset. I’m going to sit right here while you work through it.”
Sometimes it looks like letting them scream, cry, or spiral — without rushing to contain it.
Sometimes it means holding the boundary, even when it makes us the bad guy in the moment.

Because when we fix too quickly, we don’t just interrupt their process—we unintentionally teach them they can’t handle hard things without us. That doesn’t build trust. It builds dependence. And it reinforces the very panic we’re trying to protect them from.

Regulation isn’t something we can hand our kids. It’s something they have to build on their own.
And it’s built not when everything is fine. It’s built when things are not fine, and they still feel safe enough to fall apart.

Letting our kids feel hard things isn’t neglect.
It’s trust.
It’s how they learn that discomfort is survivable.
That feelings come and go.
That they can weather the storm without us rescuing them from the rain.

And maybe most importantly: it’s how we remember that not every feeling in the room belongs to us.
That presence doesn’t require possession. That empathy doesn’t mean entanglement.

That doesn’t mean we ignore their emotions. It means we stop confusing their feelings with our failure. We’re not meant to feel for our kids—we’re meant to hold steady while they do.

That’s not inadequate parenting.
That’s regulated, responsive parenting.

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This is part three of a five-part summer series: The Myths Making Parenting Harder Than It Has to Be.

Next up: What if I adore my kids, but not the grind that comes with raising them? Maybe that’s not a flaw, but proof I’m here for all of it, not just the parts that sparkle?

Other Parenting Myths:

This Is Easier For Everyone Else

I Should Have This Figured Out By Now