Owning What’s Ours So They Can Be Free

When ‘Fixing’ Our Kids Is Really About Us

©Sidharth Singh Bahti via Canva

Every once in a while, I get the unshakable urge to chop my hair or dye it a color it has no business being. And because I’ve actually gone through with it a few times, I’ve got the photos to prove what I’ve since realized: it’s rarely about my hair.

It’s almost always about something internal—not aesthetic, but emotional.
A small, visible shift that gives me the illusion of power over something deeper I can’t quite reach.
A distraction.
A way to manage what feels unmanageable inside me.

It’s about moving the needle on something—anything—because something else in my life won’t budge.

Parenting triggers the same urge. Because we don’t just see our kids as themselves—we see them as reflections, as extensions of us. Which means the temptation to “fix” them often has less to do with who they are or what they’re doing, and more to do with what we feel.

Sometimes a change in our kids is necessary.
Sometimes a behavior really isn’t working.
Sometimes boundaries have to tighten, and consequences have to land.

But often—if we’re truly honest—we’re trying to “fix” our kids to make ourselves feel better.

The Roots Beneath the Urge

Most of us don’t think of ourselves as controlling parents.
We’re not dictating every move or running our kids’ lives with an iron grip.

But discomfort doesn’t always announce itself that loudly. More often, it sneaks in through the little things we feel compelled to manage—their tone, their preferences, their social habits, their pace. It doesn’t look like control. It feels like attentiveness, guidance, maybe even love.

Underneath, though, it’s the same impulse: trying to quiet what unsettles us.

And that discomfort only sharpens when our kids mirror something we haven’t made peace with. Suddenly, it’s not just parenting—it’s exposure. They echo the parts of us we’d rather keep buried, and it becomes almost impossible to sit still. So we scramble to manage it, not because they’re broken, but because we feel unsteady.

That scramble doesn’t come out of nowhere. It has roots.
Sometimes it’s fear—What if this never changes?
Or control—If I can shift this one thing, maybe I’ll finally feel less helpless.
Or unhealed history—watching our own story replay and feeling powerless to stop it.
And often it’s shame—believing their behavior reflects our worth.

These reactions aren’t usually conscious, but they are practiced. They come from old wiring, rehearsed over years—scripts we learned long before our kids ever gave us a reason to use them. Unless we name those roots for what they are, we risk passing down patterns that were never ours to carry—and certainly not theirs to inherit.

When Subtle Becomes Systemic

When the roots go unchecked, they don’t just stay buried in us—they surface in our kids, often in ways we barely notice.

It’s easy to see our blowups—the snapping, the punishing, the tightening of our reins. But most of the time, it’s not our explosions that shape our kids. It’s the quieter, everyday moments we barely register.

The sarcastic comment passed off as a joke.
The feedback that never quite feels encouraging.
The expectations wrapped in love while edged with anxiety.
The suggestions that whisper, you’re not quite enough.

Sporadic moments like these won’t undo a child. But patterns form in repetition. And kids don’t just hear the words—they feel the weight beneath them. Over time, they start to believe things we never meant to teach:
Your role is to keep me steady.
Your job is to adapt and perform in ways that keep me comfortable.
Your self-expression is risky if it disrupts my balance.

And that’s how our kids’ authenticity slowly gives way to performance. Not because they want to deceive us, but because they’ve learned that acting is safer than being real.

And if we’re honest, that act often benefits us. We don’t always want compliance because it builds character. We want it because it makes life quieter. More predictable. Easier to package into a version of parenting that feels acceptable to those around us.

Invitations, Not Emergencies

There are signals. But we don’t always recognize them for what they are.

Disproportionate irritation over something small.
An urgency to correct—before anyone sees.
A flicker of shame when our kid isn’t “likable” enough in public.
Or when their personality grates against a part of ours we haven’t made peace with yet.

Noticing these moments isn’t proof we’re failing—it’s proof we’re human. The work isn’t to never feel them, but to let them become cues instead of chains.

Triggers can feel urgent, but they’re rarely parenting emergencies. More often, they’re invitations. Invitations to pause and ask:
What story am I telling myself about what this means?
What does my reaction reveal about what still needs attention in me?
If I weren’t trying to shape this from fear, what would love look like here?

Because the moment we confuse our emotional need for their behavioral shift, we hand them the burden of our regulation. And that’s too much weight for any child to carry.

But when we pause, we don’t just protect them from that weight—we offer something in return: a living model of what it looks like to own our feelings, ground ourselves, and grow without offloading the cost. That’s a lesson they’ll carry long after childhood.

Owning What’s Ours, Freeing What’s Theirs

Yes, our kids need guidance. They need limits. They need to be challenged and supported and coached. But not if the subtext is: I need you to be different so I can feel okay.

Because when change comes from that place, it isn’t transformation. It’s manipulation dressed as love. And kids can feel the difference between I see something beautiful in you that’s not quite rooted yet and I need this to go away so I can exhale.

We can still redirect what’s unhelpful. We can still raise the bar when it matters. But only if it’s rooted in love, not fear—in clarity, not control. The work isn’t avoiding discomfort. It’s owning it, so we stop handing it to them like it’s theirs to fix.

What it really boils down to is emotional integrity—the willingness to own our side of the street, not just enforce a standard. It’s standing in front of the mirror and admitting: This isn’t about them. This is about me.

And if we’ve already missed it? If we’ve handed them something that was never theirs to carry? That’s not the end. That’s the beginning of repair. Not the shallow kind that rushes past mistakes, but the kind that tells the truth. The kind that shows our kids that honesty and humility can always bring us back together.

True integrity is guiding our kids while growing ourselves—so they’re free to become fully themselves.