“Adults who grew up inside relational inconsistency tend to be highly perceptive and quietly unsure. They read tone fluently, notice subtle shifts in energy, and pick up on what isn’t being said with impressive accuracy. That sensitivity is often praised. What’s less visible is the cost of having developed it as a survival skill rather than a strength.”
I’ve been ruminating on this for some time. I often think people who feel things deeply or are called “overly emotional” or “sensitive” are often just people who are very attuned to notice deviations from patterns in others, which can very much be a survival skill especially when it comes to operating in society.
I didn’t really consider its origins or how it shapes a person from childhood. Your observation here makes so much sense. I have a kid who feels things very deeply and processes emotions in this way, I think naturally to a point. But there’s so much value for me in considering that he may take inconsistencies especially hard.
Your post from a while back about consistency has me constantly checking in with myself on this. I don’t always hit the mark, but it definitely sits in the front of my mind when I interact with my kids.
As always, I so appreciate how you’re thinking about this. I agree—what often gets labeled as “too sensitive” is really deep pattern recognition, and that can be both a gift and a lot to carry, depending on the environment it grows in. I admire how aware you are of how inconsistency might land for your sweet kiddo, especially given how deeply he feels things. You’re an amazing mom.
Erin, I this piece in my bones. The section about the “two versions” of family life especially -the one we present outwardly & the one we privately live inside -was such a mirror.
I’ve had seasons where the emotional weather indoors looked nothing like what we carried out into the world. Out there everything looked intact; inside it was “functional but strained.”
What really got me was the idea that what we call context awareness or social maturity our kids experience as instability. The line between adaptability & fragmentation is so real. Being publicly warm but privately sharp, generous to outsiders & rationing patience at home, or flipping from criticism to friendliness when someone walks in. To adults it feels like nuance; to kids it feels unpredictable.
This piece articulated something I’ve lived, witnessed, & now (reluctantly) repeat. Thank you for writing it with so much clarity & compassion - I’m left reeling.
I’m really glad you shared this, Lou. That split between what’s carried outward and what’s lived inside is something so many of us recognize once we see it named—and it’s not comfortable to sit with. I’ve lived it too. The fact that it feels familiar, even as we’re trying to do better, is part of being human in this role. None of us are alone in it. Thank you for reading and for commenting with such honesty.
I see this play out so clearly in schools, from both parents and teachers. When adults are inconsistent, kids don’t become defiant... they become vigilant. This feels like such an important reminder that clarity and steadiness are forms of care, not control.
I’d love to hear more about your thoughts on building consistency, not as rigidity, but as being emotionally predictable and trustworthy for kids. What has helped you stay grounded and steady in your roles, both as a teacher and a parent, especially during more challenging seasons?
This is so true. I might even add that I have seen a small number of kids react defiantly toward teachers or parents, but I worry less about them than about the kids who lean toward vigilance. I interpreted the push-back in those instances as strength and autonomy—a sense that what they were experiencing wasn't how it *should* be and they were refusing to participate.
Thank you Erin for naming this with such precision and restraint. What resonated most for me is how you locate confusion not in what parents fail to explain, but in what children are asked to override—their own perception. The idea that kids don’t assume the story is false, but assume they are wrong, feels both devastating and clarifying.
I always appreciate your reflections, Kunlun. The distinction between explanation and override feels important to name because it’s so easy to miss while we’re doing our best. Kids are remarkably generous in how they make sense of us, and that generosity often comes at their own expense. “Devastating and clarifying” is a great way to frame it—I know very few parents who would ever intentionally hurt their kids.
Thank you, Erin. That's very kind of you. Yes. Kids’ willingness to make sense of us is a kind of love, even when it costs them something. I appreciate how your writing helps surface these patterns without blame, so they can be noticed and softened while there’s still time.
“When what they sense doesn’t match what’s acknowledged, they don’t assume the story is false, they believe their perception is.”
That line keeps following almost haunting me. I actually reread it out loud. It names something I’ve spent years untangling in therapy and in relationships, the reflex to double check myself before I trust what I feel. The habit of assuming I’m missing context rather than responding to what’s right in front of me.
What’s striking is how subtle this kind of erosion is. No one yelled. No one was cruel. It was just the quiet dissonance of being told everything was fine while my body said otherwise. And the long tail of that has been learning to stay when things don’t quite add up, hoping clarity will arrive later.
Your framing helped me see how early that pattern can take root, and how logical it felt at the time. Thank you for putting language to something that usually stays foggy.
I’m so grateful you shared this. That quiet dissonance—nothing dramatic, just things not quite adding up—is something so many people recognize in themselves. I think much of adulthood ends up being the slow work of untangling things we learned early on without ever realizing we learned them.
Thank you for consistently articulating your takeaways with such care. 🧡
Appreciated this: Clarity isn’t rigidity—it’s legibility. It means being understandable before being enforceable, and separating our fear from their behavior.
Also appreciated the way you named the lack of validation of feelings and how we parents can try to talk our kids out of it.
Thanks, Serena—and I’m glad you called that out. It *is* painful to see in ourselves, and also important. Most of us aren’t intending harm. We’re just moving faster than clarity.
Also - validation of feelings was one of the first parenting tools our daughter's treatment center taught us - because kids who are struggling with mental health need validation of feelings as a first thing; and perhaps parents aren't providing that.
That makes so much sense. Validation is often treated like a “nice extra,” when for many kids—especially those struggling—it’s the entry point. Without it, nothing else really lands. 🧡
You know, Erin, I've been thinking about a lot of these points you make, but especially the one about how we become different people depending on who's watching. I realized that it's not so much that I'm trying to be insincere or inauthentic, but there are certain social proprieties where everyone (seriously everyone) needs to mask in some way - by holding back, maybe, or by smiling when they are not feeling great because they're interacting with a receptionist at a doctor's office.
Certainly this models to our children that we behave differently according to situations and circumstances. But is that necessarily a bad thing? For me, I'm leaning more into having hard conversations surrounding the "why" of these things, by being open to discuss them with my kids (especially my teen daughter, who likes to point out every indiscretion or infraction).
Home and with family is where everyone should feel safe enough to "let their hair down," so to speak - where we can exhale, be ourselves, and yes, that probably means we aren't going to have the same behavior as we would if a neighbor showed up unexpectedly.
There's a lot of social conditioning involved in this, I think, and that's worthy of discussion.
Thank you for always challenging me to think about parenting in a new way. :)
I really appreciate your thoughts, Jeannie. You’re naming an important distinction—and I agree with you. There *is* a difference between social fluency and fragmentation. We adjust—hold back, soften, or offer courtesy in public spaces. That’s not inauthentic; it’s relational competence. And kids absolutely need to see that we don’t act the same way everywhere with everyone.
What I was trying to point to in that section isn’t the existence of social modulation, but what happens when the shifts aren’t intelligible to the people living closest to us—when the contrast between public and private becomes sharp enough that kids have to track who they’re getting rather than settle into who we are.
Which is why I think naming the “why” matters so much. When kids understand why we hold ourselves differently in certain contexts—and when home isn’t the place where all the unprocessed tension gets dumped—they’re not confused by the contrast. They’re oriented by it.
And yes to your point about home being the place to exhale. I think the real question is whether exhaling means being more *honest* or more *unfiltered*. Those aren’t always the same thing, and kids feel the difference.
Thank you for engaging this so thoughtfully—it really adds to the conversation.
Great context and elaboration here, Erin. I love the term “social fluency” and had not heard that before. I agree that there is a difference between being honest and being unfiltered. I admit that, because I am raising three neurodivergent kiddos, we have a mixture of both in our house. There is no dearth of honesty OR unfiltered behavior here!
Lots of big emotions almost every day.
Navigating these takes a huge amount of finesse, and I confess I am not always adept at recalibrating my own thoughts/reactions in order to help my kids co-regulate or process their own. It’s hard times five, I guess—at least that’s my experience.
I will offer first thoughts about honesty versus unfiltered behavior: I think both have their place, and the home should be a refuge of safety where the kids can express themselves in whatever ways they need in order to develop and grow into healthy adults. Adults in the home raising kids, however, we need to keep in mind the filter is very important.
As in: I don’t dump on my kids, because it’s not appropriate. I do NOT want to parentify them, as I was in my youth. There are certain topics that are not discussed at length or at all, including financial troubles, sexual humor, etc. Ben and I use our discretion moment to moment.
Thank you for this ongoing discussion here, Erin! I learn so much from you.
I’m really glad you shared this. The distinction you’re making between making room for big emotion and not asking kids to carry adult material is such an important one. And there’s so much care embedded in your parenting. I love this!
My oldest daughter and I were chatting recently about mothers and daughters and conflicts during the teen years. I stated that I loved her and her sisters teen years. The growth witnessed, the strengths they were beginning to allow to shine, everything about that time in our lives, I loved.
She said, "you allowed us to feel our feelings and express our feelings in the moment. We never had to sit on them, push them out of consciousness, or deny our own feelings." She went on to explain that she does not experience PMS. But she witnessed her friends being so moody and lashing out during that time of the month. She wondered if by allowing she and her sisters to be open about their feelings all month.
This is not to say we saw PMS-like moodiness or bursts of anger at any time--it just didn't happen because they were allowed to express raw feelings with words, not actions/behaviors.
This is such a generous reflection, Nancy—thank you. The clarity your daughter expressed doesn’t come from being coached. It comes from being *allowed*. And it doesn’t surprise me, as I’ve come to know what a thoughtful mother you are.
What you've described isn’t the absence of emotion—it’s the absence of bottling. When feelings have somewhere to go as they show up, they don’t have to wait and explode later. They don’t need to hijack behavior just to be noticed.
I also appreciate how careful you are not to turn this into a rule or a guarantee. Bodies are different. Kids are different. But the environment matters. When the inner world is welcomed, it doesn’t have to fight its way out sideways.
I understand that feeling, too, Nancy. How wonderful that there are more parents who understand now that there were certain aspects of the way we were raised as children we chose to do differently with our own kids. That’s really what I hope for when my children grow up, too, if they end up having their own children: that they take the good from their own childhood and choose to do differently, based on what they learn is best for them and their families.
Appreciate you sharing these observations on relational inconsistency
“Adults who grew up inside relational inconsistency tend to be highly perceptive and quietly unsure. They read tone fluently, notice subtle shifts in energy, and pick up on what isn’t being said with impressive accuracy. That sensitivity is often praised. What’s less visible is the cost of having developed it as a survival skill rather than a strength.”
I’ve been ruminating on this for some time. I often think people who feel things deeply or are called “overly emotional” or “sensitive” are often just people who are very attuned to notice deviations from patterns in others, which can very much be a survival skill especially when it comes to operating in society.
I didn’t really consider its origins or how it shapes a person from childhood. Your observation here makes so much sense. I have a kid who feels things very deeply and processes emotions in this way, I think naturally to a point. But there’s so much value for me in considering that he may take inconsistencies especially hard.
Your post from a while back about consistency has me constantly checking in with myself on this. I don’t always hit the mark, but it definitely sits in the front of my mind when I interact with my kids.
Another powerful piece, my sweet friend. ❤️
As always, I so appreciate how you’re thinking about this. I agree—what often gets labeled as “too sensitive” is really deep pattern recognition, and that can be both a gift and a lot to carry, depending on the environment it grows in. I admire how aware you are of how inconsistency might land for your sweet kiddo, especially given how deeply he feels things. You’re an amazing mom.
I’m grateful for you. ❤️
Erin, I this piece in my bones. The section about the “two versions” of family life especially -the one we present outwardly & the one we privately live inside -was such a mirror.
I’ve had seasons where the emotional weather indoors looked nothing like what we carried out into the world. Out there everything looked intact; inside it was “functional but strained.”
What really got me was the idea that what we call context awareness or social maturity our kids experience as instability. The line between adaptability & fragmentation is so real. Being publicly warm but privately sharp, generous to outsiders & rationing patience at home, or flipping from criticism to friendliness when someone walks in. To adults it feels like nuance; to kids it feels unpredictable.
This piece articulated something I’ve lived, witnessed, & now (reluctantly) repeat. Thank you for writing it with so much clarity & compassion - I’m left reeling.
I’m really glad you shared this, Lou. That split between what’s carried outward and what’s lived inside is something so many of us recognize once we see it named—and it’s not comfortable to sit with. I’ve lived it too. The fact that it feels familiar, even as we’re trying to do better, is part of being human in this role. None of us are alone in it. Thank you for reading and for commenting with such honesty.
I see this play out so clearly in schools, from both parents and teachers. When adults are inconsistent, kids don’t become defiant... they become vigilant. This feels like such an important reminder that clarity and steadiness are forms of care, not control.
I’d love to hear more about your thoughts on building consistency, not as rigidity, but as being emotionally predictable and trustworthy for kids. What has helped you stay grounded and steady in your roles, both as a teacher and a parent, especially during more challenging seasons?
This is so true. I might even add that I have seen a small number of kids react defiantly toward teachers or parents, but I worry less about them than about the kids who lean toward vigilance. I interpreted the push-back in those instances as strength and autonomy—a sense that what they were experiencing wasn't how it *should* be and they were refusing to participate.
I actually wrote a piece last summer about the importance of being predictable: https://www.unpopularparent.com/p/the-most-powerful-thing-a-parent-can-be-is-predictable. (Don't judge me on the writing...I'm a work in progress. 😉)
Being a work in progress is one of the best things we can model for kids 🙂
Thank you Erin for naming this with such precision and restraint. What resonated most for me is how you locate confusion not in what parents fail to explain, but in what children are asked to override—their own perception. The idea that kids don’t assume the story is false, but assume they are wrong, feels both devastating and clarifying.
I always appreciate your reflections, Kunlun. The distinction between explanation and override feels important to name because it’s so easy to miss while we’re doing our best. Kids are remarkably generous in how they make sense of us, and that generosity often comes at their own expense. “Devastating and clarifying” is a great way to frame it—I know very few parents who would ever intentionally hurt their kids.
Thank you, Erin. That's very kind of you. Yes. Kids’ willingness to make sense of us is a kind of love, even when it costs them something. I appreciate how your writing helps surface these patterns without blame, so they can be noticed and softened while there’s still time.
“When what they sense doesn’t match what’s acknowledged, they don’t assume the story is false, they believe their perception is.”
That line keeps following almost haunting me. I actually reread it out loud. It names something I’ve spent years untangling in therapy and in relationships, the reflex to double check myself before I trust what I feel. The habit of assuming I’m missing context rather than responding to what’s right in front of me.
What’s striking is how subtle this kind of erosion is. No one yelled. No one was cruel. It was just the quiet dissonance of being told everything was fine while my body said otherwise. And the long tail of that has been learning to stay when things don’t quite add up, hoping clarity will arrive later.
Your framing helped me see how early that pattern can take root, and how logical it felt at the time. Thank you for putting language to something that usually stays foggy.
I’m so grateful you shared this. That quiet dissonance—nothing dramatic, just things not quite adding up—is something so many people recognize in themselves. I think much of adulthood ends up being the slow work of untangling things we learned early on without ever realizing we learned them.
Thank you for consistently articulating your takeaways with such care. 🧡
Resonates deeply Erin. Thank you
Thank you, my friend.
Appreciated this: Clarity isn’t rigidity—it’s legibility. It means being understandable before being enforceable, and separating our fear from their behavior.
Also appreciated the way you named the lack of validation of feelings and how we parents can try to talk our kids out of it.
Painful to name but important!
Thanks, Serena—and I’m glad you called that out. It *is* painful to see in ourselves, and also important. Most of us aren’t intending harm. We’re just moving faster than clarity.
True - if we paused longer to consider the implications of our parenting actions, we might choose something different!
Also - validation of feelings was one of the first parenting tools our daughter's treatment center taught us - because kids who are struggling with mental health need validation of feelings as a first thing; and perhaps parents aren't providing that.
That makes so much sense. Validation is often treated like a “nice extra,” when for many kids—especially those struggling—it’s the entry point. Without it, nothing else really lands. 🧡
You know, Erin, I've been thinking about a lot of these points you make, but especially the one about how we become different people depending on who's watching. I realized that it's not so much that I'm trying to be insincere or inauthentic, but there are certain social proprieties where everyone (seriously everyone) needs to mask in some way - by holding back, maybe, or by smiling when they are not feeling great because they're interacting with a receptionist at a doctor's office.
Certainly this models to our children that we behave differently according to situations and circumstances. But is that necessarily a bad thing? For me, I'm leaning more into having hard conversations surrounding the "why" of these things, by being open to discuss them with my kids (especially my teen daughter, who likes to point out every indiscretion or infraction).
Home and with family is where everyone should feel safe enough to "let their hair down," so to speak - where we can exhale, be ourselves, and yes, that probably means we aren't going to have the same behavior as we would if a neighbor showed up unexpectedly.
There's a lot of social conditioning involved in this, I think, and that's worthy of discussion.
Thank you for always challenging me to think about parenting in a new way. :)
I really appreciate your thoughts, Jeannie. You’re naming an important distinction—and I agree with you. There *is* a difference between social fluency and fragmentation. We adjust—hold back, soften, or offer courtesy in public spaces. That’s not inauthentic; it’s relational competence. And kids absolutely need to see that we don’t act the same way everywhere with everyone.
What I was trying to point to in that section isn’t the existence of social modulation, but what happens when the shifts aren’t intelligible to the people living closest to us—when the contrast between public and private becomes sharp enough that kids have to track who they’re getting rather than settle into who we are.
Which is why I think naming the “why” matters so much. When kids understand why we hold ourselves differently in certain contexts—and when home isn’t the place where all the unprocessed tension gets dumped—they’re not confused by the contrast. They’re oriented by it.
And yes to your point about home being the place to exhale. I think the real question is whether exhaling means being more *honest* or more *unfiltered*. Those aren’t always the same thing, and kids feel the difference.
Thank you for engaging this so thoughtfully—it really adds to the conversation.
Great context and elaboration here, Erin. I love the term “social fluency” and had not heard that before. I agree that there is a difference between being honest and being unfiltered. I admit that, because I am raising three neurodivergent kiddos, we have a mixture of both in our house. There is no dearth of honesty OR unfiltered behavior here!
Lots of big emotions almost every day.
Navigating these takes a huge amount of finesse, and I confess I am not always adept at recalibrating my own thoughts/reactions in order to help my kids co-regulate or process their own. It’s hard times five, I guess—at least that’s my experience.
I will offer first thoughts about honesty versus unfiltered behavior: I think both have their place, and the home should be a refuge of safety where the kids can express themselves in whatever ways they need in order to develop and grow into healthy adults. Adults in the home raising kids, however, we need to keep in mind the filter is very important.
As in: I don’t dump on my kids, because it’s not appropriate. I do NOT want to parentify them, as I was in my youth. There are certain topics that are not discussed at length or at all, including financial troubles, sexual humor, etc. Ben and I use our discretion moment to moment.
Thank you for this ongoing discussion here, Erin! I learn so much from you.
I’m really glad you shared this. The distinction you’re making between making room for big emotion and not asking kids to carry adult material is such an important one. And there’s so much care embedded in your parenting. I love this!
My oldest daughter and I were chatting recently about mothers and daughters and conflicts during the teen years. I stated that I loved her and her sisters teen years. The growth witnessed, the strengths they were beginning to allow to shine, everything about that time in our lives, I loved.
She said, "you allowed us to feel our feelings and express our feelings in the moment. We never had to sit on them, push them out of consciousness, or deny our own feelings." She went on to explain that she does not experience PMS. But she witnessed her friends being so moody and lashing out during that time of the month. She wondered if by allowing she and her sisters to be open about their feelings all month.
This is not to say we saw PMS-like moodiness or bursts of anger at any time--it just didn't happen because they were allowed to express raw feelings with words, not actions/behaviors.
This is such a generous reflection, Nancy—thank you. The clarity your daughter expressed doesn’t come from being coached. It comes from being *allowed*. And it doesn’t surprise me, as I’ve come to know what a thoughtful mother you are.
What you've described isn’t the absence of emotion—it’s the absence of bottling. When feelings have somewhere to go as they show up, they don’t have to wait and explode later. They don’t need to hijack behavior just to be noticed.
I also appreciate how careful you are not to turn this into a rule or a guarantee. Bodies are different. Kids are different. But the environment matters. When the inner world is welcomed, it doesn’t have to fight its way out sideways.
"What you've described isn’t the absence of emotion—it’s the absence of bottling."
Yes! I wanted my girls to understand that emotions come and go, and they were allowed to experience each one of them.
That's really beautiful, Nancy, and such a huge testimony of the emotional safety you provided to your girls.
Jeannie, that was my desire. I wanted them to feel their emotions were safe with me.
I know this comes from the gaslighting of emotions that occurred when I was growing up.
I understand that feeling, too, Nancy. How wonderful that there are more parents who understand now that there were certain aspects of the way we were raised as children we chose to do differently with our own kids. That’s really what I hope for when my children grow up, too, if they end up having their own children: that they take the good from their own childhood and choose to do differently, based on what they learn is best for them and their families.
Much needed
Thank you. 🧡