What To Do When Your Kid Asks “What Would You Do If You Were Me?” | Tips For Parents And Teachers
The bus was 10 minutes late last Wednesday, so I was juggling half-unpacked groceries on the kitchen counter when my 10-year-old Lila trundled in, backpack slipping off one shoulder, and dropped her crumpled lunch box right on top of the loaf of bread I’d just set down. She slouched into the dining chair, kicked her scuffed white sneakers against the leg, and stared at me. “Mom,” she said, “what would you do if you were me?”
My first instinct was to jump straight to advice. I knew this was about her group project with her best friend Mia, which she’d been chattering about for two weeks. I almost blurted, “Just talk to Mia, it’s no big deal, she’s your best friend.” But the question stopped me. This wasn’t “what should I do?” It was what would you do if you were me. That’s a very different question.
I paused, wiped a smudge of chocolate from a grocery receipt off my hand, and pulled out the chair opposite her to sit, instead of rushing to put the milk away. “Okay,” I said, “tell me everything that’s going on first. I need to know exactly how it feels to be you right now to get this right.”
She spilled it all fast, like she’d been holding it in all day. They’d planned to walk to the corner bodega for sour candy and slushies after turning in their project, to celebrate. That morning, she’d heard Mia talking to two other girls in their class about going to the bodega after school, and no one had invited her. It wasn’t just the snack, though. For a week, Mia had been sitting with those other girls at lunch, instead of their usual spot by the window. Lila had been sitting alone with her graphic novel, too scared to walk over and ask if she could join. She didn’t know if she’d done something wrong, she didn’t know if speaking up would make her look clingy, and if she didn’t speak up, her chest ached all through lunch. When she finished, she crossed her arms and repeated the question.
I thought for a second, I didn’t try to pull out a perfect script. “If I were you, right now,” I said, “I think I’d hate having a big awkward conversation in front of the whole lunch room. I also hate letting things sit and fester, because they get bigger in my head the longer I wait. So if it were me, I’d probably send Mia a quick text after dinner tonight, nothing big. Just ‘I was looking forward to our bodega run after the project, I was sad I didn’t get to go with you.’ That way it’s out there, and you don’t have to hash the whole thing out in front of everyone. But that’s just me. Does that sound like something you’d want to do, or is that not how you feel about it?”
I’ve worked as a part-time sub and classroom volunteer for the last three years, and I’ve started to notice this question comes up far more than most people talk about. Kids don’t ask it when they want you to solve their problem for them. They ask it when they’re tired of adults telling them what to do from outside their problem. They want you to step into their shoes for a minute, not stand on the sidelines yelling instructions.
Two weeks before Lila asked me that question, I was subbing in a 2nd grade class, and a little boy named Javi came over to me during center time, his eyes all shiny, and asked the exact same thing: “What would you do if you were me?” Another boy had knocked over his 20-minute block dinosaur park, and didn’t even stop to say sorry. My first instinct was to brush it off: “It’s okay, just build another one, blocks fall all the time.” But I remembered the question Lila had asked, so I stopped. I knelt down next to the pile of blocks, and said, “First, tell me what the best part of this park was that fell.” He talked for two minutes about the big curved slide he’d built for the baby dinosaurs, how he’d been trying to get it to stay up for three days. Then I said, “Okay, if I were you, I’d be really angry right now, that took so much work. If I were you, I think I’d go over to that kid and ask him to help me rebuild the slide, so he knows how much it mattered. That’s just what I’d do, though. What do you think you want to do?” Javi thought for 10 seconds, then marched over, and the other boy did help him rebuild. It worked far better than if I’d marched over and forced an apology, which is what I would’ve done a couple years ago.
The small, practical things I’ve learned from these moments are pretty simple. First, always get the full story before you answer. Don’t assume you know what’s going on, even if you think you do. Just use that line I did: “Tell me what it’s like to be you right now so I get it right.” It takes 30 seconds, and it gives them space to get all the messy, unspoken feelings out before you even talk about next steps. Second, when you do answer, frame it as your take, not the only right answer. Don’t say “this is what you have to do.” Say “if I were feeling what you’re feeling, this is what I’d try.” Then ask if that fits for them. That leaves the choice in their hands, which is what they actually want. They’re not asking for a fix, they’re asking for an example of how someone else would handle the same messy feeling, so they can figure out their own way.
What happened with Lila? She didn’t send the text I suggested. She sat twisting the end of her hair for a minute, then said she didn’t want to do it over text. She wanted to catch Mia before class the next morning and ask her straight out if she was mad. I said okay, that sounds good, if that’s what you want. Next day she came home and told me Mia had been upset because Lila forgot to bring a card to her birthday sleepover two weeks earlier, which Lila had completely missed because she’d been out sick that week. They sorted it out, got their slushies after school, and everything went back to normal.
It wasn’t my solution that worked. It was hers. I just stepped into her problem for a minute, instead of standing outside it. Some days it goes that smoothly, some days it doesn’t. Last month, when Lila asked me the same question about math test stress, I gave her my take, she tried it, it didn’t work, and we tried something else. That’s just how it goes. You don’t have to get it right every time. You just have to be willing to stand in their shoes for a minute, instead of telling them what to do from yours.
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