Why Remembering What It Felt Like to Be a Kid Improves Your Parenting: Practical Everyday Tips
Last Saturday, I stood in the cereal aisle of our local Kroger staring down at my 8-year-old, Milo, who had just thrown himself backward onto the scuffed, cold tile. I had a hole in my reusable grocery bag, a cart full of things we didn’t need, and my 11-year-old was leaning against a display of oat bars pretending he’d never met us. A woman with a cart full of ripe bananas slowed down, raised an eyebrow, and kept going. I felt that familiar hot spike of irritation bubble up: We already have snacks at home. Why do you always do this in the middle of the store?
Before I could open my mouth to say that, though, my brain jumped. 1998, same Kroger, same tile (they’ve replaced the light fixtures but nothing else), I was 7 years old, laying right by the frozen cookie dough aisle, sobbing because my mom wouldn’t buy me a $3 holographic Lisa Frank unicorn notebook. I’d stared at that notebook every week for three months. It was going to be the notebook I took to second grade to show my only friend, who collected Lisa Frank stickers just like I did. Back then, that notebook wasn’t just paper and glue. It was the whole world. I couldn’t explain that to my mom. I just knew my chest felt too tight and my feet wouldn’t move, so I laid down.
I looked back at Milo, who was kicking his heels against the tile, face blotchy with half-sobs. Instead of barking that he needed to get up right now, I sat down on the floor next to him. My 11-year-old groaned so loud it echoed off the shelves. “Mom, what are you doing?” I ignored him. I said to Milo, “I remember when I was your age, I laid down right here in this store because I wanted a notebook really bad. It felt terrible when I couldn’t have it, didn’t it?”
He stopped kicking. He blinked at me, like he was surprised I wasn’t yelling. “The gummies have dinosaurs on them,” he said, voice still wobbly. “I was gonna bring the biggest one for show and tell tomorrow. We’re talking about prehistoric animals.” That’s what this was about. Not just candy. A big day at school, a chance to be the kid who brought the cool thing. It wasn’t irrational. It was just kid-sized.
I told him I got it, that bringing something cool for show and tell feels like the most important thing in the world when you’re 8. We still weren’t getting the gummies – he has a sugar sensitivity that makes bedtime a disaster, so that line was non-negotiable. But I pulled out my phone and added dinosaur gummies to the note I keep for his birthday wishlist, and said we could pick some up the day before his next show and tell, when they wouldn’t ruin bedtime. He wiped his face on his sleeve, stood up, and brushed crumbs off his jeans. “Can I get a banana instead?” he asked. We left the aisle without another fuss.
That moment got me thinking. Most parenting writing talks about meeting your kid where they are, but they rarely tell you the easiest way to do that: pull out one of your own messy kid memories. I used to spend so much time focused on the behavior – the tantrum, the slammed notebook, the forgotten homework – that I forgot I used to be that kid too. I forgot that every “inconvenient” outburst is just a kid who can’t yet put their big, messy, overwhelming feeling into words, same as I was.
It’s not a fancy trick, and it doesn’t mean you have to cave into every demand. There are three small, concrete things I do now that take almost no extra time, and they’ve cut down on our daily fights more than anything else I’ve tried. First, when I feel that irritation rising, I pause for two full seconds and pull up one random memory of being my kid’s age, upset over something that felt huge. It doesn’t have to match the current situation – it can be the time I didn’t get a new bike for Christmas, or the time my best friend didn’t save me a spot at the lunch table. That two second pause shifts my perspective faster than any deep breathing exercise. Second, I name that memory out loud to my kid. It doesn’t have to be a long speech. When my 11-year-old slams his math book shut and says he’ll never get algebra, I just say, “I remember when I was your age, I cried over long division homework because I thought I was the only person who couldn’t get it.” That’s it. It immediately cuts through the shame and tension, because he realizes he’s not the only one who’s ever felt that stupid or stuck. Third, if I can’t give them what they want, I validate the feeling first before I say no. I don’t say “it’s just candy” or “it’s just homework.” I say “that makes total sense that you want that so bad” or “that really does feel impossible right now.” Then I say no, or offer an alternative.
I still mess this up, all the time. Last week I yelled at both kids for leaving their soccer cleats piled by the front door for the third day in a row, and only after I finished did I remember that I left my skateboard propped by the front door every single week when I was 10, and my mom yelled at me for that too. I apologized to them later, and that was enough.
It’s not about being a calm, perfect parent all the time. It’s just about remembering: the kid standing in front of you, having a big messy feeling over a small thing, they’re just the same as you were, once. Some days that’s all you need to remember.
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