The case for going first, even when it feels awkward.
By Live Like Sam | May 5, 2026 | 5 min read
Here is a question worth sitting with for a second.
When was the last time your teenager heard you describe a feeling, out loud, with a specific word, in real time? Not “I am stressed” as a throwaway line on the way out the door. An actual sentence. “I felt small in that meeting today.” “I was anxious about that conversation with grandma.” “I was proud of myself for how I handled the email I almost sent.”
If you cannot remember, you are not a bad parent. You are a normal one. Most of us were raised in homes where the grown-ups handled their feelings off-stage and only showed up to the dinner table once everything was managed.
And most of us are now raising kids who are quietly drowning in the silence we inherited.
The fear that keeps parents quiet
Parents tell us, all the time, some version of: “I do not want to put my stuff on my kid. They have enough to deal with.”
That is a generous instinct. It is also, unfortunately, the wrong move.
Here is what your teen actually thinks when you only ever appear capable, regulated, and fine: “something must be wrong with me, because I am not.”
They are not measuring themselves against you to feel better. They are measuring themselves against you and concluding they fall short. The version of you that never has a hard day is not protective. It is a yardstick they cannot reach.
Your teen does not need a parent who has it all together. They need a parent who is honest about not having it all together, and who keeps showing up anyway.
What modeling actually looks like (it is smaller than you think)
Modeling is not therapy. It is not a fifteen-minute monologue about your childhood. It is one sentence, said in passing, with the same matter-of-fact tone you would use to comment on the weather.
Try these. Out loud. This week.
In the car.
“I was kind of nervous walking into work today. I am okay. Just noticing it.”
At dinner.
“I felt overwhelmed when I checked my email at lunch. I needed a minute before I came home.”
After a hard call.
“That conversation with my brother made me sad. I am going to take a walk.”
Notice what each of these does. You name the feeling. You connect it to a specific moment. You signal what you are doing about it. You do not ask your kid to fix it. You do not turn it into a teaching moment. You just go first.
The science is unambiguous
Decades of developmental research confirm what your gut already suspects: kids and teenagers learn how to handle emotions far more from watching the adults around them than from being told what to do. They do not read your parenting books. They read your face when the package is late and the printer is broken and you stub your toe.
The teens who grow up watching adults name feelings, regulate, and recover are the teens who learn to do the same. The teens who grow up watching adults perform composure are the teens who learn that feelings are something to be hidden until they go away. (They do not go away. They go underground.)
Why this matters in May
Mental Health Awareness Month is the easiest possible on-ramp for the kind of modeling we are talking about, because the entire culture is, briefly, giving you permission to talk about this stuff. Use the window.
Same Inside is built for exactly this kind of family practice. Pick a word, share it, pass it on. The mechanic is so simple a six-year-old can do it. (Try it with younger siblings, by the way. They will love it.) The reason it works is that everyone goes first, together. No one has to be the brave one alone.
If you are preparing a speech, try this instead
If your teen is in a tough season and your instinct is to deliver a heartfelt monologue about how you have been there too, consider, instead, doing the smaller, harder thing: write your word on a sticky note, leave it on the kitchen counter, and let them see it without saying anything.
Then make yours, post it, tag @livelikesam, and ask if they want to do theirs together. Same Inside is, in many ways, just a permission slip from the wider culture for parents and teens to do what many families have never been taught to do: talk honestly about what they are carrying.
TRY THIS WITH YOUR FAMILY
This week, pick a moment. Pick a word. Say it out loud, in front of your teen, without making a big deal of it. If you want to take it one step further, do the Same Inside post together. They write theirs, you write yours, you nominate three friends or family members, they nominate three of theirs.
Make yours together: livelikesam.org/sameinside
This is the work we do at Live Like Sam.
Every program at Live Like Sam is built on the same idea: self-worth is not built by avoiding hard things. It is built by facing them, often imperfectly, in the company of people who do not flinch. Thrive teaches teens the language for what they are carrying. Sages & Seekers pairs them with adults who have already lived through the hard parts. Challenge Accepted puts them in situations that ask them to try, fail, and try again. Digital Wellness helps them navigate the version of all of this that lives in their phones. Different doorways. One room. Free, every program, across Summit and Wasatch counties.
Thanks to the Dever Family Foundation and the Shear Family Foundation, every gift this May is matched up to $100,000. Your donation this May is doubled and your support reaches another kid who needs to learn that struggling is not a sign of weakness. It is the work of becoming whole.
Further reading
John Gottman, Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child (Simon & Schuster, 1997)
Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson, The Whole-Brain Child (Bantam, 2011)
American Academy of Pediatrics, Mental Health Initiatives: aap.org