It’s an emotionally exhausting time of year. If you’re worried about your child, pause and ask: who is more upset, you or she? Sometimes, our kids don’t interpret their challenges in the same anxious way we might. Unlike our kids, we’re lugging our own childhood baggage around (I am no stranger to this, hi, I wrote a book called “Odd Girl Out”). As parents, many of us repurpose our past worries into fears about our kids’ futures: will they be lonely? Unhappy? Unsuccessful? Remember that we script our children in how to respond to challenge. So before you start a conversation about the day, or how it’s all going, try staying in the present moment by asking yourself, “How would I parent right now if I weren’t afraid?”