I had a conversation recently that stayed with me long after it ended. It was with another mother, and we were talking about how difficult it can be to watch our children go through something hard—especially when we can see so clearly what we think would help.

As we spoke, I found myself thinking about how quickly something shifts inside us as parents when our child is struggling. We start out concerned and wanting to help, but before long, we can become consumed by what is happening. We think about what our child should be doing differently, what shouldn’t be happening, what needs to change, and how we can make it better. And of course, underneath all of it is love. We want our children to be okay.

But sometimes, in our determination to make them okay, we lose sight of our own position.

I know this because I’ve done it too.

There was a period when one of my sons was gaining weight, and I was worried about it. I found myself paying far too much attention to what he was eating, how much he was eating, when he was eating, and when I thought he should stop. I had ideas about what would be better for him, and because I was his mother and cared deeply about his well-being, it was easy to convince myself that helping meant getting him to do what I believed was right.

Looking back, I can see that somewhere along the way I had stepped out of my role as his parent and into an experience that actually belonged to him.

This is something I think most of us do in one form or another. Maybe our child is struggling socially, having difficulty at school, dealing with anxiety, making choices around food that concern us, having trouble sleeping, or going through something in a relationship. Sometimes it’s something much smaller. Whatever it is, watching someone we love struggle can be incredibly uncomfortable, especially when we believe we know what they could do to make things better.

So we start trying to move the pieces.

We explain a little more. We remind. We advise. We ask another question. We push them toward what seems obvious to us. And slowly, their struggle starts taking up more and more space inside of us.

This is where I think it becomes important to notice not only what is happening with our child, but what is happening with us.

In my Parent Leadership work, I use the terms parent position and child position. When I am in the parent position, it doesn’t mean that I’m unaffected by what my child is going through. Of course I am affected. These are our children. Their pain matters to us.

The question is whether their discomfort pulls me so deeply into their experience that I lose my ability to stand beside them as their parent.

Because when that happens, there are suddenly two people inside the struggle, and no one standing steadily enough outside of it to offer perspective, support, or direction.

This connects closely to a principle we teach in The GPS Within, the model I co-created with Rivka Klein: stay in your lane.

Staying in your lane can sound, at first, like detachment. But I think it’s one of the most respectful positions we can take in a relationship. My child has a lane, and I have mine. Their thoughts, feelings, choices, challenges, mistakes, and experiences belong to them. That doesn’t mean I don’t care about those things or that I never intervene. It means I remember that my child is a separate human being whose life I cannot live for them.

When I notice myself slipping into my child’s lane, I try to bring my attention back to three questions:

Who do I want to be? How do I want to show up? What is my influence?

Those questions don’t necessarily give me an immediate answer about what to do. What they do is bring me back to the place where I actually have agency.

I may realize that my influence is to have a conversation. I may need to set a boundary. I may need to seek professional support or provide my child with resources they cannot access on their own. There are absolutely times when parenting requires us to step in.

But there are also times when my work is much harder: to tolerate the discomfort of watching my child have an experience I cannot resolve for them.

I often say, we cannot teach experience.

I can tell my child what I learned from my mistakes, but I can’t give them the learning that came from making those mistakes. I can explain what I think will happen if they make a particular choice, but I can’t hand them the self-knowledge that comes from making choices and discovering themselves through the consequences. I can offer perspective, but I cannot manufacture their perspective for them.

Some things can only be learned by being lived.

That is difficult for us as parents because we have a natural agenda for our children, even when we don’t realize it. We want them to be healthy. Happy. Capable. Connected. We want them to make good choices and avoid unnecessary pain. We have a picture somewhere inside us of how we hope their lives will unfold.

And then we meet the actual child in front of us, living their actual life.

Sometimes those two pictures don’t match.

I think one of the challenges of parenting is learning to notice the difference between supporting the child in front of me and trying to move that child toward the version of them I think they should be.

Staying in the parent position requires a tremendous amount of trust. Not blind trust that everything will work itself out, and certainly not a refusal to intervene when our children genuinely need help. Rather, trust that our children are allowed to have a path of their own. They are allowed to struggle. They are allowed to feel uncomfortable. They are allowed to discover that something isn’t working and figure out what they want to do about it.

And while they are doing that, I don’t have to climb into their lane to prove that I care.

I can stay close. I can listen. I can offer guidance when guidance is mine to give. I can provide safety, boundaries, resources, and support.

And perhaps most importantly, I can keep returning to my own position so there is still someone steady beside them while they find their way through theirs.

The next time you notice yourself becoming consumed by something your child is going through, perhaps the first question doesn’t have to be, How do I fix this?

Come back to your lane first.

Who do I want to be here? How do I want to show up? What is my influence?

From there, you can decide whether this moment asks you to step in, step back, hold a boundary, offer help, or simply remain present.

Staying in your lane doesn’t mean standing on the sidelines and doing nothing. It means knowing where your work ends and your child’s begins. And sometimes, that may be one of the most loving things we can offer them.

If you find yourself second-guessing when to step in, when to hold a decision, or how to stay connected while your child struggles, I’d love to invite you to my Parenting Without Second-Guessing 4-Day Challenge, October 19–22.

We’ll spend four days learning to look beyond the immediate reaction and return to a steadier position from which to decide what your child needs and how you want to respond.

We can’t control every experience our children will have. But we can become clearer about who we want to be while they are having it.