Embracing Compassion: Lessons from a Seasoned Parent at the Gym

When you attune to others and are willing to listen to their story, wisdom has a way of finding you. Some of the most meaningful parenting lessons aren’t learned through instruction, but through lived moments of connection, moments that remind us why the words we read and share matter in the first place.

Right now as I walk on an incline typing this, I had one of those moments at the gym. I met a man named Ken, a grandparent, who shared a reflection from his years of parenting and watching his children raise their own. What he offered wasn’t advice in the traditional sense. It was wisdom shaped by time.

Listening to the Wisdom of Those Who’ve Walked Before Us

Ken said, “If I could tell any parent one thing, it would be this: prepare to not have regrets.”

Not prepare to be perfect.

Not prepare to get it right every time.

Prepare to not have regrets.

He spoke about those moments when kids push buttons we didn’t even know we had. When exhaustion meets overstimulation. When patience runs thin. He reflected on how easy it is to react in those moments, and how those reactions are often the ones that linger in memory.

The regret doesn’t come from feeling frustrated. It comes from what we do with that frustration.

The invitation was simple and profound: pause when you can. Choose patience when possible. Not because your child is easy, but because you want to be able to look back knowing you tried to meet the moment with care.

Seeing the Unseen: Children’s Inner Worlds

Another insight Ken shared struck even deeper.

Our children are navigating inner worlds we cannot fully see.

Their emotions, their developmental shifts, their hormonal changes, their sensory overloads. Much of what shows up as “behavior” is actually communication from a nervous system still learning how to regulate itself.

When a child acts out, it’s often not defiance. It’s information.

Ken described children’s inner worlds as untamed, still forming, unfinished. When we remember that, it becomes easier to soften. To stop taking things personally. To meet them with curiosity instead of control.

***They are not giving us a hard time. They are having a hard time.

Meeting Them With Presence

What changes everything is presence.

Not fixing.

Not correcting.

Not rushing them through it.

Presence says, “I see you. I’m here. We can sit in this together.”

When we meet our children where they are emotionally, something shifts. The relationship feels less adversarial and more connective. Parenting becomes less about managing behavior and more about guiding a human through their own becoming.

Presence doesn’t require perfection. It requires willingness.

Honoring the Highs and Lows: For Ourselves Too

One of the most powerful clarifications in our conversation came when Kevin spoke about highs and lows.

Not just the highs and lows of children, but of parents.

He acknowledged something we don’t talk about enough. Parents are often carrying their own invisible battles. Depression. Anxiety. Grief. Identity shifts. Financial stress. Life crises that don’t pause just because you have kids.

The reminder was this: you are allowed to have lows too.

Honoring your own lows with compassion is not weakness. It’s modeling emotional honesty. When parents learn to tend to their own inner worlds with care, they create a family environment rooted in empathy rather than suppression.

The highs and lows aren’t something to escape. They are something to respect. Without honoring the lows, the highs lose their depth.

Final Thoughts: Start Where You Are

As a young mother, this conversation felt like a quiet anchor. A reminder that parenting isn’t about getting ahead of the hard moments. It’s about meeting them with presence, compassion, and humility.

No matter where you are in your parenting journey, whether you’re exhausted, overwhelmed, seasoned, or just beginning, the invitation is the same.

Start today.

Start with one pause.

One softer response.

One moment of self-compassion.

One choice to meet your child and yourself where you truly are.

You don’t have to rewrite the past to change the future.

You just have to begin.

And today is enough.