You Are Here. I See You. I Will Not Look Away.

What it means to sit with our children in the dirt instead of rushing to lift them out.

When I feel stuck, I turn to the past.

In my room, there is a cupboard. Two shelves inside are packed full of notebooks—dozens of them—each one filled over the years with the fragments of a jagged path that brought me here. These notebooks carry the weight of battles within my body, the first wisps of hope I once saw, the devastating blows that sent me reeling back. They hold the tiny cracks that began to open, cracks wide enough to let spirit in. They carry the seeds of the work I now do with children, the desperate desire to build school systems that see each child as a whole being—not in theory, but truly—and to guide parents with intention and care. These pages hold the roots of what I believe most deeply: that we are all spiritual beings in human bodies, and that all spirits—regardless of age—are equally worthy of reverence.

This morning, I opened one of those notebooks at random. The cover was smudged, the pages worn soft from years of handling. I turned to a page dated July 3, 2012—two days before a loss that would crack open my world. At the time, I didn’t know how close I was to everything falling apart. At the top of the page, I had written: “What does God think of you?” And underneath, I had poured out a looping, vulnerable answer—one part prayer, one part reckoning.

The words were speaking not only to God, but to myself. I wrote about fear—how it lived in my bones even then. I knew healing would mean facing real, unrelenting pain. I conjured the image of my nine-year-old self, who—without any formal exposure to religion or spirituality—demanded the right to read from the Torah. Driven by something mysterious and fierce, she spent three years learning Hebrew, note by note, word by word, to stand before a community and say: I am here. I belong.

I remembered my twelve-year-old self, whose voice faltered on that bima, who needed the quiet strength of other women around her to steady her breath. I wrote that I was still afraid to speak my own truths aloud. Still afraid—fifteen years later. Then I wrote what I imagined God might say back: “You are righteous, kind, giving, and you are also scared. Don’t be scared. There is nothing to be scared of. Even your relapsing is okay. You don’t have to talk to touch others. Just be you. Believe.”

Stuck moments have a way of making us forget what we’ve already carried. We forget what it took to get here. We become stuck inside the stuck. Obsessed with the I can’t, we lose track of the I already did.

In my work with kids—and often, with the adults who care for them—these are the moments I look for. The ones just beyond the struggle. The ones where the child hasn’t yet noticed their own strength. The ones where the parent is overwhelmed by fear and grief, unsure how to reach in. These moments hold enormous possibility alongside enormous pain. A school might hit the edge of what it’s able to offer. Adult agendas may cloud a child’s truth. A parent might want so badly to help but struggle to bend toward what their child actually needs.

When a child says, “I can’t,” I don’t correct them. I climb down into the well with them. I sit in the dirt. I sit with the worms. “I can’t” is rarely just about the task. It’s about shame. About exhaustion. About something that’s been tried and failed before. About a deep memory of falling. “I can’t” holds the baby who struggled to push up on her knees for months before managing a few seconds of balance—and then crashing. It holds the first grader who stares at scrambled letters on the page, desperate to read, and the middle schooler who has been labeled “difficult” and no longer bothers to try. I meet them there. I invite others into the well too.

I ask parents to see their daughter, who blames herself for the tension in the home. I ask them to hold space for their son, who is caught in the in-between—too big for the soft parts of childhood, too small for the weight he’s suddenly asked to carry. I ask them to slow down enough to notice the child who doesn’t yet feel at home in their own skin. I ask educators to take a beat and say, “I know this is hard. I’m here with you. Let’s see what’s possible.”

These moments don’t require fixing everything. They require showing up. Seeing our children. Letting them see us trying.

Later that morning, after returning the notebook to the cupboard, I noticed a piece of paper on the floor and an old business card from the days I ran “The I Am Project” in classrooms. The paper was a 12-line summary of my life up to that point, ending in a question written in large, looping letters: “How do I allow the spirit inside my body to fully express?”

That question lives with me still.

It’s the question we should be asking not only for ourselves, but for every child in our care. How do we create spaces—homes, classrooms, communities—where the full spirit of a person can emerge? How do we, as adults, learn to put our own fear and ego aside so that what’s best for the child can take root and grow? How do we know when to intervene, and when to let them stumble a bit, scrape their knees, learn what they can survive?

Many of us rush to say, “You’re okay!” when a child falls. We mean well. We want to protect them from pain. Still, sometimes silence serves better. Sometimes we just need to say: Oh. You fell.

Pain doesn’t always need solving. It needs witnessing. If we can allow children to feel their sadness, fear, confusion—if we can hold space instead of rushing to fill it—they learn something profound. They learn that pain is part of the story, not a sign that something is broken. That falling isn’t failing. That even in the mud, their spirit still shines.

Growth still happens in those moments. Growth isn’t reserved for success—it lives in the struggle, too. In the falling. In the aching. In the long pause before a child decides to try again. The movement may be quiet, but it is no less real.

I return now to those notebooks. To the looping script, the longing questions, the fragments of faith and fear. I can read them now without being pulled under. I see the path that was forming even then, even in the dark. I recognize the growth—not because the pain is gone, but because I know what it took to get here. I know what it means to stay.

This is true in the big moments, but also in the quiet, everyday ones. When a child tells us they weren’t picked for the team, or they had a fight with a friend, or they felt embarrassed leaving a playdate first—it’s easy to reach for logic or a silver lining. We want to help them feel better. Still, what they need first isn’t perspective. It’s presence. It’s someone who says, “I see how hard this feels. I’m so sorry.” When we resist the urge to fix, we make space for their feelings to be felt, not brushed aside.

I think of a child I see each week, whose learning needs go unnamed at home. A child who spends his days simmering in feelings too big for his body—ashamed, angry, alone. When he walks away or lashes out, it’s not defiance. It’s a kind of grief. What he needs most isn’t correction or redirection. He needs someone to stay beside him. To hold his anger without fear. To see him without flinching. To bear witness without trying to soften the edges of his pain.

Sometimes, when we’re in pain, all we need is someone beside us. Kids need that too.

There is something sacred about holding a child exactly where they are. Not pushing. Not projecting. Just staying. Just seeing. Just saying: You are here. I see you. I will not look away.

For the parents and educators reading: A few gentle takeaways to carry with you

• Honor the hard before offering help.
  When your child shares something painful—being left out, losing, making a mistake—resist the urge to fix or reframe. Try starting with: “That sounds really hard. I’m sorry.”

• Be present, not perfect.
  You don’t need to have the right words or a plan. Simply being there—steadily, calmly—is often what your child needs most.

• Let feelings breathe.
  Avoid rushing to say “You’re okay” or “It’s not a big deal.” Instead, make space for your child to feel what they feel. Let them know it’s safe to express pain without needing to hide it.

• Don’t overlay your own fear.
  Stay in their moment. Notice when your own discomfort is driving your response, and gently set it aside.

• Look beneath the behavior.
  When a child acts out, withdraws, or melts down, try to see what’s underneath. Anger often masks shame. Avoidance often signals fear. Meet the feeling, not just the behavior.

• Let them lead the pace.
  Growth isn’t linear. Some hurts take time. Give your child the dignity of moving through things in their own way, knowing you’re walking beside them.

• Your steady presence is enough.
  The way you show up becomes the voice they carry inside. Make it one of gentleness, patience, and unwavering love.