Things I want my kids to know: a parent's guide

There's a version of me that shows up for school pickups and makes lunches and argues about screen time. And there's a deeper version, the one who lies awake thinking about what I actually want my kids to carry into their lives. The values I hope stuck. The love that's harder to say in person than I wish it were.

Most parents hold a list like this somewhere close to the chest, half-formed, waiting for the right moment that somehow never quite arrives. This is about getting those things out of your head and into their hands.

Why the things left unsaid matter

We tell our children a lot. We remind them to be kind, to work hard, to say please and thank you. But there's another category of things, the deeper and more complicated ones, that tend to stay unspoken. Not because we don't mean them. Because they feel too vulnerable to say out loud over dinner.

Those are often the things our kids will wish they'd heard.

In Ira Byock's book The Four Things That Matter Most, he describes how people nearing the end of life keep circling back to the same handful of unsaid things. Not arguments they wish they'd won or events they wish they'd attended. The things that haunt them are simpler: "I'm proud of you for this specific thing." "I know I got this wrong and I'm sorry." "I see you, and here's what I see."

You don't have to wait for a formal moment or a terminal diagnosis to say what matters. You can write it down now, while the words are still yours to give.

Things I want my kids to know about who they are

Before you get to advice, go here first. Tell them what you see.

Kids spend enormous energy trying to figure out who they are, and they're often working with incomplete information. They notice when they fail. They absorb criticism easily. They don't always know when they've genuinely impressed you, or what specific qualities you admire in them.

Tell them what you noticed early. The kid who always stopped to help someone struggling. The one who laughed at things other kids overlooked. Tell them what you've watched them become, the growth that's obvious from the outside but invisible when you're in it. Tell them what makes them distinctly themselves. Not generically good. Specifically them.

This isn't flattery. It's a mirror. And the version of themselves that lives in your eyes may be more honest than any they'll find on their own.

Things I want my kids to know about making mistakes

Almost everything worth doing comes with failure attached. But most of us spend years before we actually believe that, and the gap between knowing and believing is where a lot of unnecessary suffering lives.

What your kids need to hear, directly:

You will get things badly wrong, and it will not define you. There will be a moment, probably more than one, when you make a choice that embarrasses you or hurts someone or costs you something you can't get back. That's not a sign you're broken. It's the cost of living fully. How you handle the aftermath matters more than the mistake itself. Accountability, repair, the willingness to sit in discomfort and come out the other side. The mistake is just the entrance to a lesson.

And tell them about your own failures. Not in the abstract. I think about the time I was so focused on a work deadline that I missed my daughter's school play. She didn't say much about it, but I could see it in her face for weeks. That kind of specificity gives kids permission to be human. It reminds them that you understand the territory because you've walked it.

Things I want my kids to know about relationships

This is where so much pain originates, and where so much of the best of life lives too.

Choose carefully, and then choose fully. The people you let close will shape you more than almost anything else. Take your time. But once you've decided someone is worth it, show up all the way. Half-in relationships are harder than no relationship.

Learning to say "I was wrong" is a skill worth practicing. Relationships break not usually from the original conflict but from the refusal to acknowledge it. Learn to apologize specifically. Not "I'm sorry you felt that way" but "I was wrong when I said that, and here's what I wish I'd done instead."

And at some point, you will love people who can't love you back the way you need. That's one of the more painful lessons, and there's no shortcut through it. But knowing it's coming, that it's normal, can make the difference between sinking and swimming.

For more on how to shape the relationship story you leave behind, writing a legacy letter to your child is one of the most direct ways to do it.

Things I want my kids to know about hard times

At some point, the floor will drop. A loss, a failure, a season that doesn't seem to end. Here's what I want them to have before that happens.

You are more durable than you think. There is no preview for how you'll handle the worst things until you're in them. And almost everyone who's been through hard things is surprised by their own capacity to survive, and eventually, to rebuild.

Asking for help is not weakness. The myth of self-sufficiency causes a lot of unnecessary suffering. Let people in. Let them carry things with you.

When you lose something or someone that mattered, you will feel it for longer than seems reasonable, and the feeling will come back at unexpected times. That's not a malfunction. That's love with nowhere left to go.

The American Psychological Association has published extensive research on resilience, and the through-line is that human connection, not personal toughness or positive thinking, is the primary factor in how people recover from adversity. Your kids don't need to be tough. They need to know they're not alone.

Things I want my kids to know about work and purpose

Effort compounds. The slow, unsexy accumulation of small consistent actions builds almost everything worth having. This applies to craft, to health, to relationships. There isn't usually a moment when things suddenly click. There's just the work, and then one day you look up and something real is there.

Do things that make you feel alive, not just capable. Most people are capable of a lot. Far fewer build a life around what actually lights them up. You can be practical and still listen for the work that means something. It's worth the patience to find it.

Money is a tool, not a scoreboard. Enough matters. Enough is something to work toward. But more-than-enough has diminishing returns that most people discover too late.

Things I want my kids to know about me

This one's the hardest, and maybe the most important.

Tell them who you actually are. Not the parenting version of you, cleaned up and performing steadiness. What you hoped for. What you're still working through. What you got wrong and can see clearly in hindsight.

I remember being twenty-three and absolutely terrified about becoming a parent. I didn't tell anyone. I just read books and pretended I had it together. It took me years to realize that the pretending was the problem, not the fear. Your kids will grow up and eventually stop seeing you as an authority figure and start seeing you as a person. You can give them that gift while you're still alive to give it, instead of leaving them to piece it together from old journals and other people's stories.

Tell them:

What you were like at their age
What you were afraid of, and whether you were right to be
What you wish someone had told you
What you would do differently, and what you wouldn't change even knowing how it turned out
What you hope they'll remember about you

The StoryCorps archive at the Library of Congress holds tens of thousands of recorded conversations, and the ones people return to most are the honest ones. Not polished speeches. Real stories.

Things I want my kids to know about what I hope for them

These aren't instructions. Just the honest truth about what you wish for them.

I hope you find people who make you feel less alone. That one thing, belonging, is what most of us are searching for underneath everything else we pursue.

I hope you're kind to yourself. You will be harder on yourself than you'd ever be on someone you love. Try to notice when that's happening.

I hope you have more good days than hard ones. And when the hard ones come, I hope you know they won't last.

I hope you know I'm proud of you. Not what you do. Who you are.

How to actually say these things

Here's the gap most parents face: they have these thoughts, and they don't know how to deliver them.

Write a letter. A long one, or several shorter ones. One for a specific milestone, one for a hard time, one for no particular occasion. Letters can be re-read, saved, returned to. Writing a goodbye letter to someone you love is never really about goodbye. It's about making sure the love doesn't stay locked inside you.

Record a video. Not polished. Just you, talking directly to them. The pauses and the imperfections are part of what makes it real.

Have the conversations now. Not in a single sit-down that feels loaded, but in the car, on a walk, during the spaces in everyday life. You don't have to say everything at once. You just have to start.

When I Die Files lets you write these things down and keep them safe, with the option to deliver them when the time is right. A graduation, a wedding, or just a Tuesday when they need to hear from you.

If you're not sure where to start, life's milestones and the advice worth leaving can help you find the first words. And if you want to understand what this kind of message means to the people who receive it, why a personal message after death is more powerful than you think is worth a read.

You already have the list. You've been carrying it for years. Now put it somewhere they can find it.