Planting Season: The Long Game of Raising Kids

In the ancient redwood forests of Northern California, something remarkable happens when a tree falls - and once you see it, you can't go back.

When an ancient redwood falls, its offspring don't disappear with it. They rise. A ring of younger trees sprouts from the root system of the fallen giant, growing in a perfect circle around where it once stood. The old tree is gone, but its roots are still feeding everything around it.

I took a trip to the redwood forests in Sonoma County recently and something I came across there has stayed with me ever since.

The Long Game Nobody Tells You About

When you become a parent, people talk about the early years like they're the whole story. But what nobody quite prepares you for is the decade-after-decade nature of this work. You are planting something you may not fully see for twenty, thirty, forty years.

You make thousands of small decisions - how you respond when your child is dysregulated, whether you get them support, how you repair after a hard moment - without knowing how it will land.

That can feel terrifying. It can also feel, if you let it, like a profound kind of trust.

What You're Really Building

"I don't know if this is a big deal." "Maybe I'm overreacting."

When parents bring their children to play therapy, they sometimes apologize. What I want to say (and what I do say) is this: You're not here because something is catastrophically wrong. You're here because you're paying attention.

Play therapy is where children learn to name what they feel and work through fear in a language natural to them: play. It's where they build skills that will quietly govern their relationships and resilience for the rest of their lives. You won't see the return on that investment next week. But you are building the root system. You are tending the circle.

The Roots You Can't See

Redwoods have surprisingly shallow roots that are rarely deeper than twelve feet. What makes them stable enough to stand for millennia is that their roots grow outward and intertwine with neighboring trees; they literally hold each other up.

Children are the same way. Stability in adulthood comes from consistent presence; of being seen, of being repaired with, of having at least one adult who didn't give up. Those roots spread quietly, invisibly - and they hold.

As Dr. Tina Payne Bryson puts it: children don't need perfect parents, they need present ones.

You Won't Know How This Ends. Do It Anyway.

You will not know, for a very long time, whether you got this right. That's not failure. That's the point.

The redwood doesn't know what the fairy circle will look like in 500 years. It just keeps feeding the roots it has.

The forest you're planting is real. And one day, out of nowhere, you'll catch a glimpse of who your kids are becoming, and that's when you'll see the fruits of your labor.

If you're looking for a good read, check out Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson's The Power of Showing Up - it's worth it.