Building What I didn’t Have: Creating Emotional Safety at Home.
Emotional safety is something I didn’t have words for growing up—but I felt the absence of it every single day.
My childhood consisted of unpredictability, silence, fear of reactions, and emotional neglect. When I felt a certain way, it was my fault and I was told to “get over it” or “well then stop thinking about it.” This isn’t a solution, it throws the feeling of loneliness into the mix.
As a child, I learned early how to read the room. I learned when to stay quiet, when to make myself small, when to anticipate someone else’s mood before they walked through the door. I learned that feelings were inconvenient, messy, or something to be dealt with alone. There was no consistent place to land emotionally—no assurance that expressing hurt, fear, or confusion wouldn’t make things worse.
When an event between friends or siblings took place where I felt defeated, shocked, or hurt, I was asked with the question, “Well what did you do to enable this?” or “What did you do that made them do this?” These questions haunt me with any and every interaction I have that may steer aware from my intent.
Those lessons stayed with me far longer than they should have.
But now, as an adult and as a parent, I’ve made a conscious decision along with my husband: the home we are building will not be a place of emotional uncertainty. It will be a place of emotional safety.
For me, emotional safety means knowing that feelings are allowed—even the uncomfortable ones. It means my family knows they can speak without fear of being dismissed, mocked, or punished for their honesty. It means that emotions are met with curiosity instead of control, compassion instead of criticism.
Three of our four children are currently going through the custody battle as mentioned a couple of blogs previously and everything is at an all time high. There was a miscommunication regarding the children’s expectations and how they carried themselves which left us feeling frustrated and unheard, so we sat them down. We advised them that we understand stress is high, they have different rules and expectations at their mom’s, and us moving here has and will continue to be an adjustment. We also let them know how much we love them and want to teach them kindness and accountability for themselves which encompasses so much more than just being nice to people. We navigated the conversation, gave them the opportunity to speak and ask any questions, and went about our day.
I didn’t grow up seeing healthy conflict or emotional regulation modeled. I saw avoidance, escalation, silence, and survival. So much of what I’m doing now has been unlearning before relearning—asking myself questions like:
How would I have wanted to be spoken to in this moment?
What would safety have looked like for me then?
How can I respond instead of react?
My husband and I had gotten into a disagreement which took place in front of the kids one afternoon when spending time outside. I typically would stay silent and disappear, removing myself from everyone’s presence and stay pissed off. Instead, I went inside to cool off and gather my thoughts on how to not only resolve this between my husband and I (which we are pretty good at doing) but how to communicate with the kids about what just happened. So together, my husband and I apologized to one another in front of the kids and apologized to them directly for how we handled the situation.
Creating emotional safety isn’t about being perfect or calm all the time. It’s about repair. It’s about apologizing when we get it wrong. It’s about showing my family that accountability and love can coexist. That authority doesn’t have to mean fear. That boundaries don’t have to come with emotional withdrawal.
In our home, we talk about feelings openly. We name them. We normalize them. We remind each other that emotions pass, but trust is built—or broken—by how we respond to them. I want my family to know that they don’t have to earn love by being easy, quiet, or agreeable.
I’m not parenting from a place of having all the answers. I’m parenting from intention. From awareness. From the deep understanding of what it feels like to grow up without emotional safety—and the determination to not pass that legacy forward and this is part of my healing, too. Every time I choose patience over panic, connection over control, I’m not just protecting my family—I’m tending to the parts of myself that needed this kind of home all along.
And maybe that’s the most powerful part: building emotional safety isn’t just about breaking cycles. It’s about creating something better in their place.
