Being the “easy kid” shouldn’t mean being the kid who never says what they need.

Families lean on whoever makes the fewest waves, and the reward for being easy is usually more of the same. Low maintenance starts as a kindness and quietly hardens into a rule where your needs come last, because they have never once been loud. Nobody chose that on purpose. It simply became the arrangement everyone got used to.

Pick one thing you have gone without and ask for it plainly this week, even something small. The first ask will feel out of character, and that is rather the point.