Childhood remembers the adults who made ordinary mistakes feel survivable.

What children keep is rarely the advice. It is the face an adult made when the glass broke, when the test went badly, when something was ruined by accident, because that reaction taught them whether mistakes are catastrophes or events. An adult who stayed calm gave a child a working model of repair that lasts decades. An adult who did not gave them a flinch that also lasts.

If children are around you, watch your first two seconds after something goes wrong. And if your own flinch came from somewhere, it is worth knowing that it was taught rather than deserved.