I recently took my granddaughter to Disneyland, and honestly, it was the best day I’ve ever had there. I’ve visited my kids many times, but this experience felt different. Back then, I was building companies and managing thousands of employees. Physically, I was at Disneyland with my kids, but mentally I was somewhere else: solving problems, fielding calls, handling budgets, payrolls and performance. This time, with my granddaughter, I was just there. Fully present. And it made me wonder how many times, while I was physically present in my children’s lives, I may have been emotionally absent because of the pressure I felt to perform, protect, and provide for my family.
When I lost my son, Ryan, in 2018, he was just 14 years old. In the aftermath, the questions that consumed me were: Why didn’t I see the signs? Why didn’t he tell me? Looking back now, I find myself wondering what we, as parents who are also executives, corporate leaders, and CEOs, may be missing when it comes to our children; because we are so focused on providing for them and making sure their needs are met.
Trying to make sense of the questions I had surrounding Ryan’s passing, and to help more parents better understand their children’s mental health, I created What I Wish My Parents Knew, a documentary about youth mental health. What these young people in the film said to me, stopped me in my tracks: “I didn’t tell my parents about my struggles with mental health, because I didn’t want to be a burden. They have enough going on as it is; I didn’t want to add to it.”
What I have come to understand, both an executive and a father, is that the skills that make us effective leaders can quietly work against us as parents. We are fixers. We are decisive. We walk into a room, solve the problem, and move on. That’s what we’re paid to do, and that’s how many of us built our careers.
But when a child is struggling with their mental health, they don’t usually need us to fix it right away. When we jump straight to problem-solving, we can unintentionally signal that their feelings are something to solve instead of something worth talking through. What our children need most is someone who listens to. Someone willing to sit with them in anxiety and the unknown, and who allows them to process what they’re going through without judgement or immediate solutions. That requires a very different muscle than the one many of us spent decades training.
Another thing I’ve learned, and this one is harder to hear, is that our children may not always experience us as safe to talk to. Not because they doubt our love, but because of how we show up. They may see us in one of two ways: either bulletproof — strong, composed, never cracking or struggling — or overwhelmed, distracted, and carrying the stress of business and life. In both cases, they may choose silence. Not because they don’t trust us, but because they don’t want to disappoint us or add to the weight we’re already carrying.
Isn’t that a very different problem than the one most of us think we’re dealing with?
As parents, we often assume our kids aren’t talking to us because they’re distant, moody, or going through a phase. But what these young people told me painted a very different picture. They’re not always shutting us out. Sometimes they filter themselves to protect us. They’re trying to be strong in the same way they’ve watched us be strong. And when feelings are bottled up, they don’t just disappear. They come out somewhere else: anger, withdrawal, perfectionism, silence, or something far more dangerous. A child can still go to school, laugh at dinner, and seem completely fine, while struggling in ways we never see. Ryan did.
One of the biggest realizations for me has been that it’s not just about whether our kids are struggling. It’s whether they feel safe bringing their struggles to us. So what does this mean for those of us who run companies, lead teams, and are trying to be present at home in whatever time we have left at the end of the day?
It starts with a shift in how we think about safety. Most of us are good at providing physical safety: a home, financial security, opportunities and stability. Those things matter, and they’re important. But alongside them, our kids also need emotional safety. And emotional safety is usually built — or eroded — in small everyday moments, not in big conversations. It’s in how we respond when our kids talk about their day, their interests, frustrations, and even details that may seem insignificant to us. Do we really listen, or do we interrupt? Are we genuinely interested in what they’re saying? Do we try to understand and stay present, or are we rushing the conversation so we can get back to work?
In What I Wish My Parents Knew, one idea really stood out to me: two people can look at the exact same situation and experience it completely differently. What feels manageable to us can feel overwhelming to our kids. We may look outside and see a blue sky, while our child standing right next to us, sees only clouds. And if we keep telling them the sky is clear, eventually they may stop telling us about the clouds altogether. What they need is for us to ask about the clouds. What do they look like? Do they come and go, or are they always there? What makes them worse? What helps them lift, even if for a little while? This kind of listening does not mean we ignore serious warning signs or avoid getting professional help when it’s needed. It simply means we listen first so we can better understand what kind of help is actually needed.
One more thing worth acknowledging is that we can be intimidating to our kids, even when we don’t mean to be. We’re still their parents: the authority figures, the ones who correct, question, discipline, and make decisions. So when we walk into their room and say “we need to talk,” we may unintentionally shut the door before a conversation even starts. The most meaningful conversations don’t usually happen face-to-face across a table. They happen side by side: in the car, on a walk, on the way to school, or during everyday routines. The less a child feels examined, the more likely they are to open up.
One of the simplest and most impactful things we can do in those moments is to be fully present and just listen. We have to show our kids they’re not a burden by being present when they reach out, putting distractions aside, and making time even when it’s inconvenient. And just as importantly, by following through when we say we’ll come back and talk.
If you are wondering how to start, don’t wait for the big conversations. Make room for the small ones. Put the phone down. Leave work aside. Slow down enough to really listen.. Show genuine interest in their daily lives because those everyday moments teach your child whether it’s safe to be honest with you when it really matters. And sometimes, that can be the difference between a young person struggling in silence and a young person finally starting a conversation.
