There are moments in parenting when everything feels hard.

Your child is yelling. You’ve asked them five times to put their shoes on. They slam a door. You lose your patience. A conversation about screen time somehow becomes a much bigger fight about respect, responsibility, or whether anyone in this family listens to anyone else.

And then, often, comes the worry:

Did I handle that badly? Am I damaging our relationship? Should I have been calmer?