This story is part of “Parenting: What Google Won’t Tell You” — The Better India’s people-led parenting series that goes beyond conventional advice to document how real families are actually raising their children. Through real parents, parenting coaches, influencers and experts, the series brings honest, diverse and relatable perspectives on the questions, choices, challenges and solutions that shape everyday parenting — the things Google can’t always answer.
Long before we become parents, we hear the same advice on repeat. Stay strong for your children. Don’t panic in front of them. Kids take their cues from you. It can sound like something out of an old wives’ tale, the kind of wisdom our own parents lived by without ever explaining why. And then, one ordinary day, life hands you a moment that makes it all click.
In a candid conversation with The Better India, Gayathri Prakash, a Chennai-based mother of three, shares the story of the ordinary family morning that changed how she thinks about calm parenting
When a mother became her son’s safe place
She was visiting family in Bengaluru and packing for an evening flight to Chennai. Her son, Yug, was around five or six and playing with his cousins when she suddenly heard her sister-in-law scream her name.
“He was already drenched in blood from the top of his head all the way down to his T-shirt, with blood dripping onto his toes,” she recalls. Her mind went into a strange, focused stillness. “There was no time for emotions; there was only prioritising,” she says.
“I think it was a moment when the only way to move forward was to fight the problem, not sink into it.”
When Yug finally found his mother, he let his tears flow, a reminder that children often hold their emotions together until they reach the person they feel safest with.
Yug had been holding back his tears. But the moment he saw his mother, he called out her nickname, “Gayu”, ran into her arms and began to cry.
She realised later that he had been looking for her, running down one floor and up two more to find her. Until that moment, he had held his emotions together.
“I didn’t realise until then that he had been holding all his emotions in until he found me,” she says. “He held his tears back until he saw the person he trusted most, relied on most and loved most.”
Instead of freezing, her mind became “completely operational”. She focused on stopping the bleeding, finding a doctor nearby and figuring out how to get to the hospital.
Finding the calm in a 30-minute drive
With the hospital half an hour away, she and her husband, Aravind, grew unusually quiet. Their son sat on her lap the whole ride, murmuring “ouchie, ouchie,” while she reassured him they’d get him a toy afterwards.
“We understood for the very first time that we do not control the way things work in this world,” she says. “But that calmness was important in helping our son feel safe.”
Later, the relative who drove them to the hospital pointed out how calm she had remained. The observation made her think differently about something she had never consciously considered before: the way parents’ reactions can shape how children experience difficult moments.
What calm parenting actually means
She’s quick to draw a line between staying calm and being permissive. “Calmness does not mean the absence of discipline,” she explains.
From sibling fights to screen-time meltdowns, Gayathri believes parents can set firm boundaries without adding to their child’s emotional overwhelm.
“For me, it means trying not to add my own emotional chaos to something my child is already struggling to process.”
That plays out in small, everyday moments – a sibling fight, a screen-time meltdown, as much as in emergencies. Her approach: hold the boundary, but drop the shouting. “You are allowed to be angry, but the answer will remain no,” she tells her children.
“I am here when you are ready.” The child may still be upset, she says, but the parent doesn’t have to be.
The three-second pause she now uses
This idea has also shaped the way she handles everyday parenting.
Children can return from school carrying a whole “palette of emotions” — an argument with a friend, a sibling fight, a meltdown or simply a difficult day. By the end of a long day, a parent can be just as emotionally stretched.
Her strategy is simple: pause for three seconds.
“When I know I do not like the way things are going, I pause for three seconds to recalibrate before I react,” she says.
Those three seconds, she believes, can create enough space to choose a response rather than simply react.
And when she does lose her patience, she does not believe parents should drown themselves in guilt.
A brief pause before responding can help parents move from instinctive reactions to calmer, more considered responses.
“I lose my patience too, and there are moments when I panic or react in a way I later regret,” she admits. What matters, she says, is recognising the impact, apologising when necessary and trying not to repeat the same reaction.
“An apology does not make us smaller as parents. It shows our children that we are aware of our actions and willing to correct them.”
The person we hope to become
Perhaps the most powerful lesson she has taken from that morning is not about never being afraid. It is about becoming a steady presence despite the fear.
Even today, when life feels overwhelming, she turns to her own father. He may not always solve the problem, but watching him remain calm gives her the strength to face it.
Gayathri knows she cannot shield her children from every difficult moment, but she can be the calm, reassuring presence they know they can always run to.
Maybe that is what children need from us too.
We cannot prevent every fall, disappointment, meltdown, or frightening moment. But we can show them what it looks like to face one.
We can breathe, pause, listen to them, set the boundary, and find the next step.
And, above all, become the person they know they can run to when the world suddenly feels frightening.
All images courtesy Gayathri Prakash
