Day: October 25, 2025

Redditors who had healthy childhoods (they do exist!) are sharing the little things their families did that allowed that health to flourish. For these kids, getting daily encouragement and unconditional support was so normal that they often had no idea until they were adults that not everyone gets it. Dysfunctional households, emotionally immature parents, and even abuse are unfortunately common enough that sometimes psychological health seems like a rarity. It’s bad enough that someone made an Ask Reddit post about it. “Redditors who grew up in emotionally healthy families-what’s something you thought was normal growing up that you now realise was actually very special?” queried u/ViolatingBadgers. S. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), about 29 percent of high school aged kids reported this aspect of health as “not good” most or all of the time in both 2021 and 2023. Having emotionally health parents who treat their children well is one of the major keys to raising happy, satisfied, and functional kids. If no one teaches parents how to model this health, however, they’re unlikely to do so, and the results can be devastating. This certainly doesn’t mean that those who grew up in unhappy homes are doomed to poor mental health, but part of the healing journey often involves realizing what you missed out on in those early years. If you don’t recognize the behavior in the following comments, it might be time to consider therapy. 1. Dropping everything for the kids “My mom will drop everything if her child is in distress. I can call tonight at 3am crying and tell her I need her, no details, and she will drive to my house.” She was on a road trip the night my husband left me. I was housesitting her dogs and she could hear in my voice that something was wrong when she checked in that evening. I went to bed. She drove all night long straight home and was sleeping on her own couch when I woke up and came downstairs the next morning.” -u/ClutterKitty 2. Lunch notes “My mom used to pack my lunch and she put a little note with a compliment or encouragement in my lunch every day, all the way up through high school. My friends would make me read them out loud at lunch because they liked getting the message too.” -u/gogogadgetpants_ 3. Simply showing interest “My parents were always interested in what was going on with us kids. They were happy to listen to us babble on about our days, and were involved in every aspect of our lives. If we had a test, they were doing flash cards. We played softball? Dad was assistant coach. Mom was the girl scout leader. We never felt anything but loved, trusted, and safe.” -u/AtheneSchmidt 4. Apologizing? What a concept “My mom apologized to me when she was wrong.” -u/Marillenbaum 5. Random presents “My mom used to give us random gifts we asked for during the year-like one time I got a Polly Pocket I wanted forever. It was on my bed when I woke up on Halloween morning. I thought everyone’s parents did that.” -u/grumpyfvck 6. Just being kind “Kindness. My parents made being kind, a super trait for any human to have. They did not fight with each other. Sense of humor. Love of music. We always had music in our home. My childhood friends loved coming over to my mom’s home cooked meals too.” -u/Taketheegg 7. Mitigating harm instead of punishing “Child discipline was always focused on mitigating the harm caused such as paying for something we broke or making an apology to someone we had hurt. Natural consequences were allowed to happen (such as not having a fresh towel if we didn’t finish the laundry) and then coaching us how to learn from those consequences and prevent the misbehavior from recurring.” -u/Glade_Runner 8. Emotional support “They were emotionally available. I could talk to either one of them about virtually anything at any time and they never made me feel like a burden, never made my concerns feel frivolous, and never made me feel judged. They just wanted to be supportive, and wanted us to know we were loved.” -u/BrandNewBurr 9. Parents respecting each other “My parents were always very respectful to each other and have never complained about the other (at least not in front of their kids).” -u/AmKamikaze 10. Dads respecting women “Even as a kid, people were worried about me, since I was the only girl, and dad got custody. He’s a rough around the edges redneck, so I think people were nervous how he’d treat me post divorce. And that fear was completely unnecessary, thankfully. Heck, you wanna know why mom married him in the first place? Because he already did the laundry and cleaned the bathroom, even moreso, because he said he does it because HE’S the farmer, HE’S the dirtiest and most hairy, it just makes sense for him to do that vs mom.” -u/LeatherHog 11. A quiet, calm household “I had friends growing up that came from loud, chaotic households where they never had a moment of peace. And they’d come into my house and just. relax. It’s like you could see the weight lift sometimes. We had music and movies and laughter and all that, but there was a calmness that I don’t know I properly appreciated until I was older.” -u/yourerightaboutthat 12. Quality time “We did a lot of stuff together. Dad worked shift so he was frequently off on weekdays, which was great during the summer as we could go out to places like the ROM or the Science Centre (RIP) or just go camping, and the crowds would be smaller as most parents had to work. And my dad alternated day and night shifts, but I still remember him being a super involved parent alongside my stay-at-home mom.” -u/glowingmember 13. Packing healthy food “One thing that I didn’t realize until I was older, was the effort my parents put on us having healthy meals. I went to a rougher elementary school and recall being a bit jealous of kids who got cream eggs every day in their lunch, or got to have lunchables literally every day, or just basically had candy. I recall trading my fruit to these kids and thinking I made quiet the deal when they gave me their candy. It was not until I was older that I realize how that was probably the only fruit that other kid would get and how much my parents cared relative to other parents at school.” -u/BDOID 14. Loving your friends, too “My parents always showed up for all of our events, competitions, awards nights, everything. They got to know our friends and were there to support them just as much as us. One time my mom and I went to surprise a friend at a fairly important event he was being recognized at-not even his parents came! Even now as an adult, my best high school friends still love my parents, and my parents ask how my friends are doing too.” -u/Areolfos 15. Eating dinner together “Now that I’m older I realize people don’t sit down and eat dinner together. I grew up doing that and every night we each would pick the music for dinner in the background. I would always pick the Grease soundtrack lol!” -u/vietnams666 16. Modeling healthy relationships “Feeling confident in the fact that my parents really liked and loved each other. Witnessed emotional and (appropriate) physical affection regularly and never worried that I would have to take a side or mediate between them.” -u/Ambystomatigrinum 17. Not tearing down others “I never heard a negative thing said about anyone by my parents. No mean, nasty comments. EVER. I remember my first dinner at my then-boyfriend, later husband’s family’s home. It was so negative and mean that I excused myself and went to the restroom to cry and pull myself together.” -u/Pure-Remote9614 18. Taking an active role in education “My parents backed me up in school. Not like now, where the kids are treated as semi-gods and the teachers are wrong. But if I came home bored they went into the teacher to get me more appropriate work (apparently when I was in kindergarten I came home and very calmly put my hands on the table and told them that if I had to count beans one more time, I would scream).” -u/celoplyr The internet is chaotic-but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s newsletter here. Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online. The post “I thought everyone’s parents did that”: 18 small things that made kids realize they grew up loved appeared first on The Daily Dot.