A Long Winter

Lately, I’ve been hearing a version of the same question from many of you: how do we support our children during times of difficulty? And, maybe more quietly, how do we get ourselves through it too?

I find myself hesitating a bit when I try to answer it, because I don’t always feel drawn to the usual advice. You know the kind: take a bubble bath, practice “self-care,” do some yoga. None of those things are wrong, exactly, but they can feel a little too insubstantial for moments that are anything but.

Instead, I find myself returning to a concept I came across in Wintering by Katherine May. She writes about the seasons in life when things slow down or fall apart, when the rhythms that usually carry us stop working in the same way. She calls this “wintering”--a period that isn’t about pushing through or fixing things quickly, but about recognizing that we are in a different kind of season altogether.

We live in a culture that is always asking us to keep going, to stay productive, to move forward. Rest can feel almost like a failure under that lens. But what struck me in her writing is the idea that wintering isn’t something to overcome as quickly as possible. It’s something to move through, to allow, even to respect. There are times when our bodies and minds ask us to slow down, to pull in, to gather our energy rather than spend it.

At the same time, I don’t think the answer is only to retreat. There is something deeply steadying about small, tangible act–especially when the world feels scary and unpredictable. Doing something, even something modest, can remind us that we are not powerless. It might look like shoveling a neighbor’s driveway, or baking bread for a grandparent, or donating food. These actions don’t solve everything, but they shift something internally. They create a sense of control and care. They make our immediate world a little more livable, and that matters.

When it comes to our children, I think many of us feel an added pressure to say the “right thing”–to explain what’s happening in a way that is both honest and reassuring, to somehow strike a perfect balance. But raising children has never been about getting a single conversation right. It is a long, unfolding dialogue that happens over years.

Children don’t need us to have perfect answers. They need us to be present. They need to feel that we are willing to sit with them in their questions, to listen, to acknowledge uncertainty without being undone by it. There is a steadiness in simply being there, in letting them see that even when things are complicated or unclear, they are not facing it alone.

And in truth, what they absorb most deeply isn’t what we say: it’s how we live. They are always watching how we respond to difficulty, how we take care of ourselves, how we treat other people, how we find moments of lightness even when things feel heavy. When you take a walk, when spend quality time with a spouse or friend, when you sit and sip coffee while listening to your favorite band, you are showing them something about how to rest and recover. Doing what nourishes you isn’t indulgent; it’s part of being the kind of person they can learn from.

And then, of course, there are the children themselves. I’ve always felt that choosing to care for and guide children is, in itself, a profound act of hope–a hope that the future is worth investing in, even if we won’t see how the story fully unfolds.

There are no easy answers, no scripts, no perfection. So, my advice, for what it’s worth, stands: allow yourselves to rest when you need to, take small actions that remind us of our agency, let go of the pressure to have all the answers, and trust that the way you live each day is already shaping something meaningful.