There is a kind of child adults tend to love being around. They are agreeable, flexible, easygoing, and usually willing to move with whatever the family is doing. They nod when you give directions, rarely stir up much conflict, and when the family is deciding what to eat, they are often the child who says, “I don’t care. Whatever everybody wants.” If you have ever parented a child with very strong opinions about nearly everything, this kind of temperament can feel like winning the lottery. But sometimes quiet agreement is not peace, and sometimes the child who appears easiest on the outside is carrying much more on the inside than anyone realizes.

There are few parenting phrases easier to say and less likely to work than “Just calm down.” I have said it. Usually with the confidence of a man who believes the volume of his voice may somehow help another person's nervous system become peaceful. “Take a breath and relax. You're fine.” Then, to my surprise, the anxious child does not become fine. Sometimes they become noticeably less fine, which is humbling when your parenting strategy was built entirely around the assumption that being told to relax is relaxing.

There is a certain kind of relief that arrives when school starts again. Summer is wonderful, but summer is also the season when bedtime becomes a suggestion, snacks become a food group, and somebody is always asking whether another bowl of cereal at 10:14 p.m. technically counts as dinner. Then school arrives, and suddenly the family calendar matters again. Wake up time matters. Lunch matters. Routine comes back, and for many families that is not a burden. It is a gift.