The hidden signs of rumination I wish I listened to before my daughter shutdown.

“I don’t want to bring you my worries anymore. It feels like you can’t handle them.”
That’s what my 11-year-old daughter said to me.
Not in anger. Not to hurt me.
Just… honestly. 

And I knew she was right.
She could see the stress in my eyes.
The tension. The way I was always one thought away from tipping over the edge. 

I thought I was protecting her, by worrying for her.
But I was doing the very opposite, making her feel unsafe, anxious, and worried about me. 

For years, I thought I was just being responsible.
I’d re-run conversations, imagining better responses.
I’d chew over small decisions, trying to avoid the wrong one.
I’d lie awake thinking through every possible “what if.” 

It felt useful.
It felt organised.
It felt like good parenting. 

But it wasn’t.
It was rumination a negative mental loop I’d mistaken for logic.
And I was addicted to it. 

I didn’t realise how damaging it was.
Because it doesn’t show up like yelling or snapping.
It shows up like care.
It shows up like love. 

But when you rehearse stressful thoughts, your body doesn’t know it’s “just thinking.”
Your system reacts as if the danger is real. 

Cortisol. Adrenaline. Stress.
That’s why you feel fried after a night of overthinking.
Your body’s been in survival mode from the inside out. 

A 2013 Stanford study found that repetitive negative thinking increases activity in the amygdala (your brain’s alarm system)
and shrinks the hippocampus  the part of the brain that helps regulate memory, mood, and emotional flexibility. 

The more you ruminate, the more your brain stays on high alert.
Even if nothing’s happening, your body prepares like everything is. 

And that stress?
It doesn’t just live inside you.
It damages your health  and leaks into every relationship you have. 

Because when you’re stuck in your head, you’re not actually here. 

You’re in the kitchen, but you’re not listening.
You’re saying, “Tell me about your day,” while mentally rehearsing the fallout of a work conversation that hasn’t even happened. 

You haven’t disappeared.
But you’ve checked out.
And your kids know.
Not because you told them but because they feel it. 

What overthinking teaches our kids (even if we never say a word): 

1. Worry = responsible
   They learn that stress means you care. 
2. Tension = normal
   They adapt to the undercurrent. They carry it in silence. 
3. Mistakes = threat
   They fear getting it wrong. They avoid trying at all. 
4. Emotional absence = love
   They stop coming to us — not because they don’t need support, but because they don’t want to “add pressure.” 
5. Their calm = their job
   They start managing us — supporting us instead of being supported. 
6. Uncertainty = danger
   They learn to avoid exploration, risk, and uncertainty. Curiosity feels unsafe. 

That’s what my daughter had learned.
Not because I yelled.
Not because I ignored her.
But because she could feel I was always somewhere else. 

And she started holding back  to protect me. 

Big, fat, wake-up call! 

My overthinking wasn’t just a mental habit.
It was becoming her emotional inheritance. 

So what do you do with this? 

Step 1: Catch it.
Rumination thrives in disguise.
It looks like effort.
It wears the mask of “thinking it through.” 

Step 2: Interrupt it.
Not with forced positivity. Not with guilt.
Just with awareness: 

“This isn’t helping. I’ve run the same loop. I don’t need to run it again.” 

That’s how you lay a new track. 

Neuroscience calls it neuroplasticity.
Every time you don’t follow the old trail, you make space for a new one. 

Over time, that choice stops being effort.
It becomes your new normal. 

If this hits home, we made something for you. 

Your thoughts are not facts, So Why Are You Believing Them? is a short, practical webinar,  PDF guide and workbook designed to help you shift the way you think, before it shapes the way you parent.

So you can stop passing your stress on silently.
And start reducing anxiety for both of you.

Click here to access webinar