Asking because I need some good news in my feed today 
My 6-year-old said thank you to the cashier without me prompting her and I genuinely teared up a little. Felt like all the repeating myself finally paid off. Share yours, big or small, because parenting is hard and we don’t celebrate enough of the small stuff.
Oh I love this question so much.
Mine was last week. My 9-year-old came home from school upset because a friend had said something unkind. Instead of immediately going to his room to stew, he came and sat next to me on the couch and just said i need to talk about something.
I nearly fell off the couch. This is the kid who used to bottle everything up for three days and then explode over something completely unrelated like the wrong color cup at dinner.
We talked for maybe 20 minutes. He felt better. He went and played. No drama, no fallout.
I don’t know when that shift happened but something somewhere clicked and I’m choosing to take partial credit 
Honestly felt bigger than any school achievement or sports trophy. Kid learned how to name a feeling and ask for help. That’s the whole game right there 
Not gonna lie, my bar for parenting wins is pretty low some weeks so bear with me 
My 5-year-old voluntarily put her shoes away. Not because I asked. Not because I threatened anything. She just… did it. Walked in, took them off, put them in the basket.
I stood there for a second genuinely not knowing how to react. I think I said something deeply uncool like oh wow, great job in a voice that was way too excited. She looked at me like I was weird and went about her day.
But I texted my husband immediately. Sent it in our family group chat. Marked the occasion.
This whole thread is already making my day and I just got here
My win was my 12-year-old noticing that I looked tired and asking if I was okay. Didn’t want anything. Wasn’t softening me up for a request. Just… noticed and asked.
I’ve been parenting this kid for twelve years trying to model that exact behavior. Noticing people. Checking in. Asking without an agenda. And there it was, just happening naturally on a Tuesday morning before school.
My eyes definitely did not get watery. I am a composed adult. Totally fine 
TechAxis you started something good here. We spend so much time in the trenches talking about what’s hard that we forget to just stop and say hey, that thing I did actually worked. This thread is that reminder.
Okay mine is a little different but I’m counting it
My 7yo lost a board game last weekend. Like really lost. Big margin. The kind of loss that used to result in pieces being thrown and at least one person crying.
This time he looked at the board for a second, said okay good game and went to get a snack. That’s it. No drama. No tears. No renegotiating the rules mid-loss.
I looked at my wife. She looked at me. We did not make a big deal of it in front of him because we did not want to jinx it. But after he left the room we had a small silent celebration.
VoipMax I felt the shoes thing deeply. Sometimes the win is the small thing. The small thing IS the big thing. We’ve just been conditioned to only notice the big stuff 
ok TechAxis this is the energy I needed today no cap
so my win is kind of embarrassing but also not. my 10 year old has been really into cooking lately and last Saturday she made breakfast for the whole family by herself. like, eggs, toast, cut up some fruit, put it on plates. nobody asked her to. she just decided that was a thing she wanted to do.
we sat down and ate this slightly uneven scrambled egg situation and it was genuinely one of the best breakfasts I can remember. not because of the food. because of the face she made when everyone said it was good.
I want to share mine and also give some context because I think it matters.
We went through a really rough patch with our 8yearold last year. Behavior stuff, school stuff, a lot of hard conversations with teachers and each other. It felt for a while like nothing was landing and we were just treading water.
Last month his teacher pulled me aside at pickup and said she wanted me to know that he had stood up for a classmate who was being left out at recess. Went over, included them, made sure they felt welcome. Completely unprompted.
I held it together until I got to the car.
After everything last year, watching kindness come out of him naturally like that felt like… I don’t know, like something finally took root. You plant things for a long time without seeing much and then one day there it is.
ShedNet said it well. The small thing IS the big thing. For us that morning, it really was 
Reading @MicroLauncher’s reply and feeling that one 
We had a similar stretch two years ago where everything felt uphill. My son was struggling socially and I was quietly terrified that he was going to have a hard time connecting with people long term.
Fast forward to last week. He invited a new kid at school to sit with his friend group at lunch. Kid he had never spoken to before. Just saw him standing there looking uncertain and went over.
I found out from the other kid’s parent who messaged me out of nowhere. Didn’t even know my son had done it.
That’s the thing about parenting wins sometimes. You don’t even see them happen. They just come back to you through someone else saying hey your kid did something good. Hits different when it comes that way 
ok I was going to share something deep but after ZenDelight’s breakfast story and DignifyAlloy’s whole thing I feel like I need to match the energy
Mine is: my 6-year-old told me I was her best friend last week.
I know, I know. They say stuff like that. It probably means she wanted screen time or extra dessert. But she said it at a completely random moment, no context, no obvious agenda, just looked up from drawing and said it.
I said it back. We hugged. She went back to drawing.
Could mean nothing. Could mean everything. I’m choosing everything.
this thread has me over here tearing up at my desk and I work in an open office so thanks everyone, very cool, very professional
Well my 11-year-old apologized to me last week. not a forced apology, not the kind where I’m standing there waiting and they say sorry in a flat voice just to end the standoff. an actual, came-to-me-later, hey I was rude this morning and I shouldn’t have been apology.
I nearly fainted.
that kid has been testing every limit we have for about a year now and I’ve been in full hold-the-line mode just trying to stay consistent without losing my mind. and then that apology showed up and it felt like… okay. something is getting through. the line held.
ArtistPro I’m choosing everything is the most perfect parenting energy. we should all be choosing everything more often 
My parenting win was quiet and nobody outside my house would notice it. My 13-year-old put his phone down at dinner without being asked. Just set it face down, ate with us, talked about his day. For context this is the kid who, six months ago, had to be physically separated from his phone at mealtimes and treated every request to put it away like a human rights violation.
I don’t know if it was one conversation that did it or thirty. Probably thirty. But something shifted and now it just kind of happens sometimes. Not every night. But sometimes.