Being a parent can feel like being a full-time hypocrite. We spend our days giving advice with crystal clarity that we wouldn’t have taken from anyone when we were “their age”.

I hear it in my voice while telling my daughter the importance of friendship and compassion. Seeing her, as a teenager, simply acting like a teenager fills me with worry. I think back to when I was 15 and doing things that now, many years later, I would do differently.

So, I warn her of the pitfalls of life – the chutes, the ladders, the devil, and the deep blue sea. Falling from the path of the righteous will lead to grave consequences. Mark my words, youngin.

Searching her face to see if my advice lands can be difficult. The lessons that I think she’s hearing, she doesn’t. The advice I think she is ignoring, I see her following later. You never know what will make an impact. You’re throwing spaghetti at the wall in hopes that something will stick.

Part of me feels like the unreliable narrator of our life story. Why should these kids listen to me? I’m a divorced, single dad who has dealt with loss and grief many times over. I’ve seen the worst in people on their way out the door; failing to realize I saw the worst of them long before that. Half the advice I give these little mooks is advice that I didn’t follow myself the first time around. After all, that’s how I learned these lessons. It’s why I’m so sanctimonious now.

The biggest piece of advice I need to remind myself to follow, however, isn’t something I tell my daughter to adhere to. It’s something that I have my non-verbal son with autism follow. It’s an instruction that seems so obvious when it’s for him, but never that obvious for me.

Breathe.

Lucas goes at 100 miles an hour for almost his entire day. From room to room and person to person, my little fella hops around like his feet are on fire. He comes roaring up to me repeatedly, searching for something on YouTube Kids.

When he hands me his iPad, I begin scrolling and can hear him breathing like an old man chain-smoking Pall-Malls. He pulls and pushes every breath in and out with enough force to rip the paint from a Buick. It rattles my bones.

My kid’s a mouth breather. I accept that. When he was little, Lucas’s mouth would hang open like an unmanned Muppet. It’s the cause of his chapped lips. Doctors called it “low tone”.

Add to this my quintuple bypass many years ago and you know why it causes me distress to hear my boy practically wheezing. If he wasn’t non-verbal, I would be more concerned. I know, however, that it’s not a health issue. It’s just how he breathes. When it’s all coming from your mouth, it leaves little room for zen-like meditation.

So as he stands there, huffing and puffing, waiting for me to type “Flying Fairy School” into the search bar. I feel his antsy energy busting out of his face, so I stop short and lay his iPad at my side, face down. Then I place my hand in the center of his chest.

Shhhh. Hey. Stop. Breathe.

He doesn’t know what “breathe” means. I know that and, to illustrate what I want him to do, I take deep breaths myself in hopes that he will follow.

Look. Like this. In…(breath). Out…(breath). You do. In…(breath). Out…(breath).

And he does, although I can’t guarantee that he’s doing so by following my lead. Rather, it’s the first time in a long time that he’s been forced to slow down and take a temporary timeout from iPad excitement to catch his bearings. It’s as if he needed permission to stop obsessing and be aware of his breaths. After a few seconds, he’s closer to even.

Once I see that he’s settled, I swipe away his device to find his show and hand it back to him. Just as he’s about to take it, I stop and grip it tightly one more time.

Wait. You want it? OK. Remember, though…breathe. In…(breath). Out…(breath).

Again, he does it. At this point, I know he’ll literally do anything for that iPad. But I do it this second time for an important reason. This device is what gets him jacked up. If I can have him, just on the verge of getting it back – a moment that would have, at one time, been too overwhelming to focus – and still stop to take in some oxygen, then we’ve accomplished our goals.

Ironically, it’s these breathing reminders to Lucas that remind me to do the same thing for myself. Life is about growing, evolving, and finding our way. I’m doing the same thing. The miserable moments and the wonderful ones often happen close to one another. What do they have in common? They usually make us forget to take it all in.

Whether you need to catch your breath during times of heartache or stop to smell the roses as all your ships are coming in at once, breathing is always the common denominator.

My job is to remind him of that and, in doing so, I remind myself of that too. Learn to step out of the moment and appreciate the world around you. Whatever happens will happen. Life is good and, even when things aren’t okay, they are.

Just breathe.