There are two words that slip out so easily when your child experiences an emotional event. Maybe they tripped and fell or had a fight with a friend. Their face crumples, and before they’ve even had a chance to speak, you say: “You’re okay.”

It sounds comforting. Reassuring, even. But it’s not. As a conscious parenting coach and advocate for children’s emotional health, I’ve studied over 200 kids — and I’ve seen this well-intentioned and overused phrase cause long-term damage in ways that most parents never realize.

In fact, because it seems so harmless at first, it’s the most dangerous phrase in parenting. Here’s why, and what to say instead:

1. It teaches kids to doubt their own emotions.

When a child is visibly upset and hears “you’re okay,” it sends a confusing message: What I’m feeling must not be real. Over time, this disconnects them from their inner emotional world and teaches them to distrust their own instincts.

2. It invalidates their experience when they need you most.

You may say it with love, but a child hears: “Your feelings don’t matter.” Dismissal — however subtle — teaches them that comfort and connection are only available when they’re calm and convenient. This is where emotional suppression begins.

3. It short-circuits emotional processing.

Emotions are meant to move through the body. When we interrupt that natural process with premature reassurance, we rob children of the ability to identify, name and regulate their emotions. Instead of building resilience, we’re building avoidance.

4. It teaches that love is conditional.

Without realizing it, phrases like “you’re okay,” “stop crying,” or “don’t be scared” condition children to believe they must suppress their emotions to remain accepted. And when love feels conditional, emotional safety — the very foundation of mental health — starts to unravel.

5. It can rewire a child’s stress response.

The nervous system develops through repeated experiences. When a child is upset and met with dismissal instead of support, their body learns that it’s not safe to express emotion. Over time, this can reshape their nervous system to expect disconnection, making it harder to trust, regulate and feel safe being fully themselves.

Children don’t need a fix — they need to feel. And more importantly, they need to know it’s safe to feel, especially with you.

Here are powerful alternatives that validate their inner world and build emotional strength:

• “I believe you.”
• “Your feelings make sense.”
• “I’m right here with you.”
• “You don’t have to be okay right now.”
• “I saw what happened. How are you feeling?”

These phrases do more than soothe. They strengthen. They teach your child: My emotions matter. I can trust myself. I’m not alone.

These responses take practice. You’ll still say “you’re okay” sometimes. And that’s okay, too. The goal is to practice conscious parenting: noticing our patterns and choosing, moment by moment, to respond in ways that build emotional safety rather than undermine it.

These moments may seem small, but they actually help to build a child’s emotional foundation. And in a world where anxiety, depression and disconnection are on the rise, this is how we protect our children’s mental health — one moment of emotional safety at a time.

Reem Raouda is a leading voice in conscious parenting and the creator of FOUNDATIONS — the transformative healing journal for parents ready to break cycles, do the inner work, and become the emotionally safe parent their child needs. She is widely recognized for her groundbreaking work in children’s emotional safety and strengthening the parent-child bond. FFollow her on Instagram.

Want a new career that’s higher-paying, more flexible or fulfilling? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Change Careers and Be Happier at Work. Expert instructors will teach you strategies to network successfully, revamp your resume and confidently transition into your dream career. Start today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $67 (+taxes and fees) through May 13, 2025.

Charles Coristine used to revel in working at Morgan Stanley. He loved the pace, even waking up in the middle of the night to trade in the Tokyo and London stock markets.

In 2011, after nearly two decades on Wall Street, Coristine burned out. He tried multiple remedies: switching to a vegetarian diet, meditating, enrolling in an MBA program. None of them worked.

At a barbeque, Coristine met an owner of snack company LesserEvil, who talked about wanting to sell his “flatlining” business. Coristine had no food industry experience, but was intrigued by the idea of a fresh start — and he liked that the company’s name was “synchronistic” with a healthy, mindful lifestyle, he says.

In November 2011, Coristine bought LesserEvil for $250,000 from his savings, plus a future payment of $100,000, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. The risk was impulsive and ill-researched, he says: LesserEvil, which aimed to offer consumers healthier popcorn and snack alternatives, was losing money and bringing in less than $1 million in annual revenue at the time, the company estimates.

“I didn’t know anyone in food … to ask whether I was crazy or not, but that’s probably good,” says Coristine, 52. “If I had done a lot of research and looked into it, I would have realized that the probability of success was pretty low.”

Yet the Danbury, Connecticut-based brand grew significantly under his watch: Its popcorns and air-popped Cheetos-like puffs and curls now appear in major retailers and corner stores across the U.S. LesserEvil grew to $103.3 million in annual gross sales by 2023, including $82.9 million in net sales and $14.4 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA.

On April 3, The Hershey Company announced a deal to acquire LesserEvil. The sale is worth a reported $750 million, plus more if LesserEvil hits some performance milestones, according to the Wall Street Journal. Coristine will remain its CEO, a LesserEvil spokesperson says.

Here’s how Coristine is making LesserEvil into a household name.

When he bought LesserEvil, Coristine was working at TD Bank and pursuing an MBA at Cornell University Graduate School.

In 2012, he got his MBA degree and started his new full-time job as LesserEvil’s CEO. Among his first moves: hiring his graduate school friend Andrew Strife as COO and CFO, and his wakeboard instructor as head of marketing.

Along with the previous regime’s accountant, the small team worked from an office in Wilton, Connecticut, to update LesserEvil’s branding and create their own production line. The old-fashioned branding wasn’t attracting customers, and the company was paying about 20% of its revenue from each sale to co-packers who helped make and ship out the snacks, Coristine says.

Coristine’s savings had largely run out, so the team raised an undisclosed amount of money from their friends and family, and secured more financing through a connection Coristine had at a bank, says Strife. They moved into a 5,000-square-foot factory in Danbury in 2012, and filled it with used equipment purchased at auctions.

The team made “friends with welders down the street,” who could weld wheels and popcorn shoots onto the machinery, Strife says. They painted factory’s exterior black and plastering a yellow “LesserEvil” logo to the side of the building themselves. As Coristine recalls, drivers started pulling off the road, entering the factory and asking, “Is this a strip club?”

“Everything was scrappy and needed to be reinvented as we went along,” says Strife.

In 2014, when a neighboring carpet factory moved out, LesserEvil knocked down the wall and added 2,000 square feet and a production line to its operations.

That year, Coristine’s personal nutritionist offered a health-focused suggestion: Use coconut oil to pop the popcorn. Coristine was skeptical that coconut oil would stay fresh in a snack bag, so he literally shelf-tested it, he says: “We put it on the top of a fridge, which gets really hot [and left it for] for three months.”

The oil stayed fresh, and Coristine liked the surprisingly buttery taste, so LesserEvil launched the reformulated product with a new laughing Buddha logo in 2014 — calling it the Buddha Bowl. It brought in roughly $2 million that year, accounting for a third of LesserEvil’s annual revenue, the company says.

Kroger, the first major retailer to sell LesserEvil, started stocking its products in 2015. That partnership helped fund another move for LesserEvil in 2017 — this time, to a 20,000-square-foot factory, says Strife.

A year later, the company got its first outside funding — about $3 million, the company says — from sustainable food and agriculture investment firm InvestEco. Coristine and his team used the funds to add production lines to the new factory and update LesserEvil’s packaging again: Each product now features its own “guru,” from the ancient Greek poet Homer to Henry David Thoreau.

The rebrand, and added products, helped push the brand into profitability. Coristine started paying himself a salary from LesserEvil that year, the company says.

LesserEvil’s goal has always been to differentiate itself from competitors with non-standard ingredients like extra-virgin coconut oil and avocado oil, says Coristine.

Sometimes, using atypical ingredients can have consequences: A Consumer Reports investigation from June found “concerning amounts of lead” in two of LesserEvil’s cassava-based Lil’ Puffs snacks for kids. The company issued an apology, and has since relaunched the puffs with sorghum flour instead of cassava flour.

The company still brought in $62 million in net sales during the first half of 2024. It used another round of funding — $19 million, in a round led by investment firm Aria Growth Partners, LesserEvil says — to buy out prior investors and open a new factory in New Milford, roughly 15 miles from its Danbury facility.

Today, the company has 350 employees. Before the acquisition by Hershey, which also owns popcorn brand SkinnyPop, Coristine’s short-term goals involved growing LesserEvil further and launching new products. Longer-term, he simply wants the company to “be a brand that could be around for along time,” he says.

LesserEvil has already succeeded in helping Coristine solve a more personal problem, he adds — he works less, from about 7:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and feels happier since leaving Wall Street.

“It feels joyous, so it doesn’t feel like work,” says Coristine.

Want to master your money this fall? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course. We’ll teach you practical strategies to hack your budget, reduce your debt, and grow your wealth. Start today to feel more confident and successful. Use code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off, now extended through September 30, 2024, for the back-to-school season.

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It’s newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life.

Don’t tie yourself to a set career path, advises Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.

Especially when you’re young or early in your career, you might have an idea of your perfect dream job, and the exact steps you need to take to achieve it. But challenging yourself and embracing new opportunities, even if they don’t align with your intended career or college major, can play a huge role in having a fulfilling career, Khosrowshahi said during a fireside chat with Brown University president Christina H. Paxson on April 10.

“I have gotten unbelievably lucky in my career, but I’ve gotten lucky because I’m very, very open to anything,” said Khosrowshahi, 55, who’s helmed Uber since 2017. “Be curious about meeting new people, be curious about interests that are outside of your immediate field of education … and that curiosity will open you up to the world and open you up to opportunity.”

DON’T MISS: How to change careers and be happier at work

Before Uber, Khosrowshahi worked in a variety of industries, including 12 years as the CEO of travel company Expedia and seven years as the CFO at IAC, a holding company of digital media platforms including Investopedia and Verywell, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He got to the C-Suite — and stayed there — due to his rampant curiosity, and the relationships he built with leaders and mentors who helped guide him, rather than any naked ambition to chase impressive job titles, he said.

“I just worried a lot less in my life about what I was doing, [and] I was much more focused on who I was working for, and that served me well over time,” said Khosrowshahi.

You can train yourself to be more open and curious, according to psychologist and leadership development expert Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. Start by intentionally setting aside 20-30 minutes to work on learning a new skill, research a topic you find interesting or pick someone’s brain about their career journey.

Not having time or being in an unstimulating job are “merely excuses” that keep you from learning, Chamorro-Prezmusic wrote for Harvard Business Review in 2023. 

“In reality, there is nothing actually stopping us from harnessing our curiosity,” he wrote. “It’s really just about picking the right priorities and making a deliberate effort to learn, to have novel experiences, and to close the gap between what we know and want to know.”

Simple questions like, “What are you good at?” and “What do you enjoy doing?” can help you identify your strengths, weaknesses and areas of improvement, whether you’re seeking to build new skills on your current job or preparing to make a career jump, neuroscientist Juliette Han told CNBC Make It in June 2023.

Indeed CEO Chris Hyams even asks those types of simple, open-ended questions when interviewing job candidates, he said in February. A person’s answer to them are more important to him than a resume, he added.

 “If you can spend 45 minutes talking about baking sourdough, and the 57 different recipes that you’ve tried … When people have that intense curiosity … it’s just a question of, what else can you fall in love with?” said Hyams.

Want a new career that’s higher-paying, more flexible or fulfilling? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Change Careers and Be Happier at Work. Expert instructors will teach you strategies to network successfully, revamp your resume and confidently transition into your dream career. Start today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $67 (+taxes and fees) through May 13, 2025.

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It’s newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life.

While going to college tends to mean better pay, not all degrees guarantee high salaries — especially if you study liberal arts.

That’s according to a new analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which shows that graduates who major in education, social work or the arts tend to earn the lowest median incomes within five years of finishing school. The analysis includes only full-time workers with a bachelor’s degree and excludes those still enrolled in school.

The salary figures are based on 2023 data, the most recent available, and show early-career pay in these fields falls below the U.S. median wage of $48,060 for that year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

While engineering majors can make upward of $80,000 early in their careers, many liberal arts and education majors earn closer to $40,000. The median salary of all majors examined was $50,000.

Here’s a look at the 10 majors linked to the lowest median salaries for full-time workers ages 22 to 27.

While learning a foreign language is a valuable skill, a degree in the subject doesn’t always lead to high-paying roles. That’s likely because language can be learned outside a formal education and many graduates tend to go into relatively low-paying fields, like education, translation or public service.

Liberal arts majors also tend to earn less than graduates in technical fields like engineering or math, largely because there’s less demand for their skills in higher-paying industries like technology and finance.

Unfortunately, many liberal arts majors don’t fare much better as they get older, especially those in education. Here’s a look at the 10 lowest-paying majors for full-time workers between ages 35 and 45.

Early childhood education majors earn the least of all mid-career graduates, with a median income of $49,000 — just $8,000 more than what they earned five years after graduation.

By contrast, engineering majors typically break into six figures by mid-career.

Want a new career that’s higher-paying, more flexible or fulfilling? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Change Careers and Be Happier at Work. Expert instructors will teach you strategies to network successfully, revamp your resume and confidently transition into your dream career. Start today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $67 (+taxes and fees) through May 13, 2025.

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It’s newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life.

These days, people’s careers can look all sorts of ways, says Angela Beatty, chief leadership and HR officer at Accenture.

“We’re not in a world anymore where we expect people to be 30 years with a company,” she told CNBC Make It at the Uplift conference by BetterUp. It’s not surprising to see people in various roles and companies throughout their careers.

But when it comes to red flags in a resume, there’s one thing that Beatty notices immediately: a series of short stints lasting a year or less. Here’s why that raises an eyebrow and what she recommends jobseekers do if that’s what their resume looks like.

Short-term employment happens, says Beatty.

If someone is “straight out of school, I’m not expecting them to have a long stretch or stint somewhere,” she says. Maybe they have a couple of internships they were able to do throughout their degree, but they likely won’t have years at any given employer.

But over the course of, say, 10 years, if “you see a pattern” of short roles, Beatty says, that stands out. It “makes me question if they’re able to gain some traction and collaborate and work with others in a way that would enable them to stay at a place long enough to make an impact,” she says.

She’s not alone in this assumption. More than a third, 37% of hiring managers say seeing that a candidate frequently changed jobs could prevent them from moving forward with them, according to an August 2024 LinkedIn survey of 1,024 hiring managers.

It makes them think, “if you were only there for nine months, maybe you’ll only be here for nine months,” LinkedIn career Drew McCaskill previously told Make It.

For those professionals whose resumes have numerous short stints on them, Beatty recommends providing context.

If you had a series of short jobs at the same company because you got promoted or made some lateral moves, make it clear it was all at the same place. If you’re a freelancer or contractor and were working on a few month-long projects, list them as bullets under the relevant freelancer or contractor title.

“Identify in a resume if it was specifically designed to be a shorter-term engagement,” she says, “so that as a person looking at the resume, I could see that.”

If it wasn’t, your interview could provide an opportunity to explain.

“Interviewers appreciate authenticity so, as long as it’s not a pattern of short stints,” Beatty says, “you can share that the role did not work out as expected and be transparent about why it ended while underscoring an example of the positive impact you made.”

Do you want a new career that’s higher-paying, more flexible or fulfilling? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Change Careers and Be Happier at Work. Expert instructors will teach you strategies to network successfully, revamp your resume and confidently transition into your dream career. Pre-register today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $67 (+taxes and fees) through May 13, 2025.

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It’s newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life.