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They’re about to step onto the floor. Or the field. Or the stage. Their mind is already racing. Faster than the music. Faster than the clock. Faster than the routine. Sometimes even faster than their heart. This is the moment adults rush in. One more reminder. One more correction. One more attempt to calm it all down. It feels like help. It isn’t. It’s interruption. That moment right there, that racing heart, that quick breath, that’s not something to rescue them from. That’s

My daughter was auditioning for the Spring High School Musical. The schedule was clear: acting and singing one afternoon, the dance audition two days later. Easy enough to remember. The morning of the dance audition, I casually reminded her. She rolled her eyes with a very teenage, “I KNOWWWWW.” (Translation: Mom, please, I am fully competent and also deeply annoyed you believe otherwise.) That afternoon, my phone rang at work. Hysterical sobbing. She had gotten on the bus on