Kids are always watching. You can tell them to be kind or have more patience or that “we only interrupt in this house when it’s absolutely necessary” as many times as you want but if you don’t model the behavior yourself, it’s going to be nearly impossible to make it stick. You probably know this already, but it bears repeating because children think that you’re the perfect example of, well, everything and the whole do what I say, not what I do thing doesn’t really work. Sure, you’ll contradict yourself thousands of times when parenting because of course you will. That’s the nature of the gig. But practicing what you preach remains incredibly important and it applies as much to trying to stay calm in stressful circumstances as it does to teaching a kid how to tie their shoes.