The parenting cheat code hiding on your child’s backpack
Walk through any elementary or middle school, and you’ll spot them: little plush keychains hanging from backpacks. Cats wearing capes. Emo bears. Food with faces. Slightly terrifying little creatures like the viral Labubu.
They’re traded, collected, pulled off zippers, and twirled between fingers. But what if they could be something more?
What if those plush keychains were actually a parenting cheat code?
What if they could help your child carry your love and support with them into the parts of the day where you can’t go?
Here’s the idea. You sit down with your child early in the school year, or on a tough transition day, and you hold that plush keychain in your hands. Then you say something like this:
“I’m putting three things into this keychain: one big hug, one kiss, and all the love I have for you. So, if your day gets hard, or you miss me, or you feel nervous, you can squeeze this little guy and it’s like getting a hug from me. Even if we’re not together.”
Then you clip it to the backpack and let it go.
Why It Works—Even for Big Kids
Younger children are often allowed to bring loveys or transitional objects to school, at least in the early grades. But somewhere around second or third grade, that gets socially risky. By fourth or fifth grade, it’s completely off-limits. Even if your child needs the comfort of a familiar object, they know they’ll get teased for showing that need.
Enter the plush keychain.
It flies under the radar. Everyone has one. It doesn’t look like a comfort object, but it can function exactly like one.
Even a kid who would never bring a blankie or stuffed animal into school might squeeze a tiny avocado plush or a weird little creature with a zipper mouth. Especially if it holds a secret message: I believe in you. I’m with you. You’re not alone.
Secure Attachment: A How-to Guide for Parents
One aspect of secure attachment is “mentalization.” It’s the child’s ability to think about the parent and their attachment to them, even when the parent isn’t actually there.
This plush keychain ritual is mentalization in action. You’re helping your child do the foundational work of emotional development: holding the image of a supportive relationship in mind, even when the other person is physically absent.
You’re not trying to protect your child from stress. You’re giving them a tool to tolerate it. Sometimes, we psychologists make parenting sound so complex. This is what we mean when we say things like “emotional scaffolding” or “resilience building.”
And that tiny plush keychain becomes a kind of avatar for you. Not in a co-dependent way, but in a deeply developmental one. You’re offering your child what attachment researchers call representational security—the ability to imagine the parent as a safe and comforting presence, even when unseen.
And if You’re a Post-Traumatic Parent?
This little ritual isn’t just for your child. It’s for you, too.
Many post-traumatic parents grew up with a different kind of “inner voice”—not a cheerleader, but a critic. Maybe you were told to stop crying or toughen up. Maybe no one came when you were scared, or maybe they made it worse. Maybe you learned early that having needs made you a burden. That asking for help meant you were weak. That needing comfort meant you were selfish, lazy, dramatic.
So now, when your child reaches for comfort—when they need reassurance or softness or connection—it stirs something in you. Not just tenderness, but confusion. Discomfort. Even judgment. Part of you might want to give it freely, while another part wonders: Am I doing too much? Am I raising a snowflake?
You might even feel something harder to name: grief. Envy. The ache of watching your child receive what you never got.
And then comes the guilt, because shouldn’t you just be happy they’re safe and loved?
But here’s the truth: The fact that it’s hard means you’re doing the work. You are parenting differently. You are choosing, moment by moment, not to pass on what you inherited.
When you hold a tiny plush keychain in your hand and fill it with love, belief, and comfort, you’re not just parenting your child. You’re reparenting yourself. You are offering something you never got—not just to them, but to the younger version of you who still lives in your nervous system, waiting for someone to say, “You matter. I see you. I’m here.”
(For more on how childhood trauma can echo into parenting, click here.)
How to Make the Most of It
This doesn’t require a Pinterest board or a Target haul. You don’t need the “right” plush. It doesn’t need to match anyone’s aesthetic. It can be cute, creepy, soft, or absurd.
What matters is the meaning you put into it.
You can say:
- “This has my hug in it.”
- “I whispered something into this plush just for you. You’ll know what it is.”
- “Whenever you squeeze this, imagine me saying I love you.”
If your child enjoys picture books, you might consider reading The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn or The Invisible String by Patrice Karst to reinforce the idea. For older kids, a shared inside joke or silly nickname can make it feel less sentimental and more theirs.
Some kids might want to repeat the ritual every morning. Others will just want to know it’s there.
Don’t force it. Just offer it. Trust that it lands.
Your Love as an Inner App
The goal of parenting isn’t to be physically present at all times. It’s to help your child internalise your presence so they can carry it with them.
Eventually, we want our kids to build what I call an “inner cheerleader app.” It’s that little voice that says, “You’ve got this.” “I believe in you.” “You’re allowed to feel nervous, and you can still try.”
That voice doesn’t appear out of nowhere. It gets downloaded from thousands of small moments when you show up reliably, with love and support. The plush keychain isn’t the whole app. But it’s a powerful shortcut. A tactile, kid-approved way to remember: I am loved. I am safe. I am connected.
And for the post-traumatic parent trying to rewrite the story, it’s proof that something new is being built. One backpack zipper at a time.