Mom brilliantly teaches empathy and kindness in viral morning hair videos with daughter
It's hard to make more time for your kids, but you can make the most of the time you get.

The lives of parents with young kids are busy, busy, busy. You have a lot of grand notions of what you'd like to teach your kids, the wisdom you'd like to pass down.
But in reality you spend most of your time trying to figure out what they'll eat for dinner, doing dishes, and folding laundry. When are you supposed to find the time to actually, you know, parent?
One mom has been turning morning hair time into quality time, and posting it online for everyone to enjoy and learn from.
Carmen Veal has been posting a series of videos on her Instagram called "Mornings with Maddie."
On the surface, the videos show a mother doing her daughter's hair — brushing, braiding, you name it. There are styling tips for curly hair and lots of celebration of Maddie's biracial-ness.
But the reason people keep flocking to these videos is so much deeper.
The sweet moments feature Carmen doing her daughter's hair for the day while they just... talk! There's so much joy and affection in these moments that you can't help but cheer up just watching the two of them interact.
Carmen sometimes slips in a lesson or two, or a theme to discuss. In one video, Carmen and Maddie talk about the difference between being nice and being kind.
"[Nice] means to be nice by talking about nice things," declares Maddie while 'kind' means... "um to hug people."
Mom gives some more examples, but let's face it, Maddie nailed it.

In another video, Carmen talks with Maddie about their newfound viral fame — after one of their morning videos racked up a whopping 2 million views.
Maddie's face lights up when her mom tells her how many people admire her.
"Our videos inspire people to be nicer, well, not nicer. Nicer is not as good as kind, you know that, right?" Carmen says. "So it inspires people to be kinder to themselves and other people."
As for how Carmen herself feels about the massive response?
"The response to the videos has been overwhelming in the best way possible," Carmen says. "People from all over the world have reached out to express how they’ve found joy, comfort, and inspiration in our morning moments. It’s been humbling to see how something so personal has had such a wide-reaching impact.
"At the heart of Mornings with Maddie is a desire to show that parenting with kindness and intentionality can create deep connections. I hope viewers take away a sense of peace and inspiration, knowing that small, consistent acts of love and care can make a world of difference."
"Mornings with Maddie" makes me think of how special the seemingly-mundane day to day moments with our kids really are.
The regular "Instagram highlights" of Disney World vacations and pumpkin patches and other special experiences are memorable, but it's the smaller stuff that's even more meaningful.
Specifically, positive rituals and routines (like the morning hair-do) help kids develop self-regulation skills, a strong sense of self, and better mental health in the long term. It's the repetition that drives that positive change over time.
"The joy that families experience inside of rituals together can leave an 'emotional residue' that children keep with them to cope during stressful times," writes Dr. Erika Bocknek of Zero to Thrive. "When times are uncertain, and children experience worry or sadness, rituals provide the internal sense that they are not alone and have a balance in their lives of positive and negative experiences."
The Instagram views and media coverage will taper off, but Maddie will undoubtedly remember these moments with her mom forever. And millions of people will have been inspired to make the most of the short time we do get with our kids.
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A woman is getting angry at her coworker.via
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A husband is angry with his wife. via 
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Can a warm cup of tea help you sleep better? If you believe it, then yes. Photo by 
Three women sit on a blanket in the park. 
Two women engaging in a pleasant conversation inside a coffee shop
Two men engaging in a peaceful disagreement.
Resurfaced video of French skier's groin incident has people giving the announcer a gold medal
"The boys took a beating on that one."
Downhill skiing is a sport rife with injuries, but not usually this kind.
A good commentator can make all the difference when watching sports, even when an event goes smoothly. But it's when something goes wrong that great announcers rise to the top. There's no better example of a great announcer in a surprise moment than when French skier Yannick Bertrand took a gate to the groin in a 2007 super-G race.
Competitive skiers fly down runs at incredible speeds, often exceeding 60 mph. Hitting something hard at that speed would definitely hurt, but hitting something hard with a particularly sensitive part of your body would be excruciating. So when Bertrand slammed right into a gate family-jewels-first, his high-pitched scream was unsurprising. What was surprising was the perfect commentary that immediately followed.
This is a clip you really just have to see and hear to fully appreciate:
- YouTube youtu.be
It's unclear who the announcer is, even after multiple Google inquiries, which is unfortunate because that gentleman deserves a medal. The commentary gets better with each repeated viewing, with highlights like:
"The gate the groin for Yannick Bertrand, and you could hear it. And if you're a man, you could feel it."
"Oh, the Frenchman. Oh-ho, monsieurrrrrr."
"The boys took a beating on that one."
"That guy needs a hug."
"Those are the moments that change your life if you're a man, I tell you what."
"When you crash through a gate, when you do it at high rate of speed, it's gonna hurt and it's going to leave a mark in most cases. And in this particular case, not the area where you want to leave a mark."
Imagine watching a man take a hit to the privates at 60 mph and having to make impromptu commentary straddling the line between professionalism and acknowledging the universal reality of what just happened. There are certain things you can't say on network television that you might feel compelled to say. There's a visceral element to this scenario that could easily be taken too far in the commentary, and the inherent humor element could be seen as insensitive and offensive if not handled just right.
The announcer nailed it. 10/10. No notes.
The clip frequently resurfaces during the Winter Olympic Games, though the incident didn't happen during an Olympic event. Yannick Bertrand was competing at the FIS World Cup super-G race in Kvitfjell, Norway in 2007, when the unfortunate accident occurred. Bertrand had competed at the Turin Olympics the year before, however, coming in 24th in the downhill and super-G events.
As painful as the gate to the groin clearly as, Bertrand did not appear to suffer any damage that kept him from the sport. In fact, he continued competing in international downhill and super-G races until 2014.
According to a 2018 study, Alpine skiing is a notoriously dangerous sport with a reported injury rate of 36.7 per 100 World Cup athletes per season. Of course, it's the knees and not the coin purse that are the most common casualty of ski racing, which we saw clearly in U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn's harrowing experiences at the 2026 Olympics. Vonn was competing with a torn ACL and ended up being helicoptered off of the mountain after an ugly crash that did additional damage to her legs, requiring multiple surgeries (though what caused the crash was reportedly unrelated to her ACL tear). Still, she says she has no regrets.
As Bertrand's return to the slopes shows, the risk of injury doesn't stop those who live for the thrill of victory, even when the agony of defeat hits them right in the rocks.