As parents, dealing with the difficult emotions of your kids can leave you feeling intimidated, powerless, and discouraged. It can feel scary when they are dealing with feelings of anxiety and despair . I’ve found this book which has helped me and given me hope in my parenting.

The book is called Seen by Will Hutcherson and Dr. Chinwe Williams. It blends psychology and faith to help you understand what’s going on in the brain of someone in despair while giving you practical tools use can use to help them heal. You can find the book here.

Sometimes when we are in the thick of it with our kids, it’s easy to forget that most of their emotional responses are cries for connection with us. When we feel tired, disconnected, or stressed by our own circumstances, we can miss out on those chances to connect with our kids. Will Hutcherson shares 5 simples tenants with us in his book “Seen” to help us remember the super power that we have as our kids’ parents.

When we show up, they feel loved.

When we see them, they feel understood.

When we just listen, they feel safe.

When we speak life, they feel worthy.

When we develop grit, they feel empowered.

We’ve included a helpful one page printable that you can put on your refrigerator to remind you in those moments when you need it!

Hey Parents! Have you ever experienced this before? Your child is upset, but no matter what you do and say you can’t figure out what is wrong? We want to share an awesome resource with you for helping your children develop a vocabulary for their emotions. When we show up for our children, they feel loved, and we can help them to feel understood when we see them. After you download this feelings wheel from our friends at The Seen Book, hang it up on the refrigerator for reference. Then, when the right time comes you can start with simple questions and statements like…

“You seem like you feel really sad right now. Can you tell me more about that?”

“That must have made you feel so scared. I want to hear more.”

“Wow! Did that make you feel surprised? What are you feeling now?”

“I’ve experienced feeling so mad I can’t think straight. Is that how you were feeling?”

Open up the conversation with the first step on the feeling wheel and then guide them into telling you more. With little kids you can lead them into deeper levels of understanding by saying, “It sounds like you are feeling _______, does that seem right?” And with older kids you can even show them this wheel and say, “Do any of these feelings resonate with you right now?”

We hope this tool is a helpful starting point for helping your kids to feel understood. We know this is hard – keep fighting for connection…it’s worth it!

Recently we held an event called Parent Night Out. We heard from Will Hutcherson who is the author of the book “SEEN: Healing Anxiety and Despair in Kids and Teen Through the Power of Connection.” He talked about different tools of connection and the critical steps you can take to help kids and teens feel seen when they are struggling. Listen for practical things you can put in place TODAY to help connect with your child. Watch Will’s presentation below.

Do you have an anxious child in your life? It seems like that is becoming more and more prevalent these days. And understandably so. As a parent, it can be so challenging to know how to navigate these moments and conversations with your kids. We highly recommend the books “Raising Worry Free Girls” by Sissy Goff and “Raising Emotionally Strong Boys” by David Thomas. These books are written to help us as parents develop a clearer look into what anxiety and worry look like in our children, but both books are also full of practical steps we can take to help our kids break the cycles of anxiety.