← Focus on the Family with Jim Daly
Focus on the Family with Jim Daly
Best of 2025: Cultivating Healthy Emotional Habits with Your Children
00:26:33
Loading summary
Transcript83 lines
- [00:01]
A
Hi, this is Jim Dailey. A Merry Christmas to you and your family. I'm so grateful you've joined us today and it's my hope you will listen every day because we're here to offer you Bible based practical help for your marriage, your parenting and your daily walk with Christ. Today I'm inviting you to join us in ministry. If you've benefited from any of our programs or resources, can you help people pay it forward by donating to Focus on the Family now before the end of the year. Right now, your giving will have the most impact because some generous friends are willing to match your giving dollar for dollar up to $8 million. Isn't that amazing? God is so good. Just imagine the ministry impact we can have working together to strengthen and save families in the days ahead. Help us meet this match. Give today by calling 800A FAMILY or go to Focusonthefamily.com Family.
- [01:02]
B
Monsters under the bed, Being teased at school, Fear of the dark, A best friend moving away. You know, kids are no strangers to big, difficult emotions and these can be really challenging for parents to navigate. Welcome to a Best of 2025 episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller and today we hope to give you the tools to help your child manage difficult emotions and ultimately to bring them closer to God.
- [01:30]
A
Monsters under the bed. That one gets me. I think I was afraid of that one. That was a big one. Every bed had a monster under it.
- [01:37]
B
It's funny how you can get under the covers and feel safe.
- [01:39]
A
But the good news, I think I grew out of that by 18.
- [01:44]
C
I'm glad for that.
- [01:45]
A
But you know, these things do affect children. And on the one side, we can laugh at it now because we know as adults, older adults, that those things have no power. Those are all imaginary things. But oftentimes for some children, I mean, they both battle the imaginary fears, but also some true fears. And we want to equip you as a parent, maybe you're a grandparent, you could pass this along to your adult children to talk with their kids about. But this is an area that I think more kids need tools to be able to navigate these emotions. And they're not too young. You know, my mom died when I was nine and I can tell you guys it was so important to hear more. Everybody cut me out of the information loop. But you sense it. Children have far more insight than adults realize and you need to help them manage those insights.
- [02:38]
B
Yeah. So the goal of today's show, as you said, Jim, is to give parents the tools so they can equip their kids. And Michelle Niedert is with us and she's a professional counselor, an author, speaker, podcaster, wife, mom of two. Her podcast is called Raising Mentally Healthy Kids. And she's written a couple of books that we're going to talk about today. The titles are God, I Feel Scared and God, I Feel Sad. And of course, we have details about Michelle and these great books at our website. The link is in the show notes. And with that, enjoy this best of 2025 episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Dal.
- [03:17]
A
Michelle, welcome to FOCUS on the Family.
- [03:19]
C
Thanks for having me.
- [03:20]
A
Yeah, it's good to have you. And from Texas. We have many friends in Texas.
- [03:23]
C
Yes.
- [03:24]
A
Yeah. And that's good. And you're living right outside where?
- [03:28]
C
Well, the counseling center is in Allen, outside of Dallas. And then we live in a little town. Well, it used to be a little town. Now it's gotten a little bigger. Called Wylie, Texas.
- [03:36]
A
Wy, Texas.
- [03:37]
C
Everybody knows where Plano is.
- [03:38]
A
Wylie, Texas.
- [03:39]
C
This just sounds right.
- [03:40]
B
It's got a sound to it, doesn't it?
- [03:42]
A
But let me ask you, you know, as adults, we aren't always comfortable with our emotions. Some of us, I think, especially men, that's one of the clubs we get hit with. I definitely have been hit with that club. You know, that it just takes a lot of energy and thinking for us to get our emotions out there on the table. Then at the end of the day, we're going, why did I do that? But for kids particularly, we can be a little more honest. As children, we do say things kind of just out there, don't we, as children?
- [04:09]
C
We do because children's filters aren't as well developed. A lot of times the world hasn't started blocking some of that in their lives. And so therefore, they are more apt some to express their emotions. And really, especially in the, you know, the preschool years, to show you all the different emotions and all the different intensities of them. And then they go through these different hormonal spikes and their brain changes, and then they continue to just oscillate between different levels of emotional intensity. For sure.
- [04:41]
A
I mean, you're clinically trained. You're taking care of kids all the time in your practice. When do kids begin to kind of express these emotions? And then when do you see, as a clinician, when it becomes an issue, how do you diagnose that?
- [04:57]
C
Well, I teach our counselors two words, frequency and intensity. So those are the things we want to look at at any Age, we love that kids are saying, I'm scared because they're developing emotional vocabulary, which we want. And you're right. Previously, generations didn't want emotions to be on the bus. Even. Even psychology tended to lean towards logic. Even Christian work did. And then we moved into this area where we are now, where emotions are almost running our bus. Right. But what we really want to do is like, empower kids to let God and them drive the bus, but have emotions on the bus. And it's really, really important that we do that. And so we wanna help kids gain perspective, for sure. On a scale of 1 to 10, how scared are you? Is a great question for a parent to ask.
- [05:44]
A
Those are really good. I do say a scared on purpose. I think I use that as grammatically incorrect. As a child, you are scared. I don't know why children lean to us scared. But let me ask you this. Some common mistakes that parents make trying to help their kids process their emotions, what are they? The mistakes that we make?
- [06:02]
C
The first one is to ignore emotions or try to shut them down. And granted, sometimes we're in a hurry and we don't have time for the full meltdown and we want to help them cope. A lot of times it's just, we gotta go. I don't care if you're sad, if you're in a hurry, or it may be you don't even know what sad is. Let me tell you what sad looks like.
- [06:21]
A
So discounting.
- [06:22]
C
Yes, discounting it. And that is, if we do that young, this is the one thing I really want parents to understand. You will lose the opportunity to be the emotional compass in your child's life. Because if they realize that you don't care about that and you're not approachable about that, they're gonna find other sources to be their emotional compass.
- [06:41]
A
Wow, that's powerful.
- [06:42]
C
And you don't want that.
- [06:43]
A
Yeah, that is so powerful. And in that regard, I mean, we discount kids so much. You know, as parents, what they have to say can be, you know, the kid. Were you this kid John, that asked why all the time? Why does it work that way? Why does it do that? Why does it ring? Why does it. I mean, it's just that annoying kind of thing. And if we're not careful, especially as Christian parents, if we're not careful, you do drive your child away because you don't feel safe to them. And as adults, we don't even realize that, that we're promoting that kind of distance in our relationship with our child. So let me ask you for the moms and dads right there. I mean, what is a better way? When you're pressed with time, you got to get out the door and your child saying I don't feel good right now or I feel sad right now, what should they say?
- [07:28]
C
Well, the first thing I think we need to do, depending on the age of the child, is get on their level and give us do a parental pivot. Because we're usually juggling a lot of things too and trying to get ourselves out the door. If it's morning time and I'm working with families so we want to get on their level if they're little and say first, just validate the feeling, recognize what they've said. I know you feel sad and I understand that. But we still have to get to preschool school, you know, sometimes I think. But you still have to go to work today. Right? So. And that's happened. I mean, I lost my dad last year to cancer and I still, I still had to do some things even when I was feeling sad. So I think it's also important that we let. There's a time and a space to. I took a break, you know, and we want to not let emotions shut us down, but let us take some space. But then we also have to teach our kids the resilience of learning not to white knuckle it all the time, but to learn how to push through emotional distress sometimes to be able to do things and then come back to that emotional distress at a more appropriate time. Sometimes parents never come back and that's the issue. We can get them moving forward, but especially if there's something going on. The other thing real quickly I wanna say is that we wanna name it and then we might wanna ask them, where are you feeling that in your body? And then lastly ask them what would you like to do to let go of some of that. And then we're empowering them too to manage their emotions or sometimes how could God be involved in your sad and help you through it? That's a great parental question and a.
- [09:02]
A
Good way to connect that. Because that feeling's gonna be there throughout their life.
- [09:06]
C
Yes.
- [09:06]
A
Given circumstances that will pop up. You had an experience with your own family loss where your husband's brother and sister in law tragically passed away of cancer. Sorry that that happened. They had to be young.
- [09:19]
C
They were, they were. Well, she was in her 40s and he was in her 50s. We all had our kids young, I mean old. We were old when we had our kids.
- [09:27]
A
40S and 50s are young. They are young. They're young.
- [09:30]
C
To me now it's kind of changed, but yeah. Jen was actually Drew's twin sister. And within two weeks, she and Dwight were diagnosed with cancer. And they died two years apart with cancer, leaving behind three kids under 10. And my children spent the first four and a half years with them, moving in and out of our home as they were. Sometimes they just needed to take care for themselves. So we actually bought a bigger car because we needed more space for five kids. But it was really hard on my youngest son, Nolan, who didn't have a lot of language at that point. And I didn't. You know, the enemy can do really disastrous things in kids minds during that time. And that's why we want to ask good questions to them. Because Nolan thought that it was common that both parents died. So he had this. He was having these horrible nightmares. I found out after we went to the doctor with a stomach issue. And the pediatrician teased me, we're on, you know, small town, we're on boards together. She usually tells me, take my counselor hat off and put my mom hat on when I walk in the door. But this time she's like, I can't believe I'm doing this with you, but can you put your counselor hat on? Take your mom hat off. I'm gonna read you a case. And she's reading him her notes and I'm like, he's got separation anxiety. And I looked at him and I said, are you afraid mom and dad are going to die? And he said, mom, almost every night I dream my husband was traveling at the time dad's plane blows up. You have cancer. And I can't find Sophia. Oh, wow, that's devastating. And so we began to pray about that specifically. And I, you know, I normalized the fact that most parents don't die. And then we had to work on that separation anxiety. He was leaving school due to these stomach issues. And so the school counselor called me and she said, I used to be the crisis counselor for a school district. She goes, this is kind of embarrassing because you're the parent, but you're the person I'd call in a situation like this. What do you want me to do? And I said, I want you to give him a job when I drop him off. Because when he sits in that gym, he thinks about leaving us instead. Could he be your door holder or something, where he's interacting with kids and that way he won't start thinking about, you know, us dying or anything else. And then it's if he has. And my son's pretty quick with his work, so if he gets downtime in the middle of the day, and this starts when he goes to the nurse, I need the nurse to send him to you. I need you to read him a book, do an activity with him, and then let's see if we can get him back in class, unless he's running a fever. And then let's send him home.
- [11:42]
A
Now, those are the good, practical things you need to be mindful of. In fact, you encourage parents to listen intently, which can be a short stick for parents, because we don't always have time to listen intently to our kids because we're not sure they're gonna say anything that we think is important. But you wanna challenge that to say if they're expressing themselves, you need to hear it.
- [12:04]
C
I think we need to listen with our eyes. And that helps a lot because that directs our attention and our affection a lot of times, too, because the eyes are the window to the soul. So that's a lot of times what my. Even my children will even give that back to me now sometimes as teenagers. Mom, can you listen to me for a moment with your eyes? You know, and that means give me your full undivided attention. And let me tell you what. If we want kids to feel significant in this world and confident, one of the ways we do that is we see them. And that's when we listen with our eyes. We tell them, I see you, just like the Lord does with us. And we help them understand that. That the Lord always sees them too. And we're the vessels and the source of that in their lives until they have that experience more maturely with him.
- [12:53]
A
You know, Michelle, we sit at this table, John and I, we talk to some smart people, some PhDs and counselors and psychiatrists. And so much of who we become is rooted in our family of origin. And what we're talking about here are things that these children are going to learn that we actually learned, too, when we were kids. And that becomes embedded in us. It's kind of our wiring, if you use a computer term, right? It's our programmin. And some of life becomes how to undo those things that have been done most of the time, I would say, without thought. Parents aren't trying to set up a young adult for failure, but that ignoring them, not listening to them, not counting their comments as worthy to be heard, those are devastating signals to a child. And that will become part of their fear structure. Most of the things the enemy will use spiritually against Them as teenagers and young adults. Right.
- [13:58]
C
Well, I actually experienced some of that in my own home growing up while my dad was a deacon and elder in the church. And, I mean, his last job was the head of pastoral development for maf. He was a very godly man, but he had a horrible temper, and it was really out of control when he wasn't walking with the Lord very closely when we were young. And so I did have a huge impact with that in my own life. I was a very sensitive child, and he did not appreciate that always. And so we did have a lot of conflict when I was young. And even I would say to go so far as to some verbal and physical abuse. One thing that parents do, that's one of the biggest mistakes is when a kid is upset. We're projecting future failure through that on our kids. We need to be real careful with that. Who we become as we move into adults has a lot to do with our family of origin, but especially in the family of Christ. And I'm a great example of this. My parents hit the mission field in young adulthood. Who we become can be greatly influenced by the family of Christ becoming new creations in our lives.
- [14:58]
A
Totally.
- [14:58]
C
And I do not think ever. One of the things I say, even with mental health, is our diagnosis doesn't have to determine our destiny.
- [15:05]
A
Yeah. Michelle, let me ask you this. I mean, this is a serious topic. We've kind of put a cloud on some of this discussion. The lighter side of this, I think you have a Taco Bell meltdown experience. This is so funny, because this is where I lived when my boys were small, whether the store and the candy checkout or, you know, whatever.
- [15:24]
C
Yes. So my daughter still doesn't eat breakfast regularly, which is. I always ask her, too. But, you know, and this is part of what we learn as parents. There are battles to fight and there are battles not to fight, and there are things for our kids to learn on their own. And so I told her, you know, I'm always telling the kids the plan because I'm that kind of personality. So we're. I'm gonna drop you at point some school. We're gonna go to Taco Bell. Your dad's gonna take your brother from the soccer field. We're gonna meet at home, and then we're gonna go see your grandma.
- [15:49]
A
This was Sergeant Logistics right there.
- [15:52]
B
This is all diagrammed out.
- [15:53]
C
I am moving this. This path along.
- [15:56]
A
Go, go, go, go.
- [15:57]
C
I go to pick her up, and as I'm literally in the parking lot, my husband calls and says, mom, is headed to the hospital. We are not allowed to leave children unattended in Texas on a soccer field. So that changed what I needed to do. So I picked Sophia up and I was like, hey, you know what?
- [16:13]
A
I.
- [16:13]
C
We can't go to Taco Bell right now. We've got to go. We're gonna end up at the hospital, but I'm gonna, We gotta go get your brother. And she acts like, I said, you, grandma has just died. You know, she is like, I'm starving. I'm gonna be a little dramatic here. You know, I'm starving. I can't make it that long. I can't go all the way to Wylie and then to the soccer field. And then you'll talk to people and starve. We gotta get home. And I just, you know, I just listened. And then I calmly said to her.
- [16:41]
A
It'S only Taco Bell.
- [16:42]
C
I said, on a scale of 1 to 10, how big is this really? And she says, I know it's a two, but it feels like an eight, you know, and so. And that's so true. Isn't that true? In our own lives, don't we have things that happen? And we're like, you know, perspective wise, this is not the way my emotions feel. But our emotions can get ahead of us sometimes. And that way, that's why we can't let them drive that bus. And we've got to teach our kids that they're going to have them, but they just can't run their lives. Now, I also want to remind you, your children's frontal lobes aren't developed, you know, and so that's going to make a big difference in their ability to manage their emotions. So what I ask of parents in family therapy is hard. It's hard for me to do in my own home sometimes. And that is my expectation of you, is you will be the calmest person in the room. And that means you must co regulate with God because you need his peace that passes all understanding to anchor you so you can anchor them.
- [17:42]
A
And that's when you were saying that when you said to your child about Taco Bell and you said, well, on a scale of 1 to 10, how important is this to you? That's a brilliant comment. And it's just so funny that we, as parents, we don't go there. I told you, we're not going to Taco Bell. Let's get down to Taco Bell.
- [17:59]
C
And guess what you just did. You mirrored the emotions exactly. I instead kicked in the left side of her brain into the numbers. So she had to think. And that shut down part of that right side of the brain that was over aroused and over emotional.
- [18:12]
A
Right. It's kind of irrational. Like, you want to go here? You want to have a fight? Don't you know I'm your mother? Don't you know I'm your father? I'm gonna win this fight. Let's go.
- [18:20]
C
Yeah. And I grew up like that. But here's the thing. I do love one thing, and it's silly. Dr. Phil says this. He says, do you want to be right or do you want to be in relationship?
- [18:28]
A
Well, that's a great question.
- [18:29]
C
And as a parent, boom, I want to be in relationship. I'm usually right. But I'm gonna manage them in such a way that either I direct that well, or we take a break so our brains calm down. Or I let them learn a little bit and let them. Because that drives them to the Lord too. The last thing we wanna be, you know, we used to have helicopter parents. Now we've got lawnmower parents just plowing ahead. And I have really struggled with this with my daughter who's about to go off to college. But I'm watching the fruit of. You know, she. And this is another thing. All these things that we want for our kids, emotional control. They're fruits of the spirit. Well, a 2 year old's barely a seedling, you know, and a 14 year old's what they've got a couple little grapes starting to bud. But sometimes we expect them to be vineyards.
- [19:17]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [19:18]
C
And they're not. And I'm not a vineyard yet. So it's tough.
- [19:21]
A
And I think especially as Christian parents, because we have high expectations of our behavior, of their behavior. And so we better see a vineyard. Even though you're two, I want fruit of the spirit.
- [19:32]
C
That's right. And the Fruit of the Spirit is something we sing about in preschool and we learn to live out hopefully, well as we age. It's one of my. I'm grateful now, even though we went through a lot of fertility treatment, that I am an older parent because there is hopefully more fruit. And when I start, when she and I, or he and I, because I have one of each, start rubbing on each other, that's an indication to me that they need to go more to the Lord. I need to go to more to the Lord. I need to be. Because here's the thing I want to do. I want to plug into the Spirit so I can be an extension cord of him to my kids and plug them in.
- [20:06]
A
Yeah. That's so good. Right here at the end. Michelle, let's just cover this one thing. It's important to pray with your child and specifically pray for those difficult emotional experiences. How do you do that with your child? Not to freak them out or panic.
- [20:23]
C
Them, but, hey, first of all, short and sweet. I'll give you an example, okay? And the enemy can be really twisting with our words. One time, my daughter looked at me. She was probably about eight. Like, I'd punched her in the gut. And she was headed up the stairs, and I said, whoa, whoa, whoa. Come back here. You know? And I said to her, what did you hear Mommy say? And she said, that I'm the worst kid in the world, and I never do anything right.
- [20:45]
A
Wow.
- [20:45]
C
And I said, oh, honey, do you know what I said? I said, these shoes have been here for five days. Do you think you could take them up with you? Because I'm sick of looking at them. But isn't that funny that my tone of. Because 93% of everything we say is nonverbal. So what she received from that and what the enemy twisted. I said, first of all, those two thoughts would never enter my mind. You are God's gift to me, and I delight in being your parent. And then I said to her, let's pray about this right now, because I want to break this idea in your mind. And so I just said, God, I am frustrated. And I know Sophia felt the full weight of my frustration in this moment, but I pray that in Jesus name she would know how loved she is. Even when I'm frustrated with her. At the angriest moment we will ever have together, Sophia will know that I am proud of her and that she is loved because she is your gift for me. And Lord, help us to live that in Jesus name. Amen. Short, sweet, to the point, and it. And still emotional today.
- [21:46]
A
But it affirms that child. That's what's so beautiful about it. And it really makes that distinction between, I'm not attacking you as a person. I'm trying to shape your behavior, and that's different. And I think we, as parents, we fail to make that distinction for them. So they know we're not attacking them.
- [22:03]
C
Especially when we're emotional and they're emotional. I think we miss that information.
- [22:09]
A
Totally. Totally. This has been great, and thank you so much. I used to draw the scared, sad, happy faces. I didn't know you could get a chart. I'm serious. I'm that dense. But I used to draw these out with the boys and say, how do you feel right now? And they'd circle. And we talk about it.
- [22:25]
C
Yes, we do that a lot.
- [22:26]
A
But you got these great books. God, I feel sad. God, I feel scared. And you could probably just keep releasing these books into every emotion that children have.
- [22:35]
C
We're looking at that. And we actually have one for older teens called Managing youg Emojis, which covers all four of the emotions.
- [22:41]
A
That's a clever way to say it.
- [22:42]
C
Yes. Just to help. And the thing I love about these is I have grandparents who are telling me, like, I call my granddaughter. And because they're latchkey kids, a lot of them. And so I call her and we read one of these on FaceTime when she gets home together. But she says to me, I'm learning things I never was taught. And I think that's so beautiful. I couldn't ask for the Lord to use this material in a better way.
- [23:04]
A
Think of that. I mean, thankfully, we're contacting hundreds of thousands of parents every year through Focus on the Family. If we just do that job together, you being here, the books, the other resources that are here, our counseling department, and we help hundreds of thousands of parents do that job better. Connecting. I mean, I can sleep tonight and sleep very well. But Michelle, thanks for being with us.
- [23:27]
C
Thank you.
- [23:30]
A
I see why this Best of 2025 conversation with Michelle resonated with you. She packs a punch. And it's no secret that we live in an emotionally charged world today. So it's crucial to support parents with the tools to help their children navigate and thrive with God's help. If you want to equip your family, your church family, or someone you know with Michelle's great insights, we're offering a bundle of her children's books. God, I feel Sad and God, I Feel Scared. We want to make those books available to you when you give a gift of any amount to Focus on the Family. We'll send you a bundle of Michelle's books as our way of saying thank you. It's our mission to support families, and we love to hear from you. In fact, Barbara, a grandmother from California, wrote to us and told us, it's wonderful as a mom to be able to share excellent resources with our children. This started a couple of decades ago with Adventures in Odyssey and visits to your welcome center in Colorado Springs. Fast forward. My daughter is 29 and married two years. They're both strong Christians and have committed their lives to the Lord. I know your magazine articles and podcasts over the years have made me a more godly wife and mother and we want nothing more for our daughter than a thriving God centered marriage. I told her Focus on the Family resources are like marriage and family vitamins and I'm so happy to say she has taken all this to heart. They read the devotional together and she listens to your podcast. Thank you, thank you, thank you. My husband Ken and I are deeply grateful for your ministry. Focus is a lifeline for Christian families trying to navigate this culture. We're monthly supporters. I write to express our appreciation of your vital ministry, to tell you how much you mean to us, and to encourage all of you who work at Focus on the Family. There are no doubt times of discouragement when it feels like such an uphill battle within our culture. You're making a significant difference. Wow. Praise God for all that he has done to strengthen families through this ministry and for those great reports. John, we can't do it without your financial support. Help us deliver hope and joy to families this Christmas season, giving them the tools they need to raise godly children in Christ, walk closely with the Lord and thrive in their marriages. It is so important.
- [25:59]
B
Yeah, you can donate and get your bundle of Michelle's books. God I feel sad and God I feel Scared when you call 800 the letter A in the word family 800-232-6459 or look for the link to donate and get those books in the show Notes and if you enjoyed this program, we have an entire audio collection featuring 20 of our best of 2025 shows. This free collection features encouragement to overcome trauma, refresh your marriage, improve your parenting and grow in your faith. You'll hear from our most popular guests like Michelle Neidert, the late Gregory Jantz, British evangelist J. John Lee Strobel, Dr. Gary Chapman, Sheila Walsh and more. Look for that free audio collection in the show Notes. Coming up tomorrow, Dave and Ann Wilson describe the importance of unity in marriage.
- [26:55]
D
I think that God knew that there was an enemy in the garden and it would take the man and the woman linking arms, standing toe to toe, side to side, back to back, to defeat the enemy that they couldn't defeat him. Apart or alone, they would need each other to defeat the enemy.
- [27:13]
B
Thanks for joining us for this best of 2025 episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Dale Daily. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.
- [27:34]
A
Jesus Christ is the ultimate source of truth. As we celebrate his birth this Christmas, I hope you'll be inspired to share God's truth with grace and love. Become better equipped by listening to my podcast, Refocus with Jim Daly from Focus on the Family. Every episode, I talk to fascinating guests about important cultural issues and how we can reach people for Christ and share his Joy. Listen at refocuswithjimdaily.com or wherever you get your podcasts.