When They Need Us

Supporting Emotional Wellbeing in Children & Young People

Sometimes supporting emotional wellbeing begins with something much simpler than having the right answer: creating a relationship in which a young person feels able to talk.

When we think about supporting the emotional wellbeing of children and young people, it's easy to think first about strategies.

What can we teach them?

What skills do they need?

How can we help them become more confident, resilient or emotionally aware?

All of those things can have value.

But perhaps there is somewhere even simpler to begin.

The relationship.

Children and young people need people around them with whom they can share their thoughts, experiences, worries, ideas and questions.

Not necessarily because those adults will have an answer. Sometimes there isn't one.

But because being able to bring our experiences into a relationship and feel listened to, taken seriously, and understood can be important in itself.

And that begins long before a young person has something difficult to tell us.

Communication is built in ordinary moments

We sometimes think of good communication as having meaningful conversations about feelings.

But relationships aren't built only through the big conversations.

They're developed in the ordinary ones too.

The ridiculous story.

The thing they saw online.

The friend we've heard about seventeen times.

The song we don't understand.

The opinion we don't necessarily agree with.

The seemingly insignificant piece of information offered while we're driving somewhere, cooking dinner, or doing something else entirely.

Those moments matter because they communicate something:

I'm interested in your world.

When children and young people experience us as interested in the everyday parts of their lives, it can help create the foundations for conversations about the more difficult parts too.

Are we making it easy to talk to us?

Adults often say that they want children and young people to talk to them.

And usually we genuinely mean it.

But perhaps there is another question worth asking:

What is it like for a young person to talk to me?

Do I listen until they've finished?

Do I immediately offer advice?

Do I minimise something because it doesn't seem particularly important to me?

Do I ask questions because I'm curious, or because I'm trying to steer the conversation somewhere?

What happens when they tell me something I don't agree with?

And can I tolerate not immediately fixing whatever they're experiencing?

Listening sounds simple.

Listening well isn't always simple at all.

Sometimes the most supportive response isn't advice, reassurance, or a solution.

Sometimes it's simply:

“Tell me more.”

Meet them somewhere in their world

Years ago, while working with young people, I gathered their views about communication with adults.

One message came through repeatedly.

After spending the whole day at school, school wasn't necessarily what they wanted to talk about when they got home.

It's such a simple observation, but I've remembered it.

Adults naturally ask:

How was school?

What homework have you got?

How did the test go?

Have you started revising?

All perfectly reasonable questions.

But imagine if most conversations somebody initiated with us were about our performance, responsibilities, and what we needed to do next.

We might become rather reluctant conversationalists too.

Getting to know a young person means becoming interested in their world, not only the parts of it adults consider important.

What makes them laugh?

What are they interested in?

What frustrates them?

Who matters to them?

What do they think about the world?

What would they change if they could?

What are they looking forward to?

What are they unsure about?

Sometimes changing the conversation changes the relationship.

Connection doesn't have to be complicated

Connection doesn't always require a grand plan.

It might happen while walking the dog.

In the car.

Making food.

Watching something together.

Going somewhere.

Sharing music.

Learning something neither of you knows how to do.

Or simply sitting together without demanding conversation at all.

Different children connect differently.

Some will happily sit opposite us and talk.

Others may find conversation easier when we're doing something alongside one another.

Some need questions.

Some need time.

Some need humour.

Some need silence before the words arrive.

The aim isn't to manufacture quality time.

It's to create enough opportunities for connection that conversation has somewhere to happen naturally.

Growing up means finding somewhere to belong

As children move towards adolescence and adulthood, relationships naturally change.

Young people begin to develop views that may differ from ours. They want greater freedom and choice. Their friendships and relationships outside the family become increasingly important, and they begin making decisions about who they are and what matters to them.

There can be an interesting tension during this stage.

We want to be individuals, but we also want to belong.

For young people, that can mean navigating family expectations alongside friendships, peer groups, social pressures, and their own developing identity.

Sometimes the opinions they express will challenge ours.

Sometimes the choices they make won't be the ones we would make for them.

Sometimes their need for independence may even feel like they're moving away from us.

But growing into an individual doesn't necessarily mean becoming disconnected from family.

Perhaps our role is to create relationships with enough flexibility for both things to exist:

You can belong here, and you can become yourself.

Valuing difference within families doesn't mean agreeing about everything. It means making room for different perspectives while maintaining connection, appropriate boundaries, and mutual respect.

And that can give young people something important to carry into the wider world: the understanding that they don't have to lose their individuality to belong.

Curiosity changes as children grow

Young children are naturally exploring their world.

They ask questions, experiment, imagine, play and discover.

As children grow, that curiosity doesn't necessarily disappear.

It changes.

Teenagers and young adults are exploring ideas, relationships, identity, independence, values, and their place in the world.

And sometimes that exploration will take them in directions we wouldn't choose.

That's part of growing.

Our role gradually changes too.

We move from doing and deciding so much for them towards increasingly thinking, exploring and problem-solving with them.

That can be uncomfortable.

But emotional wellbeing isn't only supported by protecting young people from difficult experiences.

It can also be supported by giving them opportunities to develop confidence in navigating life themselves, while knowing that connection remains available when they need it.

Their world matters, even when we don't understand it

One of the easiest mistakes adults can make is judging the significance of something through our own experience.

Something that feels small to us may feel enormous to a young person.

A friendship difficulty.

Being left out.

An embarrassing moment.

A comment online.

A disappointing grade.

Something about their appearance.

A disagreement that we believe will have been forgotten tomorrow.

We have the advantage of hindsight.

They are experiencing it now.

We don't have to agree with their interpretation to acknowledge their experience.

We don't have to make something bigger than it is.

But nor do we need to immediately make it smaller.

Sometimes understanding begins with resisting the temptation to decide how much something should matter to somebody else.

It's not always about finding more time

Family life is busy.

Parents and carers are balancing work, responsibilities, relationships, finances, household demands and their own needs alongside supporting children and young people.

So telling parents simply to “spend more quality time with your children” isn't always particularly helpful.

Perhaps it's less about creating additional hours and more about what happens within the moments we already share.

Putting the phone down when they start telling us something.

Listening to the story we've heard before.

Noticing when their mood changes.

Having a conversation in the car.

Laughing together.

Showing interest in something that matters to them, even when it wouldn't particularly interest us.

And sometimes simply being nearby without expecting anything from them.

Connection can happen in very ordinary moments.

Children and young people don't necessarily need every available minute of our time. They need to experience that there are moments when they genuinely have our attention.

Emotional wellbeing isn't created by perfect parenting

Parents and carers can't ensure that children are always happy.

We can't remove every disappointment, prevent every mistake, or protect them from every difficult experience.

Nor can we always know what they need.

But we can contribute something incredibly important.

A relationship in which there is room for conversation.

Room for different perspectives.

Room for emotion.

Room for mistakes.

Room for individuality.

Room for us to get things wrong too.

And room to come back and try again.

Perhaps supporting emotional wellbeing isn't always about finding another strategy.

Sometimes it begins by remaining interested enough to ask:

“What's happening in your world?”

And being prepared to listen to the answer.

Karen Smith
The Shift Space

White background with orange border to the right. Green text heading reads: When They Need Us. Orange sub heading reads: Creating the connection that helps young people feel heard, understood, and supported. Authors name in pale green text: Karen Smith, The Shift Space