Katie Lear, Child Counselor, 706 Northeast Drive Ste 1, Davidson, NC (2025)

11/10/2025

When we think about a grieving person, we probably imagine someone who is very sad or crying. This is usually how grief is portrayed in the media, too. While it’s true that sadness is a big part of grief, there’s a whole range of other emotions involved.
Adults may be aware that grief is complicated, but kids usually aren’t. Most kids don’t have very much personal experience with grieving. They look to books, TV, and movies to figure out how they’re supposed to feel. But there’s one other place kids are looking to figure out how to feel: you.

Children turn to parents and caregivers to see how they are responding to grief, and to decide whether their own feelings seem “normal” or okay. You can be a role model for your child, and help them to accept and cope with the many confusing, conflicting feelings they might experience.

You can help your child understand that there’s no right or wrong way to grieve. Any feelings they have are okay. Whether those feelings are big or small, scary or sad, angry or happy, it’s all normal. It’s even alright if they aren’t feeling much of anything at all, especially right after the death when many people are still in shock.
You can affirm your child’s feelings in two ways: by talking about them directly, and by showing your own emotions in front of your child. It’s okay to share when you’re feeling sad or frustrated or worried. When your child sees you dealing with your own grief, they learn that feelings aren’t something they need to hide!

11/08/2025

Have you ever noticed that kids tend to believe the world revolves around them? It can be a little exasperating at times, but it’s totally normal and healthy for young children to have this mindset. Kids are the main characters in their life stories, and they’re still figuring out the impact they have on the world around them.

Up until about age 7, kids are still learning that their internal thoughts and feelings don’t affect the outside world. For example, thinking a mean thought about a sibling can’t cause them to actually get hurt in real life. Wishing a person would just go away doesn’t mean they will disappear.

When somebody dies, it’s very common for children to blame themselves. They might over-estimate the power they had to change a situation. They may also worry that their thoughts somehow caused their loved one’s death. This kind of guilt can happen even in situations where the death was nobody’s fault, such as a death from cancer or old age. As you can probably imagine, it’s a terrible feeling, and a tough one for many kids to talk about.
Make it clear to your child that nothing they said, did, thought, or felt caused their loved one to die. You can let them know that many people—adults and kids—feel guilty when someone dies. It’s a normal feeling, but it doesn’t mean the death was your fault.

11/02/2025

Kids who have generalized anxiety need help to relax, so they can ease their muscle tension and sleep more peacefully. Parents can help their kids develop healthy coping skills to relax the body and mind, like mindfulness, deep breathing, and progressive muscle relaxation. Trying one of these skills out one time might help a little bit, but kids with GAD will likely need daily practice in order to see results.

We know that sleep has a big impact on mental health, and sleep-deprived kids (and adults) are more prone to anxiety and depression. Kids with generalized anxiety can fall into a vicious cycle, where the anxiety causes poor sleep, and the poor sleep causes even more anxiety. Using relaxation skills at bedtime can help kids get in the right mindset to drift off—muscle relaxation and guided visualizations are especially helpful for this.

These skills will be even more helpful if they’re part of a “settling routine”: a simple ritual you and your child share each night. The repetition of the same routine sends a signal to your child’s brain that it’s time to unwind and go to bed.

11/01/2025

Before you talk about your child's grief, it’s important to have an open conversation with them about death. Younger kids need help to understand the concept of death as something that is permanent and irreversible. And kids of all ages need at least some information about what caused their loved one to die. Honesty is the best policy when it comes to talks about death and dying. That means avoiding euphemisms like “passed away,” and describing death as something that makes the body and brain permanently stop working. In general, if your child is old enough to ask a question, they’re old enough to hear an age-appropriate answer. It’s always okay if that answer is “I don’t know."

10/30/2025

Giving your child a role in the Halloween festivities allows them to feel a sense of control over the situation. You can let your child pick out your decorations, play their choice of music, and decide what snacks to enjoy or what candy to give out to trick-or-treaters. Feeling in control can ease anxiety, and getting to pick out all the details might give children an added motivation to participate. While I encourage you to gently help your child overcome Halloween anxieties, there’s no need to push them so far out of their comfort zone that the holiday stops being fun. What’s most important is communicating to your child that having anxiety is okay, and that we don’t always have to do what it tells us to do. By staying calm and finding small opportunities for exposure, you are showing your child that you can handle their big feelings.

10/26/2025

All of the advice I’ve been sharing for handling meltdowns comes straight from the Scary Mommy article “Child Experts Reveal How They Handle Their Own Kids' Meltdowns.” I’ve told you my advice; go check out the full article for more great tips from Lorain Moorehead, an individual and family therapist, and Laura Todd, certified perinatal and early childhood mental health therapist, and others!

10/25/2025

In an instance where I had to turn off the TV (which triggered lots of throwing, yelling, and angry words), I didn’t explain my rationale for turning off the TV, offer solutions to the problem, or remind my son that they'd agreed to five more minutes 10 minutes ago. Instead, I encouraged him to go to his 'mad spot' to show me how mad he is feeling. We picked a calm-down area in his room to use for this purpose, and this worked really well! I find kids aren't always self-motivated to use coping skills to self-soothe, but they are motivated to make sure we understand how upset they are. As soon as we were physically separated, things calmed down very quickly.

10/19/2025

Little kids have a hard time distinguishing between fantasy and reality. Their imaginations and ability to “make believe” can add a lot of magic to childhood. On the flip side, it can also add a lot of fear! Older kids and adults can delight in scary movies because they know that there’s no chance of Godzilla lurking around the corner when they leave the theater. Pretend scary stories let us experience the adrenaline rush of a good scare at a time when we know that nothing bad can actually happen. Imagine how it must feel if you aren’t so sure the Godzilla won’t be there! You can use TV shows and movies as an opportunity to show your child that the stories are pretend, and the actors are playing make-believe. You can talk with your child about how actors use makeup and costumes to look scary, when really they are normal people—there’s plenty of videos of actors in and out of costume to back up your point.

10/18/2025

If I know my child gets triggered by busy crowds and new situations, I'll be more likely to give in to his demand to be carried when we're at an amusement park than I would if we were running errands in the neighborhood. Consider what times you want to set a firm boundary and what times your child may not have the capacity to honor it.

10/12/2025

Exposure is a big part of the kind of therapy I practice for kids with anxiety, called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. In exposure, we help a child face unhelpful fears, but we do it in a gradual way. This helps kids build up their confidence, and learn to tolerate anxious feelings without becoming totally overwhelmed.
You can practice exposure at home by giving kids a chance to look at and handle scary Halloween props in small doses. This could mean taking the scary mask from a sibling’s costume out for your younger child to handle and play with. It could also mean walking on the opposite side of the street from a Halloween display to view it from a safe distance before getting closer. It often helps to make these exposure situations funny: try talking with your child in a goofy witch voice, or encourage them to make fun of a monster that frightens them. It’s hard for things to be both funny and scary at the same time!

10/11/2025

A poor night's sleep, a skipped snack, or even recent changes in routine like a move to a new daycare could all be contributing factors to a meltdown. Rather than just looking for cues in my child's behavior, I try to keep the events of the full day in mind as a sort of 'emotional weather forecast' that helps me predict how my child will be likely to respond to stressors when they arise. That way, I can try and steer clear of too many storms in a row!

10/08/2025

We all want to protect our children from harm and help them avoid upsetting experiences when we can. But, please don’t wrap your child in psychological bubble wrap and avoid all things Halloween-themed. While this might help your child (and you) feel less anxious in the short term, it is likely to make your child’s fears stronger and more persistent over the long term. Why? Anxiety makes us want to avoid the things that scare us. We get the sense that something terrible will happen if we don’t. The problem is that every time we avoid something scary, we reinforce the idea that it is worth being afraid of. The longer a child avoids a scary situation, the harder it will be to return to it when the time comes.

Katie Lear, Child Counselor

11/10/2025

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