A wide-ranging book by a child psychologist that teaches parents to help stressed kids of all ages deal with the world’s ever-growing multitude of crises, ranging from climate change to active-shooter drills — and yes, COVID-19. Oh yeah, and along the way the book aims to help parents deal with their own anxieties about these issues.

This book was lovely but confronting, first chapter kind of threw me off because I just got into such a sad head space remembering 9/11 and how kids rationale the things they see it is devastating.

Great book once i got back into it, lots of handy insights and tips. Would recommend to all parents.

Thank you to netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Really appreciated this title a lot. It goes through so many different scenarios and addresses both parental anxiety about having conversations and how to have them with young children as well.

I’m definitely recommending this to all of my parent friends who might need practical help in answering those tough questions and anxieties.

As a children's librarian, I've been sharing this book with other children's librarians and parents. This is book is just so relevant right now. I don't have little ones of my own, but I do have young nieces and nephews and you bet that I've shared this book with family members as well. Easy to read, really enjoyed the layout, and I feel like we can all connect with the content right about now.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for this copy. The thoughts and opinions are purely my own.

"When the World Feels Like a Scary Place" is a great first step towards having honest and difficult conversations with your children on topics that matter. The book addresses important issues and provides practical and healthy examples of discussing these issues.

Thank you Workman Oublishing and Netgalley for an ARC of this book.

It’s only June and 2020 has been a big year for everyone somfar. Before COVid struck our family had already undergone a few months of big change and unfamiliarilty with an overseas move, bushfires and other unruly weather patterns just to keep us on our toes.

This book has been a great tool to remind me, as a parent, to ensure that in challenging times my emotions are displayed in a healthy manner and that in turn I can help my children through tough times by first ‘wearing my own oxygen mask’.

I liked the red light, green light analogy used throughout the book and found the examples provided in the second half of the book useful.
I recommend this book.

I was drawn to When the World Feels Like a Scary Place: Essential Conversations for Anxious Parents and Worried Kids because of the description. Specifically, I was thinking of the way my 6 year old has been asking questions about the COVID-19 pandemic, and the way he asked me if he was going to get “shooted” after he began doing active-shooter lockdown drills in school. I was also thinking of his “uncle” (my husband’s cousin), who died by suicide a couple years ago and whom my son still mentions periodically. I was thinking of my husband’s grandfather, who passed last July. I was thinking of my elderly dog, whose eventual (no! live forever, sweet girl!) passing is sure to devastate all of us. And after I began reading it, I was also thinking of the murder of George Floyd and the resultant protests and conversations about racism and social inequalities.

I was hoping to (basically) be handed some tools to make these difficult conversations flow a little bit better, and have a more productive structure. But I felt that the real strength of the book was in the preliminary chapters, where the author discusses recognizing emotions, teaching an emotions vocabulary, and enacting engaged listening. These aren’t new topics. But they were shared in a way that reminded me how powerful these tools can be, and motivated me to try them again with my son. He is a very impatient person and feels his emotions very strongly. It’s hard to engage him in a meaningful conversation about his feelings and emotions because he gets fed up with this very quickly. He wants to talk about HIS PROBLEM, not his feelings. He definitely won’t sit still for a long conversation, let alone a lecture. His father is also not one to “indulge” in emotions-exploring or validating, which may have compounded the difficulty. So, the early chapters of this book are something we will all work on together. I really felt motivated by the early chapters and would wholeheartedly endorse them to any parent.

The actual conversations about topics were hit-and-miss for me. Many of them were skewed towards older children, which is completely fine; I can restructure language for a child my son’s age. However, the conversational dialogues were all very wordy and lengthy. Some of them came across as lecture-y, or could be perceived that way by kids (read: by MY kid). I could easily imagine my son losing his patience and his temper with such a long exchange. I think one thing that the author could have mentioned is that sometimes the de-escalation period for intense emotions takes a LOT longer and is more sensitive than some children than with others, and sometimes ends differently than you’d expect. For example, the author describes the parent and child taking “breathers” and coming back later to resume the discussion. I’ve tried something like this and basically a re-visit of the discussion caused my son to lose his temper with impatience that he had to “talk about this, again, UGH"! I learned that sometimes just hearing him out and acknowledging his feelings was all he really wanted, and that a re-visit to the topic later was actually counterproductive. Each situation is different and every child is different. My takeaway from the book in general was the positivity I felt about acknowledgement and validation of emotions and feelings and the engaged listening process. I don’t how useful the conversation examples will be to me; time will tell.

I also think that the conversation examples really are predicated on a parent/parent team that have A LOT OF TIME to engage with their children. Sometimes I have a lot of time. Sometimes, I don’t. I was hoping for more examples that might help a parent who is on their own and in a hurry – how can they successfully engage in the time they have? Not everyone can drop everything when you’re late for school, late for work, etc. How could this parent handle the situation with success? Another situation I would have liked to see explored is dealing with a child having strong feelings/emotions when there is another needy child present. For example, I also have a 19-month old son. It is difficult to give the full focus my older son wants and frankly, needs, when I have a toddler underfoot who becomes upset when he loses my attention. This sort of triage parenting is a situation I would like more guidance on and examples for, and I really didn’t see it so much here. Lastly, I should point out that this book skews liberal. This was not an issue for me in the least, but I could imagine some parents who feel strongly otherwise discounting the book because of it.

Overall I think this book was very interesting, and I would recommend the first half, at least, to every parent. A productive discussion of emotions and engaged listening can only help parents to have a better relationship with their children, and certainly better communication. The dialogue/conversation examples may prove also to be very helpful to most parents; I know they will give me a starting point.

Thank you to Workman Publishing Company and NetGalley for the ARC of this title.

With the multitude of concerns parents and children have in today's world, I thought this book's topic was very timely. The first half of the book is background, giving parents ideas on exploring their own emotions, feelings, and reactions, and how to teach kids about emotions and their responses. The second half of the book focuses on conversations between parents and children, broken into chapters regarding violence, natural disasters and climate change, perils of technology, social justice, and our divided society. There is also a bonus at the end about Covid-19/Coronavirus pandemic.
The conversations are tagged as to an age range and specific topic within the chapters (i.e. guns, religion, bullying, etc.) The conversations follow a suggested formula and did tend to feel a bit repetitive. I wish the Table of Contents listed the example conversations under the chapter titles.
Overall, the book had some thought-provoking info and helpful suggestions. I expected a format that was easier to follow - if I didn't have a child in the specific age with the specific issue of one of the example conversations, or if my family dynamic was different from the portrayal, I think there would be a significant amount of work to modify into a conversation that would benefit our family.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received an electronic ARC from Workman Publishing Company through NetGalley.
Dr. Gewirtz takes parents through coping methods to handle a variety of situations that add stress to life. From natural disasters to violence and even including the current Covid-19 pandemic, Gewirtz provides possible questions and techniques to help children of all ages resolve their feelings and work out coping strategies.
Part One offers expert advice for parents to consider their own responses in various situations. She offers techniques to adopt to help adults focus on children and their responses rather than reacting out of their own emotions and needs. Exercises to try are spaced throughout the chapters
Part Two turns the focus to actual scenarios and provides sample conversations to engage in with children of all ages. Further information is provided for consideration. These are real life scenarios that most families will experience.
This book is designed as one more tool for families to use to cope with life in uncertain times. Information is presented at a level that's easy to follow. Real case examples/scenarios are shared so readers can see themselves and identify their own reactions. Useful for young families and a reference tool for older ones.

As a parent and an educator, I am always looking for ways to better myself in handling difficult topics. This book covered many of these difficult topics and provided a lot of great information that will assist me in being more successful. I found the most effective tool in this book is that it not only examines the child's anxiety and fears but also the parents. Children pick up on such things even if we are not aware, and this is a highly over-looked aspect in parenting.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

This was a timely read for me as we deal with COVID-19, a decidedly scary time the world. The first half of the book gives a good education about child development and how anxiety and fears manifest at different ages. Parents are encouraged to examine their own reactivity and anxiety. The second half is examples of various scary situations (i.e fears of school shootings, house fires, storms, bullying, etc( and sample dialogues between parents and children. Told with “red light” and “green light” examples, parents can see themselves in these responses. I admit it became quite repetitive as the dialogues were slightly formulaic. Overall this is a good introductory book for parents to talk about scary situations. I feel the first half will be helpful today study while the second half may be helpful to skim and refer back to as needed.
I also felt it needed a stronger conclusion. It ended abruptly and the epilogue was not enough to tie the two halves together.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced copy.

I received an ARC in exchange for honest review. Reading this book during COVID-19 was especially helpful and relevant. Both me and my toddler are aware of the changes happening in our world - and reading this book was helpful in knowing how to talk about it. I appreciated the many scenarios given as examples, the age-appropriate tips for conversations, and the very practical advice. I would recommend this book to any parent - especially in today's world. With so much uncertainty and so many questions about how to have tough conversations with our kids, this is a really helpful guide.

What a great resource as a counselor to offer to anyone who actually deals with children in anyway at all. I will be using it
Such a great book!!
Thanks for the advanced copy netgalley and the publisher.

This is an introspective book for parents to work through their own emotions while helping kids manage their fears. It involves quite a lot of self study, exercises, etc. and features many examples of parents and kids dealing with stressful and scary things. I would have appreciated less material on working through my own stuff and more concrete information on helping kids.

When The World Feels Like A Scary Place is the communication guide that parents, educators and any other trusted adult needs to read.

Young people are growing up and into a world unlike any generation before them and the world that they navigate daily is full of anxiety, stress or worry inducing situations. This book explores how trusted adults can help their young people to settle their fears and move beyond them, develop resilience and model thoughtful and effective communication.

The author tackles delicate subject matter (parental deployment, peer on peer abuse, social justice, the impact of extreme weather / natural disasters and other examples of current affairs such as incidents of foreign or domestic terrorism) in a way that helps the reader to see how any of these might create an anxious response in a young person. Dr Gewirtz explores how this could vary depending on the young person’s age, prior knowledge of the situation in hand and/or influence of “fake news”; she aims to equip adults with the skills they need to help the young person manage their big emotions.

The reader is coached through how to identify their own personal stake in an incident (perhaps an early experience of bias would impact the way we choose to address a concern?), understand the importance of “singing from the same hymn sheet” with a co-parent (or where this isn’t the case, using each parent’s strengths to the advantage of the child) and then to identify the young person’s emotional and physical responses at that immediate point in order to set a goal to work towards eg “I feel scared by X now, but I want to feel safe and confident so I can cope if X happens again”.

The broad range of examples given in this book models the principles for communication that are set out by Dr Gewirtz and fair consideration is paid to the emotional maturity of the young person in how the response could be shaped. Age appropriateness is one way that the suggested responses are personalised in this wellbeing guide but it also offers thought towards religious or cultural values which might need to be considered.

In reading this book, I am more aware of my own anxiety triggers, which in turn makes me more confident in supporting my children to address theirs. It has guided me to consider how my own experiences might shape how I would naturally respond to an unexpected trigger (eg child reporting that they have witnessed something upsetting, or heard something from a friend that’s troubled them) and to how to control my emotional response in order to de-escalate (or at the least not inflame) the problem. In being mindful of the adult as a participant in the conversation, it acknowledges the responsibility we have to the young person I helping them to understand how they feel.

As a parent of young children and an educator of teens, I can see so many opportunities for the approach in this book to be applied in real life situations. The author is giving the reader the opportunity to “upskill” the next generation in their emotional intelligence, resilience and communication skills and this makes it essential reading.

I received this book as an advanced reader copy e-book in exchange for a honest review; upon publication I will be purchasing myself a printed copy as a resource for future reference.

I have a M.S. in Counseling Psychology, but I still fret about how to deal with all the bad news in the world lately when it comes to my kids. This book has many helpful scenarios to use to address scary news with your children. I would recommend parents, teachers, anyone else who works with kids, to read this book and get a better understanding in this area.

I received an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

This book is a valuable tool for all parents new and old. I loved the difficult topics this book covers from early years to teenage years and advice on not only topics and scenarios that can arise )especially in todays world), and ways to help you talk through them with your child.
I loved how it gives you talked through scenario examples of how it could go using red lights (not good ways of handling it) and green light (better ways of handling it).
I urge all parents to give this book a go. Its definitely given me some food for thought.

As a first time parent, I have spent hundreds of hours over the past 4 years reading books, articles, position papers, blogs, and any other piece of literature that I can put my hands on to help figure out how to parent. As my daughter has grown into a very perspective preschooler, I have had many conversations with my husband about how difficult some conversations are going to be for me. As our daughter entered preschool this year, just nine hours a week, I wondered what kind of conversations we'd have to have throughout the year.

So, I researched. I read more. I read about stress and anxiety, how to approach big topics, and so much more. I read dozens of things from dozens of sources.

If only this book had been available back then; I would've saved so much time! This is now going to be the number one parenting book that I recommend. It is absolutely essential reading for parents in this uncertain, troubling time. Dr. Abigail Gewirtz is a child psychologist that specializes in anxiety, and as she noticed her patient load exploding over the past few years with anxious children and even more anxious parents, she began to write. And what she wrote is truly helpful. She believes that we can truly help our children through having "essential conversations" and doing so in a way that is engaging, calm, and thoughtfully considered. She references another psychologist's "emotion coaching" as a valuable tool, and how it is our jobs as parents to help our children learn how to process and discuss their emotions and anxieties.

This book first helps us as adults understand our own experiences, feelings, stresses and how to manage our own anxiety process. Until we understand ourselves, how can we help our children? She then goes into a short debrief ages - the book is applicable for children age 3 through 18 - and what common anxieties are, as well as how we should best approach conversation. Then, the crux of the book. Dr. Gewirtz breaks her chapters into outside/world events, violence/bullying, climate and environmental stressors, relentless tech and media exposure, economic inequality, and political polarization. She has no "agenda" or political leanings that come across in any way. It is clearly simply her mission to help parents navigate these difficult topics. There are dozens of practice conversations in the book, both ones that show harmful approaches and then helpful counterparts.

I felt an enormous sense of peace reading this book. It will equip you to handle things that it is terrible we even have to think about, but having these kinds of tools in our parenting toolbelt will help me face such hard conversations with newfound confidence. Hoping for more books from this wonderful expert in the future!