Prince William Gets Real About Not Always Fixing His Kids’ Feelings

Parenting isn’t always easy, even if you’re a prince. 

In a new interview on BBC Radio 1’s Life Hacks, Prince William opened up about mental health challenges and how he approaches managing his own children’s feelings. 

Prince William said it’s important to ‘listen’ to his children’s emotions 

William, 43, said  he was impressed with how open his three children are with their feelings. His shared that his job as dad to Prince George, 12, Princess Charlotte, 10, and Prince Louis, seven, was to acknowledge their emotions, even if he can’t always solve their immediate problem. 

“I get all the details, which I love. It’s amazing,” the future king of England said (via Hello!). “Being able to understand it, have time with it, decipher it, sometimes. You feel a sense that you need to fix it for everyone and that I find quite difficult. I have to remind myself that you don’t need to fix everything but you need to listen and it’s important to be ok with those feelings and comments.”

William’s instincts are spot-on, an expert says.

“Prince William is right to highlight how powerful it is for parents to listen rather than feel they must fix everything,” HCPC-registered Senior Education and Child Psychologist Dr Sasha Hall told Hello! “When children are encouraged to talk about their thoughts and feelings, we are strengthening their emotional literacy.” 

Future king wants to ‘break the cycle’ of avoiding emotions

The next generation of royals is more in touch with their feelings than those who came before, William said.

“For the next generation, understanding emotions is OK,” the Prince of Wales said. “You’re going to have uncomfortable emotions and really great emotions, there’s a huge spectrum in between.”

“My understanding, learning about mental health through my journey, has been about understanding why the previous generations didn’t talk about it,” he added, noting that people who lived through the trauma of two world wars often “couldn’t talk about their emotions”.

“They kept to themselves and handed that mantle onto the next generation, not deliberately, but that’s all they knew,” he said, noting that it was up to those who came after to “break that cycle”.

“You have to talk about your emotions, you can’t just bottle them up and pretend they don’t exist because that’s when it all goes wrong,” William said. 

The prince is serious about changing the conversation around mental health. His Royal Foundation is contributing £1 million to develop a National Suicide Prevention Network.

Mental health is also an issue that’s close to the heart of William’s estranged brother, Prince Harry. He and his wife, Meghan Markle, have supported various mental health initiatives through their Archewell Foundation. Both brothers have also spoken openly about the grief and trauma they experienced in the wake of the mother, Princess Diana’s, tragic 1997 death. 

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