“Don’t leave us alone. Keep it up until we let you in.”

Parents today, on a never-ending search for ways to empathize with, connect with, and guide our teenage children, often forget to start at the beginning: by asking what our children need us to know. Author Michael Chiasson has hit upon a brilliant cross-generational concept—teens writing anonymous short letters to parents about their fears and desires—that can be immensely helpful to both the kids and their caregivers, who often approach issues from very different perspectives.

In Things We Wish Our Parents Knew, Michael draws from his decades of experience speaking with students across North America, as well as his own childhood experiences, to help parents, teachers, and others who interact with teens break down barriers between them and the kids in their care. In his talks, by giving students the prompt “Things I wish my parents knew,” he unleashes a world of honest and unspoken wishes, needs, concerns, and emotions that most parents have no idea their children are feeling. The result is parents who gain clarity and teens who feel seen, valued, heard, and loved.

In this book, Michael distills the gold mine of information from these letters into universal lessons, as well as exercises for reflection and connection, that all caregivers can learn from. His heartfelt, accessible guidance, along with excerpts from the letters themselves, provides an indispensable bridge for the gap between adults and teens and an answer to the all-important question: How can we better understand our children and build a stronger connection with them?