How to Raise Whole Kids | Be Quiet | Chad Belew
Which feelings were you allowed to show growing up? Not which ones you felt. Which ones got you comfort, and which ones got you "stop that"?
Week two of Be Quiet. Last week was how the church built the old story. This week is the other half: how do we raise great human beings without handing them that baggage? It starts in the car, with a four-year-old's question about where babies come from, and the very Christian answer Chad had loaded and ready.
The questions it leans into: babies cry, laugh and get scared the same, so when, and where, do boys and girls learn which feelings are safe to show? What happens when a boy grows up with access to only half his emotions, and a girl to the other half? What if most of what we do as parents isn't about the kid in front of us at all? If strength isn't how much of the room you run, what is it? How do grown-ups actually change their minds when the world, and the church, want us to fall in line? And what does a human being look like with the whole wheel?
It ends at the communion table, with the night Jesus knew he had all the power in the universe and picked up a towel.
Follow along: the Feeling Wheel Chad hands out is Gloria Willcox's (1982). Search "Feeling Wheel Willcox" to pull it up while you listen.
In this episode:
- 300 comments on a purity-culture clip
- Who's really in charge at our house
- A kid's question in the car, and the answer loaded in Chad's head
- bell hooks and the marbles
- Two lists: what each kid gets handed
- 166 studies: when kids learn which feelings are safe
- The feelings wheel, and 50 veterans in Costa Rica
- Boys got half the wheel, girls got the other half
- "Your kid isn't the project. You are." (Dr. Shefali Tsabary)
- A faith your kid doesn't have to heal from (Meredith Miller, Woven)
- Five sentences to hand your kids
- Feeling machines that think (Antonio Damasio)
- Precarious manhood, and "give me your man card"
- Romans 12:2: don't fall in line
- "Not so with you": Jesus and the towel
- Jesus had the whole wheel
- Next week: The Emotions of Jesus
- Communion, and a closing prayer
???? References: Romans 12:2 · Mark 10:35–45 · John 13:1–5 · 1 Corinthians 11:23–26 · Genesis 3:16
???? Mentioned: The Will to Change (bell hooks) · The Conscious Parent, Raising Conscious Sons and Raising Conscious Daughters (Dr. Shefali Tsabary) · Woven (Meredith Miller) · Descartes' Error (Antonio Damasio) · The Feeling Wheel (Gloria Willcox)
Series: Be Quiet
Speaker: Chad Belew
Date: 10/18/2026
Location: The Arsenal, San Antonio, TX
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The Arsenal | San Antonio, TX
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