 <p>Just do this:</p> <pre><code>&lt;we:AScreenUserControl x:Class="ProgramManagementV2.screens.MainUserControl" xmlns:we="clr-namespace:ProgramManagementV2.screens" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" mc:Ignorable="d" d:DesignHeight="300" d:DesignWidth="300"&gt; &lt;Grid&gt; &lt;TextBlock Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Name="textBlock1" Text="asdfasdf" VerticalAlignment="Center" /&gt; &lt;/Grid&gt; &lt;/we:AScreenUserControl&gt; </code></pre>