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12 Ideas to Get Your Teen Talking
- Sarah Hamaker Crosswalk.com Contributing Writer
- Published Dec 13, 2023
"Mom, can I ask you something?"
For me, there's nothing sweeter than hearing that question from one of my teens. But I realize not every parent of a teenager has an easy time starting conversations. Sometimes, you might struggle with communication or feel your efforts are falling on deaf ears. Other times, your overtures are met with monosyllabic responses.
One reason you might be having trouble conversing with your teen is that you haven't made the crucial transition to mentor. If we're parenting our 14-year-old the same way we did when he was eight, we will quickly run into a communication problem. As they enter their teen years, we as a parent should begin to step into the role of mentor. This means we need to transition from telling our kids what to do to mentoring them as they decide what to do. This is crucial to helping them learn how to make sound decisions. We should be more in an advisory capacity than a director capacity, allowing them to take charge of their life while still providing guardrails. The more we stay in our mentor lane, the more our kids will open up to us.
While there are no fool-proof ways to get your teen to talk to you, there are ways to make it easier for communication to happen. Here are a dozen ideas to get your teen to open up with you.
Have patience.
Teens need time and space to process their emotions and thoughts, so if we're rushing them to talk when we're ready to talk, it can make them shut down. Realize you'll need to develop the ability to wait until they're ready to open up.
Silence is golden.
We also need to allow the quiet to build. All too often, we rush in to fill the silence with words when what our teen needs is for us to stop talking so they can think and respond. Don't be afraid to keep silent to allow them space to talk.
Pick the right time.
If you need to have a conversation with your teen, think about choosing the right time. That isn't the time that's convenient for you—it's the time that's more convenient for your teen. Examples of inconvenient times for our teens include when they wake up, when they walk in the door after school and when they are playing a video game or watching something on YouTube. Naturally, there are times when you will need to tell them something during inopportune times, but save the lengthy conversations for a time when they're not preoccupied with something else.
Eye contact is overrated.
Don't fixate on whether your teen is looking you in the eye when you're talking to him. Giving our teens space to not look at us can help them open up about the things that matter to them or bother them. For instance, many a parent has learned the value of chatting with their teen while driving or sitting in the dark after watching a movie. If those opportunities don't appear as frequently in your home, you can engineer them by dimming lights, talking while cooking or baking, and asking your teen to take a walk with you.
Listen more than talk.
This is hard, especially when we have things we want to say, but it pays to listen more than you talk with your teens. No one wants to feel like every conversation involves the parent talking and the teen listening. We need to flip the script and do more listening than talking.
Ask open-ended questions.
This goes along with listening, but asking questions that allow for a more expansive answer can help a teen share more. Avoid yes/no questions. But don't machine-gun the questions at them—give them space to answer one and see where that leads before peppering them with another query.
Here are some queries we like to ask our teens:
-What made you smile today?
-What act of kindness did you do or see today?
-What was the best thing about your day?
-What was the worst thing about your day?
-What happened during lunch today?
Talk, don't lecture.
Again, remember your role as a parent—to mentor and guide your young person into adulthood. So save the lectures for the most part. Sometimes, you'll need to have hard conversations and correct misbehavior but keep those short and sweet. Our teens don't need their misdeeds beaten into the ground and are smart enough to recognize their wrongdoing. They receive enough lectures at school or from a sports coach, so save your breath and skip the lecture.
Avoid fixing the problem.
When you have to address a problem with your teen, don't tell them how to fix it—let them come up with the solution. Give them time to think about it and respond with how they'll move forward. Then let them try the solution and see if it works or needs tweaking. The more we can give ownership of solving problems to our teens, the more likely they'll be to seek us out when they have a problem.
Expand your topics.
A few years ago, a close friend of my oldest daughter paid me a wonderful compliment (delivered via my daughter). This friend said she enjoyed talking to me because "I didn't ask her all the school questions" but instead talked to her like a person. Be interested in them as people, not only as your son or daughter. Find out what they like to talk about and enter their world. You don't have to love video games to enjoy hearing your son discuss strategies, but when you can ask a few questions and really listen to him, you'll have strengthened your connection.
See them as a separate individual.
Your kids are not an extension of you—they are their own person. We need to view them as having thoughts different from ours. If we don't, we risk making too many assumptions about their present and future. We also can alienate them by not seeing them for who they are. We might not like what we see, but we still need to look at them through the lens of their personhood, not ours.
Spend time with them.
When my two girls were young teens, they asked me to watch a k-drama (Korean TV show) with them. I immediately said yes. We've had many a conversation after watching an episode. My two teen boys and I watch The Great British Baking Show on a regular basis, which also has led to discussions during and after the show. Your teen won't want to talk to you if you don't spend time with them.
Show your love.
If you're having a tough time with your teen, it could be because he doesn't feel your love. If that's the case, you'll need to rebuild your connection by speaking his love language, such as making his favorite meal, buying his favorite snacks, or offering to host his friends for a video game marathon. If you don't know your teen's love language, read The Five Love Languages for Teenagers by Gary Chapman.
If none of these suggestions get your teen talking, schedule a checkup with his primary care doctor to see if something else is going on behind the scenes. Your teen could be struggling with a mental health challenge and not know how to share that with you, which you'll want to assist with sooner rather than later.
Above all, remember the more we're interested in our teenagers as people rather than as our sons and daughters, the more they will be willing to talk with us and share their true selves. We might not always agree with them, but if we're making ourselves available and listening, we will have honest conversations that strengthen our relationship and show them how much we care.
