Communicating with Your Teen.

A simple solution to communicating with teenagers.

Welcome to the Parenting Your Teens podcast where each week I take a real-life question submitted by a listener or viewer at home, and answer it, so everybody can leave with real life practical solutions to a situation that they're facing with their teen. 

Today's question is something I think can apply to every parent who has ever had a teenager in their home. This particular question says, "When I attempt to engage with my teen, it seems like all they do is answer with one word answers." Okay, so I think we know exactly what that sounds like it's, "I'm fine, okay, nothing." Sometimes there's a little bit of attitude, a little bit of anger that sort of underlies the response. 

So now that we know what we're seeing from our teen, the big question is what do we do to address that? 

This is something that really needs to be understood not in terms of the what the behavior is, but why the behavior is happening. 

Why does your teen shut you out?

So let's look at my teen walks through the door and immediately I say, "Hey, honey. How was your day?" And they say, "Fine." And they drop their backpack and go up to their room. Any future attempt at engagement seems to escalate them; they might get angry, sort of rude or dismissive of anything that we try to do. 

Again, the why. 

So teens in this situation generally are responding because they don't feel like their parents understand them. Now a lot of times parents will say, "Look, I was a teenager wants too. I completely understand what's going on." And the truth is that's just not true, you don't know what your kid's going through, you don't know the pressures that they're facing. And because of that they don't feel validated, and I would imagine at times they probably even feel judged because the things that they're doing or the choices they're making wouldn't be supported by their parent. 

So this isn't about getting into the don't do this or assigning consequences or sort of being overly concerned with what your teen's doing. Not at this stage, that's for another question for a future podcast. This is all about how do we lay the groundwork to get our teens to open up and to engage with us in meaningful conversations. 

Turning your teen into the expert.

So there's a very basic easy technique that I use with almost every client, and it works like a charm. What I call it is Remaining Curious, and basically the idea behind this is everybody loves to be an expert, right? If you put somebody in an expert role, they will talk and share with you about anything and everything. So that's what we want to do. We want to put your teen in the expert role of their own life. 

Now what that does is initially it gets them to start trusting that when they do share that there's value in the sharing, that you as a parent are going to validate, and you're going to encourage more sharing. 

Now this isn't the time to correct or to give opinions, and certainly not judge, because that's just going to instantly shut a teen down no matter what. This is all about, like I said, laying the foundation and the groundwork so that they progressively start opening more and more up with you, and you can get a better sense of what their thoughts are, the rationale for why they're making the decisions, and ultimately it'll give you the opportunity to circle back around at a later date so that you can have more meaningful conversations or interject sort of some of that corrective coaching that as a parent we really just all need to do at a point. 

Ask meaningful and relevant questions about your teen’s life.

So how do you remain curious? Well, this is a really simple technique that has a lot of nuance to it. So it's all about the questions you ask. 

Now here's a boring question - how was your day today? Fine. Right, it's closed, there's not an opportunity to share anything more than that. Here's a hot-button topic that I think a lot of other parents could relate to - hey, what level are you at in Fortnite or how many kills do you have in Fortnite or what's the craziest thing that you saw at school this week? Those sorts of things, things that are relevant and meaningful to the teen's life that they're going to hear and say, "Oh, wow, my parent really cares about what I'm going through and what I'm experienced." 

Now you want to make sure that it's authentic and that it's not forced and you're just trying to find an angle that the kid doesn't really have any intention to talk to you about. So you have to make sure that it's relevant to your particular teen. 

So I gave a couple of general examples, but the reality is I probably wouldn't even use those, it just kind of gets you away from that how was your day thinking and try to get deeper into what they're experiencing within their own personal life. 

Like I said, it's not about correcting - it's just about hearing. Think of it as like running a reconnaissance mission, right? You're just trying to get as much information as you can about who your kid is. And when you approach it as if you don't really even know who your kid is or what they're all about, then you're going to very quickly be in that curious role, and they're going to very naturally fall into that expert role where they're able to share and get excited. 

Be patient when talking to your teen.

So this is going to take a little bit of time to do, it's not a one-and-done - oh, it worked perfectly the first time. You just want to do it regularly and consistently enough so that your kid starts to trust it over time. Once they trust it, which I would say usually takes a couple of weeks, then they will start seeking out conversation on their own. And get this, and I think this is what really all parents want at the end of the day, is not only will they not shut you down and they'll actually seek you out for conversation, but they'll value your exact feedback. So that's so important, right? Because if your teen is valuing your feedback, you can take them in so many different directions and get them to understand how they're living life based on what your values and ideas are. 

So I'm excited that you guys are going to have the opportunity to try this really basic tip. 

So that's it, right? So how do you get your teen to stop responding with fine? Put them in the role of expert, ask meaningful, direct questions. Don't judge and always attempt to validate. 

The initial conversation is not about correcting, it's about hearing and understanding. And you can follow up with a subsequent conversation, whether it's later that day or the next day by just saying, "Hey, that thing that you said, I really wanted to kind of follow up with that because I didn't understand or I wanted to share some ideas that I have." And like I said, over time they're going to be more and more open to hearing that. 

So thanks for tuning in today. Thanks for listening. As always, if you're interested in ending defiance and disrespect in your teen, go ahead and check out the parentingyourteens.com website. There you'll find free trainings and a lot more information about how you can be the best parent in parenting your teens. 

About Christopher Taylor, MFT

Christopher Taylor, MFT is a teen expert, therapist, author, and speaker with 16 years of experience working with teens and families. He provides teen and family therapy services in Folsom, Granite Bay, El Dorado Hills and surrounding areas. Chris is the author and creator of the Back to Basics: Tayloring Your Teen For Success Program, consisting of the book, workbook and online course.