Parent: How was your day?
Teen: Fine. How was yours?
Parent: Mine was good. I had a couple of hours to relax today, which I totally needed.
[Parent: “Mine was good too.” If this is all that the parent says, conversation can easily end here.]
Teen: That’s good.
Parent: Do you sometimes feel like you’re doing too many things and need time to chill like I did today?
Teen: Yep… like now.
Parent: Yeah?
[Parent: “Why now? What’s going on? Can I do anything to help?” These questions can feel intrusive to the teenager at this point, leading to possible shut down in communication.]
Teen: There’s too much stuff I have to do, like papers, tests, work, you know, the usual.
Parent: That sounds like a lot.
[Parent: “That’s nothing. If you can’t handle that, how will you be able to handle real life?” These comments minimize and deny the teenager’s experiences.]
Teen: I guess. Everything is due this week. I hate that teachers make everything due at the same time. Why can’t they space things out?!
Parent: That would be easier, huh?
[Parent: “You need to learn to deal with this better. Life doesn’t work the way you want it to. If you had listened to me and planned things better, you would not be in this mess now.” While what the parent says may be true, she no longer has a conversation partner.]
Teen: I take it one step at a time.
Parent: Sounds like a smart strategy.
[Parent: “That’s not enough. You need to have more specific short-term goals to get you where you want to go. This is what I do when I have a lot going on at work. I first…blah blah blah.” If the teen wasn’t stressed before, he is stressed now, having had this very frustrating, unhelpful, disconnecting interchange with his parent.]
- See more at: http://fulleryouthinstitute.org/articles/conversations-between-parents-and-teenagers1#sthash.TckwNQlh.dpuf