In The Loop with Andy Andrews, hosted by Andy Traub.
On this week’s episode, Andy answers a listener question about the best way to communicate with teenagers.
Listener question:
- When my daughter was 12, her three best friends moved away. Around that same time, another friend decided to tell her everything people didn’t like about her. We’ve been trying for the past three years to empower her again. She is now at a new school, but can’t seem to break out of the “new girl” frame of mind. What do we do as parents to break her out of this rut?
The most important thing you could do at this time is to be friends and talk to her. Really talk to her.
- Sometimes you will have to talk about why you are talking to her.
- A lot of times, kids this age tend to go to their room and put up a do-not-disturb sign.
- In spite of this, you still must talk to them.
It is important that you don’t teach your kids what to think, but how to think.
- We see this problem in our schools, but we tend to ignore it at home.
- Many parents sadly miss the opportunity to have long conversations with their kids about why they believe what they believe.
Kids will have conversations with you if they don’t think the answer will be a lecture.
- Giving kids the reasons and thought process behind the things you believe will create much more productive conversations.
- You need to be vulnerable sometimes and reveal that you recognize that you don’t know everything.
This is not to say that you should stop being an authority figure.
- You don’t need to be on “equal footing” with your child.
- But these conversations will allow you to teach your child how you arrived at these positions.
- Like it or not, at some point, your children will decide what they will believe, and you will have no control over it.
