[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome back to this complex life today. I am answering the question. Why won't my teen talk to me? I get a variation of these question a lot. And parents often talks to me about asking their child questions. Like, how was school? How was your day? And maybe they get like a grunt or nod or a shrug and they pulling their hair out.

[00:00:22Marie: They just don't know what to do

[00:00:24Marie: today we're going to take a look at this common issue for families. Why won't my teen talk to me and I want to stress that this is actually quite common.

[00:00:31Marie: I get this a lot.

[00:00:32Marie: And it doesn't have to be that way. It is normal developmentally for tends to start to gravitate towards their friends. We know that their peers become a big part of their lives. They want to spend more time together.

[00:00:42Marie: They want to hang out with them. They want to go to them with their issues, their problems, or just spend time together. And. Move away a little bit from the family. part of that is normal. Where these can be a particular challenge. Is when the connection with the families isn't strong.

[00:00:55Marie: So if peers are pulling them towards them and parents don't have that connection, then we can in encounter some issues, we can encounter some challenges when friends are the ones who aremore influential and teens going to them for advice around big issues, be concerned and they've got their ear rather than the parents.

We still want, teens to be able to go to their parents for comfort, for support and for guidance and not run away from them. There are a number of reasons for that, and I'm going to go through some of them today. But one of the big ones is that communication has broken down because of a lack of connection. And they've lost that connection with the parents. This can have a big impact, not just on the teen, but on the parents. It can leave parents feeling disconnected, rejected, alone, isolated, angry, and then they can respond from that perspective and can create a lot of conflict. We don't want that. So today I'm going to go through the top five mistakes that I see parents make when trying to communicate with their teen and then I'm going to share some ways that you can try to rebuild the connection.

[00:01:55Marie: Let's get started. The number 1 problem. I see. Is trying to fix things instead of listening. I know it might sound really strange, but people often don't want their problems fixed. They just want to be heard empathised with and validated. And if your teen is saying things, you're like, well, you just don't understand who just not getting it, or you never listened to me. You might be doing this one.

[00:02:19Marie: Often parents try to solve their teens problems. And this is not always what they want. They often want to feel, heard empathised with and validated and trying to jump in and fix the problem can actually leave them feeling frustrated, misunderstood. They might say things to you. Like you never listened to me, or you just don't understand.

[00:02:36Marie: And parents are sitting there like confused and perplexed. They didn't understand why their teen saying this. Now, this might've built up over time. It might not just be this week, this month. It could be that gradually over time. This has been part of the dynamic that's been created, where they've tried to share something and you've gone in and tried to fix it.

[00:02:53Marie: Maybe they've applied for a job. And they put in a resume and their local bakery listening to what they were saying. And so lots and lots of these instances can leave them feeling a bit disconnected and not want to come to you when things are bothering them because they don't feel heard.

[00:03:08Marie: They're not feeling listened to. Sometimes I see that parents really want to take away the anxiety or the sadness. And so they jump into try and fix it and that doesn't help. We don't want the problem necessarily gone. We want to feel that we're not alone in that problem. We want to be heard, empathise with and validated. So my number one. The number one mistake I see people make is trying to fix it.

[00:03:31Marie: So please, if that's you.

[00:03:32Marie: Try something different.

[00:03:33Marie: The second mistake I see people make and it's very much linked to the first is offering too many solutions and overwhelming them.

[00:03:41Marie: Now this links in with trying to fix it. Giving too many solutions and too many options can feel really overwhelming. And sometimes that can lead to a lot of pressure and anxiety. Not only can it feel overwhelming, it can also lead them to think that you don't trust them to make a decision that you're offering all these ideas. Like they haven't thought of it [00:04:00] themselves. And sometimes I see young people get all these ideas given to them and solutions and people jumping in and no one's ever actually asked them, what have you already tried?

[00:04:10Marie: What would you like to do? What have you considered?, or even just giving them a time, giving them some time to take a breath, to calm down or to manage their own emotions. And then. Problem solve together or nut things out or brainstorm.

[00:04:25Marie: Give them space. To do this themselves.

[00:04:28Marie: The third mistake I see people make is being judgmental. And I can guarantee that we've all done this. I do it too. I make these mistakes. Sometimes people say things or do things and you think how, how on earth could you have thought that that was okay. But frequent repeated. Acts of this. Can really rupture that connection.

[00:04:51Marie: And remember connection is one of the most important things for a relationship. Now, this is not just when they're telling you things about themselves, but it's when they're sharing things about their friends. . Think about them coming home from school and saying, oh my friend, Samantha. went out on a date with a boy and. She didn't tell her parents and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:05:12Marie: If you jump in with how dare she I cant believe going out with boys straight away, what would her parents think of her? And you start judging the friend that's already giving no child a bit of a gauge, you know, kind of the barometers kind of moving of where you sit on particular things. So that kind of judgment, even around something that they're sharing about a friend sits in the back of their mind, they kind of store that away. So try not to be judgemental.

[00:05:38Marie: It even counts when you're commenting on other people outside of the family home.

[00:05:43Marie: So this comes up a lot. When we look at things like body shape and size or academic achievement, or. Something like that. So if you're watching TV or you're reading a magazine or you're scrolling through social media in your front and you're commenting on other people's that are can't believe they would wear that or who would let them go out like that, or that person looks terrible in that.

[00:06:01Marie: What was she thinking? Those sorts of comments they do pile up and your teen is observing you and they're watching out for what you say, and they're forming an idea. This comes up a lot with some of the young people that I work with, they are very, very nervous about talking to their parents about gender or sexuality, because at some point they have very distinct memories of their parents commenting negatively to someone else.

[00:06:24Marie: Using derogatory or homophobic language to describe someone else or in a TV show or to describe a friend or a colleague or. Family member and they file that away. So they've just learned that that's not safe to go to that person for that, because that's going to be judgmental. And fitting in with that is also being critical.

[00:06:43Marie: So this happens a lot and life gets busy and chaotic, and you've got schools and school pickups and drop-offs and lunches and dinners and extracurricular activities and people working and pets to feed and all sorts of things happening. It can be really easy to just say, you never clean up, you never do this.

[00:07:01Marie: You don't do that. You're always running late. You never study. And they're all very critical things. We're looking at a particular action or a behavior, and then we're labeling the person as being somehow. Ill-equipped or inept

[00:07:13Marie: we want to focus on. That moment, that action, that behavior we're running late. We have to go.

[00:07:19Marie: Another part of this is criticizing your teen when they coming to you for support or to debrief. And I use this one example in a workshop, I ran recently. Where. Role-played being a young person who came home from school and said, oh, it's so unfair. I got held in at recess and the parents straight away jumped in.

[00:07:37Marie: Why'd you get held in. What did you do? What happened to the teacher's instructions? Why weren't you listening? Why weren't you following them and started picking it out and trying to figure out what went wrong? So they already didn't listen. They tried to fix it. They jumped in with solutions and ideas and none of that was helpful.

[00:07:53Marie: Instead, what I would have liked them to try is saying. That's disappointing what happened? [00:08:00] Ah, that's no good. And then maybe that's it. Maybe that's where the conversation stops or if the conversation is really kind of meaty and juicy and you're getting stuff out of it, you could say. What could you do different next time?

[00:08:10Marie: They would already know.

[00:08:13Marie: They might already have a really good idea of, yeah. I was probably mucking around too much and I got in trouble and that was a fair enough consequence. And that might be it, repeated acts of jumping in, of trying to fix it, of being critical of trying to figure out what they did wrong, that freys, that connection, and that connection is your biggest, most important piece in this relationship.

[00:08:34Marie: The fourth mistake.

[00:08:35Marie: Is not allowing dignity of risk. We need to be able to make mistakes. We need to be able to fall down.

[00:08:42Marie: If we're going to pick ourselves back up, resilience comes from actually falling down, dusting yourself off and getting back up. It physically. And metaphorically. We need to be able to trip over and know that, oh, I tripped over. I can dust myself up, keep going, swinging on the monkey bars full overdust myself off.

[00:09:02Marie: Give it another go. And the same goes with making decisions. Now I'm not saying let them run wild and do whatever they want whenever they want with no consequences or boundaries. Obviously there needs to be boundaries and the needs to be some form of consequence or guidelines around what will happen if they don't follow those parameters.

[00:09:20Marie: But there has to be some room to make some mistakes, to allow for getting it wrong, to allow for missing a deadline, to allow for running late and living with the natural consequence of that. There has to be some opportunity to make mistakes and to learn from it. Figure out as they get older. What you're comfortable to let them do and slowly, slowly, let them do it. That might be simple,

[00:09:43Marie: like cooking. Burning something, and then they learn or better not do that again.

[00:09:48Marie: We need to give them some opportunities to make mistakes.

[00:09:51Marie: Okay. So over-protective parenting can really hinder their ability to take risks. That are necessary for their development. And the last one, the fifth mistake that I see parents make is not changing their role. Not moving from manager to consultant.

[00:10:06Marie: I've talked about this a lot in previous episodes, and it's one of my favourite analogies.

[00:10:10Marie: And when your child's young, they need you in that manager or they need you. They're cutting. The crust of sandwiches, organising, play lunches, walk them to the school gate and somewhere at the end of primary school, early high school, they fire you from that role. And that can be really confronting to parents. Parents might try to call back connection.

[00:10:29Marie: They might feel hurt, rejected act, act out of anger makes snide comments or a whole bunch of stuff can happen. What you need to be able to do is to get rehired back as the consultant.

[00:10:38Marie: So that's still being a person of influence. That's still being important. It's still offering support and advice with permission when invited. And walking side by side with them and the. That shift can help preserve the emotional connection. And help them feel respected. That you respect their autonomy, that you respect their ability to give things a go and make mistakes. Rather than being micromanaged.. So, how can you rebuild communication and connection?

[00:11:06Marie: I'm going to give you some of my top tips for this. The first one is active listening. So this is listening way, way, way more than you speak. It could be that you paraphrase what you hear, ask open-ended questions. Like Tell me more. What did you do next? What have you already thought about?

[00:11:22Marie: What advice would you give a friend if they're in a similar position?

[00:11:25Marie: So it's opening up the dialogue. Don't offer solutions. Don't jump in and try and fix it. And if you're busy and they're coming to you with something really important and you're thinking, oh my goodness, I'm trying to cook dinner, listen to someone else, . The cat's hungry.

[00:11:38Marie: The dog needs to be walked. Now you're coming to me with important stuff. I just can't it's okay to say I can say, this is really important to you, and I'm really busy now, and I want to make sure that I'm really available for you. Can we talk about this after dinner? How about we go for a walk with the dog or I'll come up to your bedroom and we can have a bit of a chat then.

[00:11:57Marie: So feel free to put a pin in it, but [00:12:00] say, when you're going to revisit that conversation and you initiate that.

[00:12:03Marie: As part of active listening is empathy and validation. Now validation doesn't mean you have to agree with them. It means that you can understand their experience. If they're coming to you and saying, it's not fair that the teacher kept me in after class, you might think, well, the teacher was in their right mind, too.

[00:12:19Marie: You broke the rules. You didn't do your homework. You blah, blah, blah. That's fine. We don't need to say anything about the teacher. We can just say from their point of view, based on what they've shared and how. They see it, that it feels unfair. It doesn't mean you agree that it's unfair, but it can be that you say.

[00:12:36Marie: I can say why that would feel unfair.

[00:12:38Marie: Validate that. Understand that that's what they're going through. You don't have to agree. It doesn't have to be your version of the event. It doesn't have to be. Even what really happened, but it's what THEY felt in that moment. It's their perspective.

[00:12:51Marie: The second tip is to create space for autonomy. So that's given them more and more opportunities to take risks and to learn from their mistakes. And don't be critical when they make a mistake. So if you're going to give them a chance to maybe cook dinner once a week and they burn it, that's fine. I've burnt dishes. I've made mistakes.

[00:13:08Marie: I've burnt cakes. I've not followed instructions. I've wasted time and energy preparing something that has turned out completely terrible. That's okay. Finding ways to help them. Make mistakes safely to give them opportunities to take on more responsibility and see what happens and learn from that is really, really important.

[00:13:28Marie: So if we can give them chances. To take risks in a boundaried way. They're going to learn that they can deal with it. They're going to learn resilience, and they're going to think that you trust them. And that's really important.

[00:13:40Marie: And the last one is to rebuild trust. So if you've actually noticed that you've done some of those things that I said before, really unhelpful some of the mistakes. It might be that you go and apologize for it. You might say, Hey yesterday, when you were telling me about your day at school, I jumped in with all these ways and ideas to fix it.

[00:13:58Marie: And I think I missed what you're really trying to tell me.

[00:14:00Marie: Can we talk about that again, or I'm really sorry. I'll try again better. Next time. You can actually overt the things that you got wrong and show them that it's actually okay to take accountability for something and to apologise when you don't get it right. So I hope you enjoyed that.

[00:14:16Marie: This is part of a, mini-series all around connection and you can download the free ebook. My teen won't talk to me. And if you're interested in learning more, come and join me in my connected teens program. It's a six week parenting course. Incorporating all of these value based exercises and activities in getting you thinking about your parenting style, how you were parented and how you would like to parent.