Questions to ask a teenager to start an important conversation
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
I spend my entire working day, and many hours afterward in extracurricular activities, with teenagers. This is a remarkably bad question. None of the questions, to be honest, is very good, but this one in particular would earn you a straight-up blank stare. It’s good to ask kids direct, deep questions, but they have to believe—-like feel in their guts—-that no matter what they tell you, you will still be there for them and you won’t judge them. Especially when kids are doing something they know is dangerous or harmful (like, say, cutting or acting out sexually). And if we’re completely honest, kids are often most afraid of telling their parents about that stuff. I deal with this a lot, in part because of the environment my kids (at school) are growing up in leading to a shitload of trauma and in part because I am one of the adults in the building who truly gives a shit about their mental health and emotional well-being (there aren’t that many of us, unfortunately, out of 120 teachers). The single most common element every case of a kid confiding in me has is terror over what their parent(s) will say/do. So, these questions are, like, not exactly designed to elicit real answers.
The question at the top is a power play, a sales pitch, an ego boost that fakes reciprocity but keeps all the cards.
Notice how the vulnerability is kept in the past. "I used to be lonely, but now I'm fine! I don't need anything from you, but I bet you need something from me!"
You have a pre-existing equilibrium with your child (the parent asking the questions). Maybe it's good, maybe it's ok.
But you want more! You want access to their inner thoughts, and fears, and deep recesses that they barely understand themselves.
What are you offering in exchange for their lifeblood?
The way I took it was an invitation to share rather than some expectation or requirement. To me the author regrets having never been asked this question during childhood and learned the lesson, "Take time to ask open-ended questions." I didn't read it as, "demand access to your child's inner thoughts," but I find it interesting that you did.
There certainly are parents who do demand access to their children's inner thoughts l, but I didn't interpret the author as being one of them.
It seems we agree that this behavior from parents is bad, but disagree that the author is advocating for it.
I don't need to know about how they hoovered up lines of cocaine and went to fetish parties (I don't really think they did either, but it could have happened and I'd never have known), and they don't need to know what I do with my spare time.
Process of elimination is a very poor strategy for explaining other's behavior. Worse, much worse, than chance in my experience. I find even random selection to be better at behavior explanation over process of elimination.
Among all of the behavioral explaination tactics, I've found asking people to have the best predictive power. To that effect, you would have to ask those parents.
On the other hand, I do have kids who are gay who will not, under any circumstances, come out to their parent(s) because of the parent’s homophobia. And I see the damage it does to kids who have and who live with people who basically hate them. So that sort of thing is a tough nut to crack. Maybe it’s just because of my substantive views on sexual orientation, but it strikes me as doing it completely wrong if you hate your own kid because of it.
I guess it also matters that I deal with 9th graders, so they are just in that stage where they’re discovering themselves as people independent of their parents, and they’re afraid of being rejected or punished for things because they haven’t experienced dealing with Serious Life Issues in relation to their parent(s) yet.
Real conversations only happen when there's a mutual understanding of how others tick and when the most appropriate time there is to raise a likely-uncomfortable topic. I'm not going to generalise about women, but I can say that for many men, examples of such situations might include when they're out fishing, cycling, playing golf, or just doing any other hobby that allows one to be "distracted" most times with silence.
Silence is very awkward in sit-down situations where you're "forced" to converse, but not if there's another activity as the main alibi. It's okay to go out fishing and not catch a fish. It's okay to go fishing and not say a word. But it's also okay to start talking freely once both parties are ready for it at a future mystery time and location.
Perhaps women are culturally more comfortable going out for coffee or running errands together. For all the men I know that would be super weird.
Shame. We need to find new ways to just be together.
- Cooking with friends. Doesn't have to be coded female, just ask, if you're all excited about some nice chinese dish or nice cut of beef you got people will vibe with it
- Making music with friends. It takes a really long time, we almost never finish any recordings, and end up just chatting
- Playing dnd with friends (and sitting around drinking afterwards)
- generally, drinking
- card games. We don't bet, but im sure that would work too
- camping/hiking
- watching football/cricket/long sports together
Isn't child support a percentage of earnings?
Now imagine you're deployed and earning hazard pay when they set that initial dollar amount. Then a couple years later you're not earning that same pay because you're in the reserves. Now you have to work OT at your civilian job to make the payments and support yourself because the way the courts handle child support is ridiculous.
Your scenario is equally real for salespeople. Income is imputed based on last 3 years' earnings. If you get laid off and your spouse abandons you, you're expected to continue paying out based on your peak earnings. If the last few years were good to you, your next few will be hell.
It's not a good system but there aren't really any solutions that can't be gamed by the men.
Yeah, but it's basically at the whim of the judge. As you mentioned the gaming part, it seems they tend to be biased against many adjustments by thinking it's being gamed.
It's absolutely ridiculous to think this is a good system though. In my mind, you're better off letting some gaming occur than to force people into impossible positions. Not to mention, the current system does nothing to curtail the gaming done by the lower income spouse, women who have multiple children from different partners, or true cost of raising the child vs what someone gets.
I can see how many teenagers wouldn't like to openly discuss sex or politics with their parents because they already know what kind of answers their parent want or don't want to hear. But I don't think the article claims that asking a few questions can undo years of bad parenting.
And majority of questions are not even opinion based.
> Turn the tables, suggests O’Malley, and let them think about an issue from another angle.
I'm finding it hard to take your interpretation on this one. Even the explanation calls it "turning the tables."
The word "rules" is enough to enforce the power dynamic. The subject of the sentence isn't "screen time," it's "rules."
The accusation of not reading the explanation is unwarranted.
and for video games, the kids do know the consequences of not doing their homework in school. so they are able to come up with rules that will allow them to complete their homework.
i won’t try to claim it always works but at least for my experience just being someone who is safe for younger people to share their ideas and thoughts with (starting with the “lighter” thoughts) seems to make the foundation for the kids being more willing to ask the tough questions about life on their own or to listen when you do want to share your own thoughts.
Oh, so “just already be good at talking to your kids”. Appreciate the advice.
Seriously, this is for parents that want to do a better job. Your advice isn’t particularly useful as it isn’t specific enough for people that aren’t already connecting with their kids.
Perhaps propose more specific actionable advice. You can’t listen to someone that isn’t talking. What should they ask or share to break the ice?
there is a new movie out that i think you'll enjoy. shall we go watch it?
or, i saw a shop with your favorite style clothes, comics, whatever on sale on the way home. you may want to go check it out...
taking interest in other people means paying attention to things that you can do to help them further their interests.
you should to the same with your partner too, btw, so that when the kids are there you already have practice. and you can also do it with your friends. taking interest is a big factor in any relationship. taking interest means you care about them.
But yes asking them the right way requires to adopt this attitude too.
I feel as if the feedback would be less obstructed the earlier the discussion takes place. My children are young and we have already had discussions above their age level on a handful of these topics.
Turns out when I get them to tell me about it without judgement, and show enough humility that they open up to me, they get excited about the things they love, and then you can't help but be a bit excited too. You get a better sense how what they think and how they think, which usually leads to genuinely good bits.
being interested in what other people enjoy is not insincere at all. it is in fact required if we want to build any sort of relationship with them.
you don't have to like it. and you don't have to watch all of it. but you can take an interest without being insincere.
Um. Yeah. My parents might have gotten me to answer here, but they had literally spent a lifetime building trust.
Being from a religious community, I saw a lot of authoritarian parents who had completely destroyed their relationship with their kids.
Good luck talking about getting your teen to talk about forbidden topics you’ll punished them for if they give the wrong answer.
Le climate change is surely the issue parenting should be concerned with.
This comes from both the "climate change is a hoax" and "we're all going to die" extremes of the debate and everywhere in between.
So a parent seeking to check-in with their kids on the topic seems kind of obvious.
Yeah, as a teen that would be fucking weird, I'd only be able to respone with sarcasm.
Otherwise, just tell them the lie that you can own a home if you work hard for 30+ years.
If you're still breathing, it's never too late to start a trust...to ensure that their dream of homeownership is not achieved through inheritance powder.
DO NOT ASK TEENAGERS THIS.
Teenagers are thinking lots about climate change, and many of them, says Hannah, are quite terrified about what’s happening, so it can be really helpful to talk it through. “We need to take action – this is a very serious situation – but you don’t want your child to be fearful the whole time that we’re on the verge of extinction,” she says. Listen to their concerns and be ready to talk about what people can do to make a difference.
Hm ... take action ... extinction ... talk. That shall help.
Also, I don't get what you're trying to say by posting a few random words and a link to a comic. Tentatively trying to read something into it: that there is no fixing the problem and we should make "your child to be fearful the whole time that we’re on the verge of extinction"?
Hey, teenager, can you solve the problem where entrenched rich interests refuse to reform the world for our basic survial? Yeah, we can't, and in fact in the last 40 years, we've given the elite so much money and power that under our generational leadership we've made the problem(s) even worse.