Importance of Communication with Your Teen

Communication is very important if you want to have a good relationship with your teen. Teenagers that have good relationships with their parents are less likely to fall prey to negative peer pressure and drug and alcohol abuse and other problems such as depression and suicide. But how does a parent keep good communication with their child when the teen years are the time that most kids begin to pull away from their parents?

You can still have a relationship with your teen while allowing them to grow and expand and spend more time with their peers. You have to keep the lines of communication open to be able to achieve this. Teens want to try new ideas and have freedom to make their own decisions but they still want to know they have parents that care for them and love them.

You can encourage good communication with your teen by inviting sharing. When you see your teen after school or after she has been out with friends, ask her how she is going or how things went. Look her in the eye and show her that you genuinely care about how she is doing and not that you are trying to “nag” or interfere.

Give your child a chance to answer without saying anything and be sure to acknowledge her feelings. Too often parents make the mistake of thinking teenage issues are trivial or not important and when this message gets to your teen, how can you expect her to want to share things with you?

When your teen comes to you with a problem or complaint, you should encourage problem solving skills and independence. Ask her what she thinks should be done about it and what her opinion on the problem is. Ask her to share her thoughts on how the issue should be handled. Ask how she feels or what her reaction is to a specific problem or proposed solution.

Be sure you take the time to really listen to your teen if you expect them to come to you and talk to you about things. Use listening as an effective tool and let your child know that you are listening, that you acknowledge her feelings and that you care. Be attentive and be sure to encourage communication and discussion of values. Be respectful of your teen so she will be encouraged to talk to you again and again.

You need to talk to your teen as well so that she will listen to you. Take at least about 5 or 10 minutes each day to have a nice, relaxed conversation with your teen. If you do this every day, it will become habit and it keeps the door of communication open between the two of you. This is also a time to mention problems or issues before they grow or before they come up. Be specific during these talks and be honest and respectful to your teen. Your teen will then do the same back to you.

You can’t prevent every problem that might occur but having great communication with your child like this can help through those teen issues that will come along. If you are a parent your child will turn to when peer pressure and other elements turn them inside out, then things will likely stay that way all throughout their life.

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