How to talk to your teen about difficult topics, according to an expert
From social media to mental health, parents have many worries when it comes to their teenagers — but often struggle when it comes to starting a conversation.
In a recent survey, Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation found some of parents' top concerns include their kids future, experiences at school and online, physical safety and mental health.
"This was really interesting in the finding — they worry about this, but they also find those to be extremely hard conversations to have with their kids. So parents are holding both of those things at once," psychologist Lisa Damour, who also helped with the research, said Wednesday on "CBS Mornings."
The good news? There are ways to have successful conversations about these things. Damour shared a few tips to help parents get started:
Let the child lead: "Wait for the kid to bring it up," she said. "Teenagers talk about these things in front of us, often about their friends, so if a teenager talks about a friend's mental health concern, a parent should take it seriously, be interested, and then say, if you had a concern like that, would you feel you could talk about it with me, right? So the door is open, you walk through it.
Avoid sneak attacks: "Teenagers do not do well with sneak attack conversations," she said. "Instead, consider saying, 'I'm thinking about the upcoming school year. I've got some ideas. Can you talk now? Can you talk in the next couple days?' Give them a little runway."
Don't be put off by eye rolling: "Teenagers roll their eyes. It is sometimes how they establish their independence. So if you're saying to a kid on the way out to a party like 'no drinking,' and the kid rolls their eyes, take that as 'I heard you.'"
Keep it short: "Teenagers can't tolerate long conversations about charged topics. I think you've got 45 seconds to a minute sometimes," she said, adding these talks are not "one and done." "These are conversations you're in and out of all through development, how kids think about it changes. What they're into changes. So you just want to be touching base over time."
Turns out teens want to talk these topics too, according to the survey. Among the kids surveyed, 92% said talking about mental health is helpful and 83% said the same about social media.
With social media, however, there's oftentimes a disconnect between teens and parents.
"These are some of the hardest conversations to have with teenagers, and it's because they know adults don't understand social media and often don't like it. So I think as soon as the adult says the word social media, teenagers are thinking, 'How do I get out of this conversation with my phone as fast as possible?' So it shuts down right before it starts," Damour said.
To prevent that, she suggests coming with curiosity.
"Consider saying something like, 'Talk to me about social media. Tell me what you like, and then tell me what you don't like, and then tell me what have you tried to minimize the downsides of what you don't like? And how can I help?'"
Damour also says to consider what teens want from parents in these conversations.
According to the survey, it's not advice — which ranked low on the list. Instead, teens want to be heard and taken seriously.
