When Your Teenager Will Not Talk to You
For a stretch when a teenager has gone quiet and every question makes it worse. It trades the interview for one ordinary comment a day, moves the talking sideways into a car or a walk, and keeps your first reaction off your face.
Teenagers · Parenting · Communication · 9 items · whenever you need it
The checklist
- Say one ordinary thing a day with no question in it — a comment is easier to answer than an interview.
- Take the conversation sideways — a car, a walk or the dishes beats sitting face to face.
- Ask about the thing, not the feeling — their game or their friend opens the door wider.
- Let the silence last longer than is comfortable — most of what you want comes after the pause.
- Keep the first reaction off your face — one wince teaches them what not to bring you.
- Separate the rule from the relationship — a curfew can hold while the warmth stays.
- Say what you are not going to do about it — not telling anyone buys more than a promise.
- Make sure one other adult is around — an aunt, a coach or a teacher counts as reachable.
- Say the door is open and then stop saying it — repeating it turns it into pressure.
Use this checklist Free account: tick items off and keep each day's record.
How to use it
Run through it whenever you need it, honestly and without scoring yourself. A checklist is a way of noticing, not a test: an item you cannot tick is information about the day, not a verdict on you. Over a few weeks the pattern of what gets ticked and what does not says more than any single pass.
With a free Theraglee account the checklist remembers each pass, so you can look back. Without one, you can still read it here and keep your own copy.