Let's Talk About it 101!
Written by: Jane Straub, CornerHouse Training Director
Made possible by: Northmarq
We live in a world where information comes from endless sources. We also know that not all information is correct or helpful. As a parent, caregiver or a trusted adult in a child’s life, it is our responsibility to provide information that children and adolescents need. That sometimes includes information and conversations that may seem scary or uncomfortable.
When it comes to keeping children and adolescents safe and healthy, we need to overcome discomfort and our own thoughts of scariness. At CornerHouse, our goal with our Prevention Education is to help you on that journey. There are many tools and skills that we need as parents and trusted adults, that we may not have. Welcome to “Let’s Talk About it 101”!
Create everyday opportunities to talk to youth about ANYTHING. We tend to use closed-ended questions that elicit 1-word answers such as “How was your day?”, “How are you feeling?” “Did anything happen today?”. As a parent, I can tell you that very rarely did an answer of “yes, no, fine, or nothing” provide any helpful information or keep the conversation going.
Here are some ideas that may help to open conversation: (hint: some are actually statements/not questions)
“Tell me all about your day today.”
“Tell me more about that (insert what child states)”
“What else happened?”
“What was the best part of your day?”
“What was the worst part of your day?”
“What’s going on that you are really excited about?”
“What’s going on that you are (worried, anxious, frustrated, angry) about?” (use age appropriate feelings)
The goal is not to pepper your child with statement or question after question but allow the child to be talking more than you are talking. When you let your child know that you are truly listening, that you want to hear about their day and experiences and that you do want to hear about the good AND the bad, it invites the child to share. This does take practice. If you have a teenager when you start this, they may look at you say, “what is going on with you?” That is because this is very different than how we usually speak WITH children and adolescents.
If you find your child or adolescent seems uncomfortable or apprehensive about sharing, here are some things that you can say:
“Anything you want to say is okay.”
“There is nothing that you can say or do that will ever stop me from loving you.”
“There is no problem so big that we cannot solve together.”
“If you do not feel comfortable talking to me, let’s create a list of trusted adults that you can talk to.”
Silence, secrets, shame and isolation are where fear lives. Sometimes children and adolescents keep information inside of their head and the problem may grow in there all alone. They may be afraid of upsetting or disappointing us. They may not know how to start the conversation, which is why as adults, we will say “Let’s Talk About it!”.
We want youth to come to us or other trusted adults for help and accurate information. There are many places and people that should not be providing information to our youth!
One more helpful statement:
“If I don’t have the answer to your question, I will find the answer!”
Of course, we do not have all of the answers. Surround yourself with people who support you as well!
If you would like to learn more about CornerHouse Prevention Education, please contact info@cornerhousemn.org.
In the meantime, good luck creating some wonderful conversations. Here are some resources that we believe are helpful:
https://keepconnected.searchinstitute.org/free-downloads/
https://childmind.org/article/tips-communicating-with-teen/
https://www.pacer.org/parent/php/PHP-c234.pdf