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Adolescence
Are You Talking With Your Teens or Just Talking at Them?
Teens have many distractions that can make getting their attention difficult.
Posted January 30, 2024 Reviewed by Ray Parker
Key points
- Teens have competing demands on their attention, making it difficult to focus on longer conversations.
- Ask questions, listen actively, and show genuine interest in their thoughts and feelings.
- Patience is critical because building trust and establishing consistent communication may take time.
Do you ever feel your kids are not listening to you and just waiting for you to stop talking so they can go about their lives? You may feel that way because, at times, it's true. Adolescents are sometimes not very interested in hearing what we say, especially if we're trying to teach them something or share something we feel is important.
I've facilitated well over a thousand teenage therapy groups, and one of the biggest challenges is actually getting them to pay attention. We often feel we should be listened to because we're adults. After all, many of us had parents who demanded we show respect and pay attention to them.
Nowadays, with all of the distractions and media input teens have competing for their attention, it's a wonder they can concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes. As a result, the time we want to use to help instruct them on things we feel are important can be especially difficult.
Adding to this is that teens often don't think we have anything of value to share with them. They're much more interested in hearing from their friends than they are the adults in their lives. If we remember back to our teenage years, chances are we weren't all that interested in hearing what our parents had to say either. While this may be a normal part of emotional development, it can still be extremely frustrating.
If we remember, many changes happen during our teenage years. Kids are trying to establish their own identities in a number of ways. It can look like they no longer care about what's important to the adults. Whether it's their taste in music, their value systems, their view of the world, or a hundred other things, this can lead to them actively displaying a dismissal of our views as being out of touch.
The question then becomes, how do we get through to our adolescents and teenagers? As parents, we know we have important life lessons to share with them. We desire to protect them, yet getting our thoughts heard seems almost impossible at times. Yet, most teens can be reachable. The key to sharing our thoughts with them is first getting their attention. If they're tuning us out, we've lost before we begin. As much as possible, if we can put aside our hurt feelings when our children are being dismissive of our views, we can often create an opportunity.
While it's easy to get lost in hurt feelings, what if we looked at the situation more practically instead of emotionally? The first objective is to find a way for them to care about the conversation. After all, if they don't care, then our words may soon be forgotten, which can put them at risk. If we're tuned out, they could be missing important information to help keep them safe.
To combat this lack of caring about the conversation, ask them questions. Rather than tell them what we want to share, the first step is to get them to tell us how they're feeling; when we can accomplish that, they become invested in the conversation and can be more receptive to what we want to share.
Like most people, teens have an interest in talking about themselves. Paying attention and listening to them can help boost their confidence in knowing what they say has value. This can then open the door to more connected communications where they feel heard and understood. Once they open up and share about themselves, we can gain access to their listening and be more effective in talking with them.
Teens have a lot of changes going on in their lives. Often, they try to hide their insecurities by pretending they don't need anything from adults. They may even boast that they're mature now and no longer need the antiquated ideas of their parents. When they do this, they are often trying to establish their own sense of independence and, as such, may be puffing themselves up to appear more confident than they actually are.
If we understand this developmental process, as frustrating as it can be, we can find ways to give teens a "safe space" to confide in us and share how they feel. This may be an effective way to provide us access to their listening so we can help and counsel them without triggering their reactiveness. By doing this, we can be more likely to have open and receptive communications with our teens and have them actually listen to the information we want to share.
