I recently read Fourteen Talks by the Age of 14: The Essential Conversations You Need to Have with Your Kids Before They Start High School by Michelle Icard. While much of this doesn’t apply to my pre school kiddos, I always love a look at what’s to come.
I’ve compiled some notes below and FYI have taken Icard’s words from her books. These are all her ideas and in almost all cases her exact words. Read her book for more detail. For your free copy of the first chapter (loaded with so much good information) go to www.parenting-toolbox.com
Or if listening is your thing, here’s a bunch of podcasts with her as a guest.
A BRIEF Model for Conversations
B= Begin Peacefully
Here are some ways to begin peacefully and open up conversation with your kid:
- Start with an unemotional observation “So, it looks like report cards came out- I saw your grades weren’t as we expected.”
- Start by asking if your kid can explain things to you: “Your grades are different from what I expected. Are they what you expected? Is there anything you need to tell me?”
- Make a scheduling request so your kid doesn’t feel caught off guard: “Report cards came out today and I think we should debrief. Is before or after dinner better for you?”
- “Start peacefully and then be quiet and wait for your child to fill the space”
R= Relate to Your Kid
Here are some ways to relate to your kid so that he will listen to the rest of the convo:
- “It’s tough when you finally have to be honest, but I find it always feels better to stop hiding things from people who want to help us.”
- “This is hard. I’m sure you feel a bunch of emotions right now. Don’t worry. Together we can figure out where to go from here.”
- “I remember times when my grades dipped and if felt awful to get behind. It will take some hard work to pull your grades back up, but with focus and support you can do it.”
I= Interview to Collect Data
Here is where you get a better understanding of your kid’s version of the truth. He’s more likely to be honest with you if you’re setting yourself up to be an ally or at least an empathetic authority.
This is not a time to catch your kid in a lie or to build up questioning to prove your own point right.
This is a neutral fact-finding mission.
E= Echo What You’re Hearing
The echo step of the conversation is part validation, helping to pry open your kid’s min to hearing your suggestions (or requirements) in the next stage, and part comprehension check, making sure you’ve got the facts straight.
Try these:
- “It sounds like…” or “I’m hearing…”: “It sounds like you had an idea your grades were slipping, but felt like you could handle it on your own.”
- Summarize key facts: “Okay, so you though your grades were still on track and this comes as a surprise to you, too.”
- Use their words in a question: “Am I right that you feel like this is mostly the teacher’s fault?”
F= Feedback
The Feedback step is where you get to finally offer suggestions, guidance, or make new rules if yo need a firmer resolution.
Feedback should relate directly to the problem you’ve uncovered through interviewing and echoing. Do not pile on other problems you’ve been having with your child or escalate the argument.
Feedback might sound like:
- Summarize key downfall and state how to avoid it next time.
- If you can, start by asking if your kid is ready for feedback and then follow up with guidance: “Are you open to hearing what I think? Pause. “Okay, we need to … Tell me what you think needs to happen first and then I’ll give you my thoughts.”
- You may feel the consequence needs to be fast and firm
Nine Ways to Improve All Conversations with Your Tween or Young Teen:
- Become an assistant manager: “How can I support you?”/ “What do you need to be successful with this?”/ “I’m here to listen while you think this through.”/ “Would you like some feedback on this?”/ “Can I help you talk through your options?”
- Put on a “Botox brow”: Because tweens and teens can’t accurately read facial expressions, they’re forced to make assumptions about what others are feeling. Most often, they assume anger when they see a wrinkled brow.
- Master the art of playing dumb: When your tween knows everything, play dumb and ask question rather than lawyering up and mounting evidence to prove they’re wrong. Get curious.
- Appear disinterested: Middle schoolers are simply drawn to you when you are least available. For this reason, I suggest appearing less interested when you want to talk more.
- Avoid the ambush: To get the most out of even casual conversations, try asking your child if you can catch up with them at a later, specified time. Even better, give them a choice of times.
- Take your time: Unlike little kids, middle schoolers don’t need an immediate response from you to be able to learn from what’s happened. In fact, because they are so impulsive, teaching them how to slow down their reaction is beneficial. You might say something like, “Hmmm, I’m not even sure how to respond to that. I’ll get back to you in a few hours when I’ve had time to think.”
- Multitask: Generally speaking, an eye-to-eye conversation will get you some head nods and one-word answers at best, so put something in their hands or get moving when you feel like talking. Think Andy Griffith teaching life lessons at the fishing hole.
- Don’t talk at all: Some kids respond better to writing than listening. Can you trade spiral notebooks or use other technology to your advantage to maintain funny, informative text chats?
- Designate a proxy: You don’t have to be the one to have all these conversations with your tween. Let your child know that if they ever want to talk, you’re available, as well as Aunt/Uncle ____. This is a great way for your kid to develop that relationship, build trust, and have an added safety net.
12 Conversation Crashers That Apply to ALL Topics
- Don’t jump in too quickly.
- Don’t make assumptions about how your kid feels, has felt, or will feel.
- Don’t be vague.
- Don’t talk in absolutes. Avoid words like everyone, only, entirely, exactly, always, never.
- Don’t be indirect about what you need.
- Don’t make threats.
- Don’t be passive-aggressive. Avoid: “Lighten up” / “Fine” / “Don’t overreact” / “Whatever you want” / “You must have missed by point”
- Don’t be afraid to set boundaries.
- Don’t be tricked into proving yourself.
- Don’t make yourself the center of the story.
- Don’t use hyperbole.
- Don’t drag it out.
Without further ado…
The Fourteen Conversations:
Convo 1: Talking About Your Parent-Child Relationship
- In early adolescence, your relationship with your child should mature and will benefit from you making space for conversations that are simple and carefree, not always teachable moments. A good pathway toward mutual respect is prioritizing pleasant conversations
- Your tween will be more responsive to your attempts to connect if you explain ways you can both expect your relationship to evolve.
- As your child grows up, their preferences for handling emotions, conflicts, and problem solving will change periodically. Discuss preferences with your child about how to handle these going forward.
- It’s great to share, but don’t overshare. Share your personal values, feelings about your own experiences (but not theirs), hard facts about health topics, interesting memories, and some of the parts of your daily life they never get to see. Avoid sharing if you’re doing it to be impressive, scary, or manipulative. You’ll know you’re oversharing if you tell your kid personally stories about your own adolescence that you wouldn’t tell a boss or new acquaintance.
- Don’t expect instant gratification in this new relationship with your child. Your child will open up incrementally, over a long period of time. Stay the course. It will be worth the time and patience you invest.
Convo 2: Talking About Independence
- Giving kids more independence in their tween years keeps them safer than clamping down ever could. Tweens need practice to learn what’s safe and how to cope with new people, places, and situations.
- Your child will almost certainly think they’re ready for more than they can handle. That’s okay. Figuring out how to cope with their failures is an important life skill to start learning now.
- Adolescents seek independence in two ways: by isolating themselves from their family, and/or by exploring their community without supervision.
- Kids this age need to learn how to navigate public spaces and interact with strangers safely and with confidence.
- Parents who respect their young adolescent’s need for privacy have better long-term relationships with their kids. When kids feel their parents were overly strict or needy of their companionship though adolescence, they can’t wait to experience a normal amount of freedom. When those kids leave home, they disconnect from family for fear of being pulled back into codependency.
- You won’t find a broader range in maturity and social-emotional development than among kids between ages 10-14. As a result, some kids are ready for independence much sooner, or much later, than their peers. During these year, parenting tend to become more judgmental of how other people parent. Resist the urge to compare your rules to others’. There will always be stricter and more permissive families. Do what’s best for your family, and specifically for your child, and don’t waste any emotional energy on what other people choose for their.
- Tweens need limits. They should’t feel arbitrary to your child, because that feeling can lead to unsafe rebellion. When it’s time to say no, give you child reasons why and, more important, concrete ways your kid can show you they are ready for more responsibility and freedom.
Convo 3: Talking About Changing Friendships
- Becoming an independent adult involves a shift from being pleasing to your parents to being successful among your peers. This creates new pressure to be accepted by friends and classmates, and makes it harder for kids to cope with the changes that friendships naturally go through during adolescence. Only 1% of friendships formed in 7th grade last until 12th grade. Remind tweens that learning how to talk with new people and being open to new experiences will benefit them more down the road than finding a soul mate at age 12.
- Pop culture romanticizes teen friendships, increasing the pressure kids feel to find a best friend. Parent should normalize an honest portrayal of adolescent friendship. It’s not ideal, but it is perfectly normal, to feel like a misfit, or long for better friendships, or mourn lost friendships.
- When kids don’t want to maintain old friendships, teach them how to treat people with dignity, even if they aren’t going to stay close.
- Help kids see that they may not have one friend who is all things to them. Having different friends who fill different needs can be just as satisfying.
- Kids get defensive when you comment on their friends. Use other people’s experiences, in real life or in books/on TV, to talk about how good friends treat each other.
Convo 4: Talking About Creativity
- Creativity is a crucial aspect of successful life and not just for artsy types. Business leaders cite creativity as the biggest factor in success.
- Encouraging creativity in- get this- creative ways, will help build your teen’s resilience during the challenges of adolescence.
- Creativity changes in two important ways during early adolescence. 1st, tweens often turn their creativity inward, working on new ways to present themselves to the worlds. 2nd, creative play is often replaced with entrepreneurship. Encourage both.
- Technology isn’t just a mind-numbing void. It can be a creative outlet for kids to express themselves.
- One of the best ways to encourage creative thinking at home is to engage your tween in brainstorming as often as possible. They need to learn their best ideas are often hiding behind their worst.
- Look for ways to encourage creativity by extrapolating from what your child already enjoys. Yes, even if that’s video games.
Convo 5: Talking About Taking Care of Yourself
- Gentle reminders in the form of question, such as “Are you feeling worn out?” or “Is there anything you need from me to help reset?” can serve as pause buttons in a busy day. Help your tween take time to check in with their feelings, but don’t pressure them to share with you.
- Demonstrate to your family the importance of self-care by taking time to recharge your own batteries.
- Fret less about your kid not wearing deodorant but leave a lot of it around the house and in the car. Eventually, almost all kids figure this one out.
- Encourage your tween to develop strong coping skills by making a “Try This First” list and helping you make one for yourself, too.
- Between ages 12 and 16 boys gain 50-60 lbs on average.
- When it comes to food, the healthiest thing your child can do is learn how to self-regulate and eat intuitively.
- Young adolescents need at least 9 hours of sleep at night. You can’t make a person sleep when you want them to, so the best you can is create the most conducive environment for sleep and educate them about why sleep matters.
- When talking to your kids about substances like alcohol or vape, don’t preach, or spread urban legends. Instead, share clear facts and your expectations.
- Self-harm is not correlated directly with suicide, but it does require therapy.
- How you talk about suicide and self-harm matters a great deal. I can’t “crash course” this, s revisit this section as needed.
- Talk about suicide and self-harm in your home. Studies show no statistical increase in suicidal ideation from asking about suicidal thoughts. In fact, talking openly about suicide with kids actually improves their thoughts.
Convo 6: Talking About Fairness
- Make sure you and your child share an understanding of the term “fair.” Many kids think that fair treatment if equal treatment, while adults think fair treatment is when each kid gets what they personally need to be successful. You cannot evaluate fairness out of context.
- When a kids complains something isn’t fair, they usually mean they aren’t getting something they want or need. This might be valid and parents should investigate, but it often has little to do with what is actually fair.
- If you treat your kids equally, you may be treating them unfairly, because you’re not parenting to their differences. Many siblings are not alike and need different things from their parents.
- Kids will balk less at you treating them differently if you explain why and remain open to their feedback.
- To increase the odds your kids will perceive you as fair, be a clear communicator, especially with regards to punishment and rewards. When kids feel ambushed, they do not see you as fair, and when things feel unfair, kids feel right in fighting back.
- Older teens are more likely than younger teens to keep an open mind about fairness, considering other people’s intent and motivation in addition to their own perspective.
- It’s not easy for young teens to stick up for other people being treated unfairly. Be patient and recognize that taking small steps in the right direction is progress.
Convo 7: Talking About Technology
- Worry less about keeping up with trends and more about establishing a living, breathing philosophy around how your family will relate to technology.
- Don’t forget the joy and excitement technology has brought to your life. Remember the first technology that blew your mind? How did it make you feel? This is probably how your kids feel. Try to enjoy some of the same fun they’re having.
- Kids don’t love technology for its own sake, but rather for what is connects them to: people, conversations, and things they find fascinating.
- Have a Tech Family Meeting as a way to establish common ground, guidelines, and personal statements you can use to guide online behavior.
- Tools that are helpful are inevitably also harmful. Stay balanced when talking about technology. It’s neither all good nor all bad.
- Be kind to people who make mistakes online, just as you would someone who got into a car accident. We’re all human. We’re all still learning.
- Technology can be a happy, healthy part of a happy, healthy life. The key is balance.
- Not all screen time is equal. Encourage creative, connected use of technology.
- Technology is a hot-button topic for tweens, especially when they fear you’ll take it away at the drop of a hat. Ease gently into conversations and stay open to the pros and cons. When in doubt, ask your kid to teach you about what they know and love.
Convo 8: Talking About Criticism
- People are constantly telling adolescents what to do and how to do it. It’s important to recognize that everyone has different sensitivity to feedback, and to adjust your delivery to your child’s temperament.
- We all have to find a balance between not caring what others think of us, and being cooperative community members.
- Kids benefit from being able to differentiate from constructive criticism (meant to help you improve) and destructive criticism (meant to make you feel bad).
- Remove your emotions from any situation when you learn about negative feedback your child has received. This will allow them to focus on how they feel and how they will cope, not how you feel or plan to cope.
- When giving a critique to a tween, avoid offering your opinion on their performance. Think of yourself as n instruction manual, not an editorial page. Instead of giving your opinion on how they’re doing, just give them clear instructions on how to do a task.
- Research shows that traditional feedback (pointing out flaws) is not effective. People learn better when feedback highlights their strengths. We see more brain development when a person feels confident and competent.
- To help tweens cope with tough feedback, ask questions like “Which of your strengths can help you?” or “What has helped you before when you’ve faced a tough situation like this?”
Convo 9: Talking About Hard Work
You and your child both will benefit from exploring the root of their motivation. by talking about the different reasons for working hard, your tween can develop, at least intellectually, an appreciation for internal, positive motivation:
- Internal positive: This child works hard out of a desire to learn something new and feel a sense of pride
- Internal negative: This child studies diligently to avoid not knowing the answers and being embarrassed in front of their peers.
- External positive: This child is motivated by the end result of a good grade or a pleasing comment from the teacher.
- External negative: This child fears being punished by parents for poor performance and possibly losing privileges.
- Adults romanticize hard work (especially their own). It’s fun to reminisce and take pride in your efforts, but comparison (and complaining) don’t motivate tweens to work harder. On the other hand, kids take pride in their hard work when others do, too.
- Hard work is subjective and personal. Keep this in mind. For example, what comes easily to one child might be a huge effort for their sibling. Recognize the differences.
- You can help your tween build their own work-ethic philosophy by asking them the same questions you pondered in this chapter regarding hard work, including: To what degree do you prioritize mental or physical hard work over the other? How do you know when your efforts are effective or just keeping you busy without results? How do you balance hard work with enjoying relationships? If you work hard and don’t get the results you hoped for, is there still value in the experience?
- Explain to your tween the 4 types of motivation (see above) so they can come to a better understanding of what motivates them now, and how they’d like to be inspired in the future.
- Beware of burnout. If your child tells you they need a break from a beloved sport or activity, believe them. We can’t expect kids to trade the satisfaction of being happy, active, fulfilled adults for the narrow chance at early success.
- If your child is never satisfied with their own hard work and accomplishments, they may have an underachieving reward center in their brain. It may be possible to retrain this through therapy.
- Talk with your kids about how you cope when your hard work doesn’t translate into the desired result.
Convo 10: Talking About Money
- Talk less about saving money (which teens already understand and practice) and more about the emotional aspects of spending money an accumulating debt.
- Tweens use name brands as a way to telegraph their acceptability to peers during a period of their lives when they fear social isolation and often experience heightened loneliness and self-consciousness.
- Be translucent not transparent, about your family financial decisions. Keep personal financial information private, while still educating your kid about the general costs of mortgages, vacations, cars, health insurance, and other things they will need to understand as young adults.
- Set an example of being grateful for the things that you already have, not sad about the things you don’t.
- Retrain impulsiveness by asking your child their opinion on reasonable wait periods before spending, with suggested longer times for bigger amounts.
- Kids benefit from high-level understanding of how marketing and advertising work.
- Tracking expenses, even as early as middle school, can show how multiple trips to the food court can add up.
- As your tween learns more about financial responsibility, makes sure they understand the nuances of other people’s situations and their right to make choices for themselves without judgment.
Convo 11: Talking About Sexuality
- Teens report parent sex talks could be improved if they were more specific, provided guidance, and were collaborative.
- Teaching safety during sex talks correlates to less risk taking.
- The average age a person first searches for porn is 14. Get ahead of this by talking about pornography early. Don’t focus your message on pornography being immoral or gross, or you run the risk of shame mingling with developing sexuality. Instead, talk about how porn doesn’t represent real sex and the implications of that on a healthy sex life later in life.
- When your child wants to start dating (or whatever they call it) establish guidelines for what’s acceptable in terms of physical touching, coping with new emotions, and staying attentive to school, family, friends, and interests.
- Stay educated on new terms related to sexuality and identity.
- It’s normal and okay for tweens to label their sexuality. Labels may or may not last, unlike the feelings they get when you accept and support them.
- Talk about consent early and often, starting with nonsexual scenarios. Establishing rules about asking permission before touching someone’s things and articulating your own preferences for space and touch preferences are two ways to begin teaching consent at home.
Convo 12: Talking About Reputations
One of the best lessons you can teach your child when they inevitably make a mistake is how to deliver a good apology. Kids need better examples of apologizing with a growth mindset.
A good apology does not:
- blame other people for misinterpreting your actions
- blame others for feeling hurt or offended
- blame circumstances for clouding your judgement
- waste words convincing people you’re a good person who just made a mistake
A good apology does:
- explain what you did wrong
- acknowledge who you’ve hurt and how
- say what you will do differently
- accept consequences
- Adults send mixed messages about when and whether kids should care what others think of them. We also confuse kid when we say good reputations take a long time to develop and a moment to derail.
- Building a reputation can be a hard concept for tweens, who have a present-centric way of thinking about time.
- Gossip has a huge effect on reputation, and how adults respond to gossip is important. Ask kids questions to make sure they consider the whole picture and the full character of a person, instead of focusing on one mistake.
- Kids lie for lots of reasons and not all lies are created equal. Lying to protect a friend or space someone’s feelings, for example, is different from lying to hurt someone.
- As adolescents experience increased freedom and privacy, they lie less.
- Protect your child’s reputation by guarding their private mistakes. Don’t share details without their permission.
- Learn the components of both good and bad apologies. Practice making good apologies in front of your tween (see above).
- Taking, sending, and receiving nudes is now part of the modern adolescent experience. Not for all teens, but for enough that it merits its own conversation with regard to reputation. Be wary of sounding too heavy-handed and always lead with empathy. Yes, nudes can be reputation breakers, but less so if we understand that at the heart of these scandals are tender young humans who are trying to navigate new feelings in a new environment. Nudes: A Reputation Maker or Breaker: reinforce that feeling curious about seeing nude pictures is totally normal at this age. You’re not saying it’s wrong to be interested, just that too many things can and will go wrong. Be clear that if friends or schoolmates pressure your child to ask someone for a nude picture or ask for your child to send a nude picture, that’s wrong.
Convo 13: Talking About Impulsivity
- Impulsive behavior gets a bad rap, but impulsivity isn’t unhealthy or naughty. Without impulsive people, we’d have fewer heroes and innovators.
- You don’t need to squelch your teen’s impulsivity, but you should explain it to them and help them figure out which situations benefit from fast action, and which benefit from careful analysis.
- Impulsivity isn’t simply acting without thinking. More accurately, it’s “a form of decision making that is overly sensitive to immediate urges without adequate considerations of consequences.” Pause on that. Impulsivity isn’t a lack of decision making. It’s a form of decision making.
- Impulsivity during adolescence is a result of one of two things: the inability to delay gratification (which gets increasingly better over tie), or the drive to try new things (which peaks at around age 19 for boys).
- Tweens and teens should be given the opportunity to experience new situations independently. The surge of dopamine that comes from “sensation seeking” actually helps the teen brain develop and become capable of handling more complicated experiences.
- There is no need to harbor disproportionate fear for your impulsive tween’s safety or future success. Almost all people do impulsive (crazy/dumb) things growing up, and almost all end up totally fine.
- When reacting to your child’s impulsive actions, it’s okay if you evoke feelings of guilt, but be careful you’re not triggering shame. Focus on what they could do differently next time and remind them their actions represent what they did, not who they are.
- Use a triage approach for dealing with the aftermath of teen impulses: 1)immediate threats to health, 2) serious, but less immediate, dangers, and 3) possible complications. Handle anything that falls under the first category swiftly, but take your time figuring out the rest.
- You can’t change your child’s personality, but if they overthink things to the point of missing out on opportunities, you can encourage a little flexibility and even impulsivity by showing them how it’s done, and rewarding spontaneity.
Convo 14: Talking About Helping Others
- We all want to raise prosocial kids (kids who do thins for the benefit of others, not just themselves). Young adolescents are naturally self-centered (that’s okay!), but it means sometime they lack the capacity to think outside themselves. This gets better as they grow up.
- Work on developing empathy to get kids thinking outside themselves. Focus on the three ways we build prosocial behavior: helping, sharing, and comforting.
- Be careful not to “other” people who need help. Avoid using people’s misfortune to make your child feel grateful.
- Empathy ties closely with grit. Grit, the ability to trust yourself to get through challenges, is learned by tuning into your inner voice. That voice is nurtured through parental empathy.
- Being an upstander, someone who sticks up for someone else, is not as easy or straightforward as it sounds. Start with baby steps. If your child isn’t comfortable confronting a bully, they can privately say something kind to the target. With practice, they’ll be able to do and say more.
- Holidays with young adolescents always brings up feelings of loneliness for parents and a loss of “magic” for tweens. Try negotiating on important traditions with your tween, and be open to new ways they can create magic for others.
La Principiante 