How to Make Their Day #2: “Tell me more about that.”
Believe it or not, the vast majority of teens and tweens on our nationally-representative survey said they wanted to be able to share things with Mom and Dad. The issue is: they want to share them on their own terms, without feeling like they are getting yet more advice from our deep stores of parental wisdom.
Without realizing it, when a child (of any age) shares something emotional—they were bullied at school, the teacher was unfair, they messed up in front of the coach—we parents have a pattern. We are so emotionally invested and want to help our child, that we jump into how to help them. (“Well, when you see the coach tomorrow, why don’t you ask if you can work through a few reps with them?”)
That’s not what our kid is looking for. As we will probably hear quite forcefully when they say, “You never listen to me!”
We are puzzled. (“Of course I’m listening! I’ve been listening for 10 minutes!”) But what we don’t realize is that our child is wanting us to listen to their feelings. They need to work out all these tense, jangling, upset, emotions and what they most need is to hear us say, “Wow, tell me more about that. What happened then?” They need to hear us say, “That must have been really hard. I’m so sorry that happened.” That is what they need to feel heard.
It is hard for us to essentially just shut up and draw out the feelings, but it will leave them feeling SO much better!
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