I ask my teenager how school went and get ‘fine.’ Ask what they did with friends and it's ‘nothing.’ They're otherwise cheerful, keeping up with responsibilities and chatting normally when they choose the subject. I don't want to turn ordinary teenage privacy into a crisis. Have you found that talking during car rides, cooking or shared activities works better than direct questions, or is giving some silence the right answer?
Responding when a teenager gives one-word answers but seems otherwise fine
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I got the best answers from car rides, not face-to-face questioning at the table. If I ask in the middle of a task, my kid talks more becaus...
I got the best answers from car rides, not face-to-face questioning at the table. If I ask in the middle of a task, my kid talks more because it doesn't feel like an interview.
Same here. The direct question gets the one-word answer, but if we're cooking or driving somewhere, the conversation usually wanders into the real details by accident.
I think the silence can be okay too, as long as it's not the only mode. Sometimes teens are just conserving energy, and forcing the issue ma...
One small thing that helped in our house was asking about the activity, not the feeling. 'Who did you sit with at lunch?' got more than 'how was school?' ever did.