Understanding Adolescents
3 Relationship Characteristics and 4 Tips for Talking with Teens
Adolescents and parents grow frustrated by middle school peer relationships. Use these four strategies for talking with your middle schooler. Learn more about adolescence
Middle school kicks relationships between kids up to a whole new level of ambiguity. If you had a hard time understanding the rhyme or reason behind these relationships before, it will likely seem even tougher as the kids become bonafide teenagers.
Before you decide that your middle schooler is definitely more challenged by friendships than the other kids, check out the following three common characteristics among teenage friends:
Three Common Characteristics of Teenage Friends
- Best friends, mortal enemies. It’s not at all uncommon for friendships and social groups to change from day to day in middle school, often without warning or explanation.
- Phone call fiascos. What starts out as a five-minute phone call between friends can quickly mushroom into an evening-long, drama-filled call.
- Appearance changes. In an effort to fit in with a certain group, adolescents often change their physical appearance to look like other members of the group.
Smart Sleuthing: Learn More About Your Child
When it comes to talking about the details of their friendships (and many other aspects of their lives), most middle schoolers develop and fine tune their ability to use selective silence when parents ask questions – with attempts at conversation met by one word answers or even no response at all. As their frustration grows, many parents settle for conversations that more closely resemble a game of twenty questions than a quality discussion.
Talking with your child doesn’t have to turn out that way, if you follow these four tips for opening up the lines of communication:
Four Tips for Talking with Your Child
1. Wait and listen. Instead of dominating each attempt at conversation with your own questions, try to say less and let your child do more of the talking. For example, during the next week, let silence fill the air during car rides home from school instead of immediately asking questions. You may have a couple of quiet rides, but eventually, your child will likely share a comment about the day. A lot of kids actually like to talk if given the opportunity. What they don’t appreciate are rapid-fire question sessions and the continued probing of what they perceive are nosy parents. In time, your less-is-more approach will be rewarded by a more talkative teen.
Parent Pointer: Though it’s normal for teen friendships to change frequently, the effects of those changes on the developing psyche of a middle school student can wreak havoc on his or her emotional stability and, subsequently, affect the ability to learn and achieve in school. Be on the lookout for severe changes in your child’s behavior caused by his or her friendships.
2. Ask “how” questions. Questions that begin with “how” give ownership of the conversation back to your child. Asking, "How did you do that?" or “How did you find out about that?” sets the stage for your child to take control of the conversation.
3. Observe from a distance. Observing is different than hovering: while observing casually from a distance will provide you with all the information you need about your child’s social circle, hovering over your child by following him or her onto and around the school campus will almost certainly embarrass both your child and you.
4. Make your home a no-cell zone. Making cell phone use off-limits at home means all social calls must happen on the house phone. While this doesn’t make listening in on your child’s phone calls OK, it does give you the chance to keep an ear tuned to the first few minutes of the conversation – just long enough to find out who’s calling and why. If you’re genuinely concerned about what you hear, simply saying “Let me know if there’s anything you want to talk about” may be enough to get your child to open up about the call.
