Hi, I’m Ilia Jones, licensed professional counselor in Suwanee, Georgia, and I want to talk to parents of teenagers about how to have a close relationship with your teen. Even though most parents want to be close to their teenagers and want to have good conversations, a lot of times our style of communication is very one-sided. We want to ask questions and we want our teenager to answer the questions, and that ends up sounding like an interrogation.​

So, it is really important, first, to add a lot of time to how long you want to talk to your teenager because it does take teenagers oftentimes 20 minutes or so just to warm up to the idea of telling stories about their own life. I also recommend that you tell some of your own stories about your day or what you’ve been doing or something funny that happened, because that also tends to make the conversation feel more two-way and it doesn’t feel like you’re just asking questions.​

Oftentimes we’ll ask kids, “How was school? How are your friends? Who are you dating?” And a lot of times teenagers will think that that is a trap – that you’re just asking them a question so you can then lecture them about their grades or their choices in friends or whatever they’re doing. And so they don’t want to answer any of these questions because they don’t want to be lectured.​

So, in order for you to build trust that your intent is really just to stay close and connected, I think it’s important for you to tell your own stories, for you to talk, and for it to not be a question and answer period time. And that is going to take more time than you intended. So, keep that in mind. And I hope this is helpful. Please like or subscribe if you want to see more of my content.