Your Questions Determine the Responses You Receive - 2 Min Tip #62

Hi – Sue Blaney here with your Parenting Tip from Parenting Teens Info.com

My tip this week is Your questions determine the responses you receive >>Listen

Have you ever been frustrated with the one-syllable response from your teen? “How was your day?”  “Good.” “What did you do today?”  “Nothing.”  You know the routine – probably all too well.

Believe it or not, your teen may not be intentionally responding this way to make you crazy. The problem may be in the question… so let’s consider how to ask questions that yield better responses.

An open-ended question requires an answer that is longer than one-word.  It will tend to be wider or more general in its scope, so that a really simple answer isn’t going to work. Here are some examples:

•  “Now that school is out for the summer, what are you looking forward to the most?”
• “Tell me about…?”
• What do you think about….?”   

An open ended question might begin with “Why…?” or “How…?”  Try to begin with broad questions and move toward the more specific as your conversation progresses.

Here are some more examples…

• Rather than saying “Do you get along well with the boy you are babysitting?  You might get a more detailed reply if you say “Tell me about the little boy you are babysitting."
• Rather than saying:  “Are you going to the pool in the morning?,”  you might say “How are you planning to spend tomorrow morning?” 

The easiest way to test your question to determine if it is a good open-ended question is to try it out in your head and see if a one-word response is possible.

I do recommend that you take note of what works with your particular teenager. In my efforts to engage my son in conversation, he would sometimes get frustrated with me because I asked too many questions of him when he wasn’t in the mood to talk. So, remember that sometimes kids don’t talk to you because it’s not a good time for them – they are distracted, focused elsewhere, or they need to chill. Be sensitive and try to open up the conversation later on when they are more likely to want to engage with you. Effective two-way communication requires you to be tuned in to their needs, not just yours.

Thanks for subscribing to my Two-Minute Tips for Parenting Teens from www.ParentingTeensInfo.com   ……. ‘Til next week…I'm Sue Blaney