Tips for communicating with teens; Samantha's story

Do you have trouble communicating with your teenagers? The flip response to that would be “Who doesn’t?”

We’ve found some tips from the American Psychological Association on how to communicate with your teens. Here are two ideas; we’ll share more in the future.

• Ask open-ended questions. Ask questions that require more than a yes or no response; this helps
the adolescent think through ideas and options (Hill & O’Brien, 1999).

• Avoid “why” questions. “Why?” questions tend to put people on the defensive (Plutchik, 2000). Try to rephrase your questions to get at what the adolescent was thinking rather than the reason for something the adolescent has said or done. For example, instead of asking, “Why did you say that?” say instead: “You seemed to be really trying to get across a point when you did that. Can you tell me more about what you meant?”

“Can you tell me more?” is one of my favorite questions to use when talking with anyone.

You can find these tips and more on page 16 of the APA’s report “Developing Adolescents.”
http://www.apa.org/pi/families/resources/develop.pdf

Meet Samantha and read her story about finding the right major for her.
Samantha's story

If your student is feeling lost or confused, give us a call. We focus on helping individuals find the right major for them in college.

Pam Scott, 404-248-9475
pam@armstrongscott.com
info@whats-your-major.com