How to have difficult conversations with your children

How to have difficult conversations with your children
By Michelle C. Brooks
Marriage & Family Therapy Intern

On Friday, May 18, 2018, in an art classroom, a gunman opened fire on Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas. In the aftermath, there were 13 injured and eight kids and two adults that would never again return home that Friday night ― it was the third mass school shooting of 2018.*

The following Monday, as I rounded the curve of my children’s school car line, a reminder of that ill-fated day flailed in the breeze: the school’s U.S. flag whipped in the wind only halfway up the flag pole, at half-mast.

It was time for a difficult conversation with my children.

I believe many parenting issues come down to the necessity of just having the conversation ― whether the issue is a favorite great uncle who just passed, to where do babies come from, to why they cannot have candy at bedtime. Having a conversation for me, as a parent, means I jump in to those murky parenting waters, without having all the answers, and do the best I can, because children do not expect, nor do they need parenting perfection ― they need connection.

Conversations are what cultivate connection, so here are five steps to help facilitate having difficult conversations with your children.

Step 1: Begin with an idea. Conversations by nature, are about being present in this now moment. So, have an idea, but beyond that, take the pressure off yourself to plan it all out or say the right thing. Instead, see where the conversation takes you and your children, let it flow naturally between you.

Step 2: Keeping it Real. If you stumble, bumble, and fall down through your thoughts, don’t sweat it. You are modeling for your children how to work through a challenging conversation which they will need to have one day. Particularly with tweens and teens, your ability to be real with them gives you credibility.

Step 3: Close your mouth, open your ears. Once you get the conversational ball rolling, close your mouth and open your ears wide. What they have to say may surprise you, impress you, and touch your heart. This is the stuff of memory-making moments. 

Step 4: If it ain’t a problem for them, it ain’t a problem. Just because you are paralyzed by CNN’s 24-hour news coverage and constantly refreshing your news feeds, they may not share your same concerns. Many times, I have approached my children to have a conversation about something that troubled me only to find out it was no big deal to them, so I immediately dropped it. No need to borrow trouble.

Step 5: Stoking the fire of conversation. Once you’ve got the conversational fire flowing, a thought or question is likely to come up later for your child, so before the conversation ends, let them know you are still available to talk later. And if they are bringing it up when you are knee-deep in deadlines, instead of brushing them off with, “Not now, I’m busy,” which will shut down the conversation, let them know that now is not the best time but that you really do want to hear what they have to say and would like to arrange a time to listen.

The best gift to give our children through any difficulty is one of connection. Having all the answers is not necessary. It is far more important that you just make yourself available for conversational connection. What difficult conversations do you want to have, and how can these five steps help you?

*Sources:
-- https://www.npr.org/2018/05/21/613117470/santa-fe-community-mourns-those-killed-in-texas-school-shooting

-- https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/21/us/santa-fe-officer-wounded-john-barnes.html