Communicating with your teen: Tips to avoid emotional outburst
Your relationship with your teens depends on your ability to communicate with them. When communication goes wrong, explosions may occur and the relationship may suffer.
Here are some simple communication tools that can help keep your relationship with your teen on track
1. Be aware of your voice inflection, facial expressions, and body language
Depending on how it is said, a seemingly straightforward request like “Could you tidy your room today?” might have a wide range of meanings.
When a person’s body language and verbal communication don’t match, nonverbal communication usually wins out in the listener’s perception.
No matter what you’re saying, if your voice sounds pleasant but you’re frowning and your arms are crossed, the listener will assume you’re upset.
Try to manage your body language. If your teen is sitting do not stand. Don’t cross your arms. Have a comfortable posture and a neutral or positive facial expression.
2. Stay focused on your message.
While you’re talking, your teen may try to change the subject. That’s a sign that the issues you two are experiencing, are not related to what you’re fighting about, but about the fact that you’re fighting.
Your teen is probably hurting for some reason and taking it out on you, probably because you’re a safe place to do so.
Ignore the attempts to distract you. Just calmly continue making your point and come back to the other subject later, if doing so is appropriate.
3. Simplify your massage
Trying to think logically while experiencing a storm of emotions, is like trying to do a math problem while waiting for some one you love comes out from surgery.
To avoid facing an emotional storm, keep sentences brief, simple, clear and straightforward. Give no space to misunderstanding.
4. Have a mutual “take a break” signal
Stop the cycle of conflict by indicating that you need a break whenever one or both of you are feeling overwhelmed or the discussion seems to be getting out of hand. A teen loses the ability to reason once their emotional high hits a score of 6 on a scale of 1 to 10. Both verbal and nonverbal signals are acceptable.
You could use code word like “banana.” Or ask for a time to think “Let’s speak when I have time to think about things.”
5. Avoid black or white thinking and stop using the word “but”
Limit your use of phrases like “always” and “never”. Do not use “but” at all. Instead, use “both” or “and.” The “but” kills the complement, for instance, if you say, “I appreciate that you got all Bs, but you failed English.” Try, “I’m glad you received all Bs. That is just wonderful. I’m really pleased with you! You also received a F in English, I see. What took place there?
6. Stop blaming and use I instead of you
“I” instead of “you,” lets your teen know how they made you feel. So rather than saying, “You are a selfish person for eating all the chocolate,” say, “I feel disappointed to find out all chocolate were gone. I had really been looking forward to eating them.” This style of communicating.