How to Have Difficult Conversations With Your Kids

Long ago when I imagined parenting my children, I thought I’d be prepared for anything. I was a middle school teacher, after all. At that point, I’d had a couple hundred kids come through my classroom. What could my children present to me that wouldn’t be something I’d already seen? I thought I’d heard everything and surely it would be a breeze.

My imagination couldn’t foresee that these many students were behaving a certain way because they were in school and I was their teacher. Many, if not all, had separate and unique emotions, feelings, behaviors, and experiences in their homes and with their parents. All this seems painfully obvious to me now. Call it a blindspot, if you will.

But through the years of teaching, I’d had many a conversation with my students (most of them overwhelmingly positive, thankfully). But even the difficult ones went a certain way. My authority as their teacher was received much differently than if I was their parent. Their comfort level with me was not in the same time zone as with their parents. Turns out this was a perspective I lacked at the time.

So as I begin to engage in conversations of all kinds with my growing children, I find myself relearning what is required of me to not only navigate the topic at hand, but to do so as a parent and as a parent who desires to raise those children to be fully-functioning, virtuous, and mature young men and women — a tall task if you weren’t aware. Not only does it carry the weight of their current development, but it also bears some responsibility for their future selves. These are formative moments and ones that I want to be fruitful in the most positive ways.

I am certainly not batting a thousand, but I do know that I am working very hard to do what I can to give my kids what they deserve right now, whether they like it in the moment or not. And boy do they sometimes not like it in the moment. What I want to share now are a few points I’ve added to my mental conversation guide.

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Privacy

A word you may not be familiar with if you have several kids — I get it. But having the talk in a full car on the way home from school is less than ideal. In addition to giving you both more time to process thoughts and emotions, waiting until later when there is a separate room or moment available is almost a requirement. And God forbid if one of the other kids adds his or her own two cents.

Listen

Never miss a good opportunity to shut up, I often remind myself. This applies to most areas of my life but has been very helpful when I talk with my kids. I do not mean to suggest letting your child run the conversation as it will quickly digress into something unrelated to the topic at hand. You’re the boss and don’t give that title up. Not every statement from your child needs a rebuttal. Not every claim needs a correction. Responses can turn into buckets of gas on the fire if you’re not careful. Sometimes the best response is silence. It gives you time to consider what you want to say and it also removes the supply your child is occasionally wanting to escalate the dialogue. You both lose a screaming match.

Calm

This one is the hardest for me. I swear my kids have a list of all the things that send me over the edge and they play the greatest hits each time we have one of these talks. I have literally reached a point where I’ve forgotten what we were talking about in the first place. Getting upset can directly make the whole effort a waste of time and set both of you further back than when you started. I cannot control my kids’ emotions, but I can definitely control mine. And as I’ve found, controlling mine usually leads to my child controlling theirs.

Rules

I recently started these conversations by laying out the ground rules. We speak in calm voices. We can disagree without being rude. We give the other person respect and attention. We don’t interrupt. Not that these things ensure a perfect dialogue, but it’s much easier to reel things back in when you’ve agreed on some standards beforehand.

Truth

Kids don’t need to know everything or even a lot of things, but they deserve to be told true things. What’s age-appropriate for one of my friends might be wildly inappropriate for my 11-year-old. And what’s acceptable for her may not be for my son who is 8. I’m not going to share with my child that I don’t want her to have an iPhone because she’s statistically far more likely to develop anxiety and depression. I will tell her that not having a phone right now is best for her health and development, even if some of her friends have them. I’m also not going to say that she can’t have one simply because I said so. Truth breeds trust. Even if you feel like the biggest hypocrite telling them that they should or shouldn’t do something that you’ve done hundreds of times, tell them anyway.

Love

I tell my kids that I love them so often they are probably tired of hearing it, although I believe inside they are always grateful when I say it. Difficult conversations can only go well with an abundance of love, both spoken and unspoken. I even include it as a reason for my words and actions. I love my kids so much that I’m willing to have difficult conversations. I’m willing to risk being unpopular with them and others because I love them to that degree. You might feel like a broken record, but smother them with it anyway. Once I put this question to my oldest: “What would you say that is the thing I say the most?” I was waiting for “hurry up,” “make your bed,” or “stop fighting”. She thought for a second and said “That you love me no matter what?” The smothering is working.

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These points aren’t a surefire, guaranteed way to make difficult conversations easy, but I promise your talks will be more fruitful if you do your best to honor them. Have the difficult conversation, even if you do it poorly. A mediocre discussion is far better than none at all. Whatever form their emotions are taking, they are looking to you for stability, guidance, and love. If nothing else, give them these.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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