You may focus on having big, important conversations with your teenager, but your ability to connect in those moments usually comes from the small, everyday interactions you have with them. The way you relate to your teen on a day-to-day basis can help to sort out any issues that crop up. 

It is natural to slip into unhelpful communication habits – bickering, nagging, or criticising – and this cycle can be difficult to break. Your teenager still needs your guidance and the boundaries you set, but you may need to be more strategic in how you get your message across.  

Your teenager needs to know you are interested in their lives, that you care and are on their side, even if you don’t always agree with them. You might need both skill and emotional resilience to keep offering support, even when they push back. Improving how you communicate with your teen can minimise the resistance. You can’t change who your teenager is, but you can change how you respond. And when you shift your behaviour, they often adjust theirs in return.

Open‑ended questions are a powerful way to make conversations with teens flow more easily. Starting up conversations with phrases like “How was your day today?” or  “What was the most interesting part of your day?” can help spark a real conversation and give them the space they need to open up about things that may be worrying them too. When teens feel invited into a conversation rather than pressured, they’re far more likely to share what’s really going on beneath the surface. 

Closed questions stop communication rather than start it. Closed questions are questions you can answer with a yes or no, such as “Are you going out?” Closed questions can suggest or even tell your teenager what you want them to hear. “Did you have a good time at school today?” implies that you expect them to have enjoyed school. If you use closed questions as a way of raising an issue, then it may look like you are making a statement rather than having a discussion.

Your children will feel more like listening and co-operating if you communicate assertively without blaming. ‘I’ statements are about being able to say how ‘I feel’ and what ‘I need’ clearly and directly. They help your teen understand you without feeling that they are the problem.  

If there is an issue you’re concerned about, it isn’t always effective to broach it with a ‘you’ message, such as: “You left the kitchen in a mess”. Instead try: “I was upset to find the kitchen in a mess this morning, because I had to tidy it up before I could make breakfast.”

If you want your teenager to feel relaxed and happy about sharing their worries or feelings with you, it helps to be open yourself. This doesn’t mean offloading your teenager with worries that would frighten them or be inappropriate for them to know. You may be able to share experiences that are relatable for them so they can understand that you have been through something similar.

You may still feel that your teenager is not experienced enough to cope on their own, but one day soon they will be. Treating a teenager as an equal does not make them arrogant or out of control, but encourages independence, trust and emotional intelligence.

One way to lose your teenager’s trust or belief is to tell them to do one thing while breaking the rules yourself. Modelling good behaviour to them will always be more effective than preaching it

As a parent, you might feel you must guide, instruct and fix things for your teenager. It’s easy to see their lack of experience as a lack of ability. Letting them solve their own problems might feel scary at first but can help them important life skills. Listening without judging, criticising or taking over can help give your teen that level of respect that strengthens your relationship.

You can easily find things you dislike about your teenager, the messy bedroom, their attitude or treating the house like a hotel. But if that’s all you focus on, getting along becomes harder. Make a conscious effort to notice what you do like about them, their energy, kindness, humour or enthusiasm. Keep those positives in mind whenever you feel yourself getting angry or upset about something they have or haven’t done. Give them praise and thank them regularly as this can help them feel appreciated and valued.

If you want to communicate with your teenager, it’s important to think about what you really want to say and choose your moment. If you want to tell them how fed up you are about something, having that conversation when they are tired or fed up, or already in a mood, will only lead to arguments. If you just want a chat, doing so when they are in the middle of homework due in tomorrow will probably annoy them. Consider the purposes of the following types of conversations.

When you are trying to communicate with your teenager, it can help to be able to name both your feelings and theirs. Get some bits of paper and write on them as many different feelings as you can think of, or words to describe feelings and emotions, such as sad, happy, or worried. Stick them on a wall or spread them out on a table. Then think about them, talk through the words to best describe how you are feeling. Once you know what it is, you can discuss why the feelings are there and what you can do about it. Simply acknowledging the real emotion and realising that you don’t have to feel guilty for feeling that way can help and often makes the feeling diminish.

This article was reviewed by Jeremy Todd, Chief Executive.