How Do I Get My Teen Sons to Talk to Me?

Ask Lisa Podcast, Ep. 101: How Do I Get My Teen Sons to Talk to Me?

The Ask Lisa Podcast does not constitute medical advice and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you have concerns about your child’s well-being, consult a physician or mental health professional.

The following transcript has been automatically generated by an AI system and should be used for informational purposes only. We cannot guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the information provided.

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Reena Ninan
What’s your secret to winter? This is like the hardest part of the year for me.

Lisa Damour
This is so good because we come at this from such totally different angles like me, the Colorado kid and you the Florida kid, we see it very differently. I really get into bundling up. We have a mudroom, I have it all like laid out with the hats and gloves and the scarves and everything. We just lean into it. And you know, we’ve said this before on the podcast Reena, there’s no bad weather, there’s only bad gear,

Reena Ninan
you did change my perspective on that. But as a Florida girl, like I don’t like mud in the mud room. I don’t like to have to bundle up. I don’t like winter sports. So I’m trying I’m trying to be positive. But winter can be hard. So I think you got to find the things that motivate you like going to Florida gotta

Lisa Damour
lean into it.

Reena Ninan
So we got this letter asking about how do you get your teen sons to talk? That’s an issue getting kids to open up right, especially in the teenage years. Why is that so hard?

Lisa Damour
You know, there’s a lot going on. And I really love I want to hear this letter. I already love that. It’s asking about boys, because getting boys talking is different from getting girls talking.

Reena Ninan
I didn’t know that. Well. So here’s this letter, it says Dear Dr. Lisa, I’d love to get your opinion on how much I can expect my teenage boys to talk to me. They were chatty, sweet little kids just a few years ago. And now they’re 14 and 16. And find it difficult to string together coherent syllables. I really try not to grill them, and try to just engage in light conversation. And sometimes it’s just fine. But other times I get just a grunt or okay. They are good kids and have great grades. There’s no evidence that something’s really wrong. They just are chatty with me in the car. Is this to be expected? I’m really trying not to take it personally. But it’s tough. Should I just resign myself to short answers and turn up the radio for a few years? Thanks for your insight. First off, is this common? Is this like a common thing that boys go through teenage boys?

Lisa Damour
Totally. Totally. I think that if you surveyed a whole bunch of parents of teenage boys, they would be like, Yes, he has become a sphinx we have no idea what’s going on with him. We think he’s okay. There’s no outward evidence that something terrible is happening. But the kid does not talk to us anymore.

Reena Ninan
So what do you do? Like? Do you just let those years pass by and not talk? Is it annoying to keep prodding them like what’s the best way to respond to this?

Lisa Damour
I think the number one thing is what is already in this letter, which is it’s not personal, right? It can feel very personal. Like why isn’t he talking to me? What is this mean? And I love that this letter writer says I don’t think it’s personal. I also don’t think parents should give up. I really think that it’s important for us to remain available and invested and engaged. And to not sort of feel like well, I love what the writer said like just turn up the radio and try to get through these years. I think we don’t want to give up. But I think what is very true in these ages is that our tactics might change you know that we’re used to the younger boys who you know, we say hello school and then they like reel out all sorts of stories and tell us all sorts of things. And one of the things that makes teenagers so challenging and this is why I love them. So much is what worked literally two weeks ago suddenly stops working around 11 or 12. And what we need to do as parents is think, Okay, well, then what’s the new repertoire? You know, what’s the new set of strategies that I can use to stay connected to this kid?

Reena Ninan
Kid? Why are they so pissed off at us? Why are they so angry? Why do they not want to talk to us like what is going on in that brain?

Lisa Damour
You know, it’s so fascinating. So one of the things that we see when we look at the research, and this is very well laid out research is that we teach girls, we socialized girls to be fluid in the discussion of emotion, right? That we help them talk about their feelings, when they’re with their friends, they spend a lot of time talking about feelings. And boys are taught boys are socialized, that that’s a girl thing to do. Wow, that’s really where they lose practice. Because talking about feelings being close in that way, you know, sharing what’s on one’s mind, as teenage boys come into adolescence, and they get all of this messaging from the culture about what it means to be a guy and cool in that way, the idea of expressing emotion or expressing closely held things, unfortunately, becomes really feminized. And so that’s one of the forces that can keep boys from talking. And then the other thing is that apps and all of that practice that girls tend to get, and of course, we’re talking in like broad gender generalizations. You know, this doesn’t necessarily hold up for any given kid of any given gender. But with all that practice, girls are just better at it. And one of the most important things in an interview from my book, and this is in the book that’s coming. I had a young teenage boy say to me, and it was so compelling. He said, When my mom asks me how I feel, the only word I can think to say to her is I feel static. Yeah, that he was like, there’s noise, but no said no. Like, I know, I’m stirred up, I know, I’m upset. I know something’s wrong. She’s detecting that something’s wrong. That’s why she’s asking me. But she’s asking me to describe something that the closest I can get to describing it is It feels like I’ve got static in my head. So that makes it hard.

Reena Ninan
It makes it hard. But is it that teenagers, boys and girls are just going through this hormonal transformation? And they don’t want anything to do with you? For some reason? Like what? Like, how do you explain that isolation and that withdrawal that they feel? Because that’s painful it especially when they were like your sweet kid, I have to like acknowledge to parents everywhere, like nobody talks about this, like, they’re your sweet little kid who wants everything to do with you, then all of a sudden, literally overnight, they really don’t want to be anywhere near you,

Lisa Damour
is so true. And you know, in untangled years ago, Reena I laid out a metaphor of like, one day, you’re a jelly bean for years and years, you’re a jelly bean to your kid, like they will take as much of you as they can possibly get. And then one day you wake up, and now you’re a Brussel sprout like they know they have to deal with you, they know that you’re kind of good for them, but like, they will take as little as possible. So again, it’s not personal. It’s not personal. It’s not personal. And I think that’s a great place to start.

Reena Ninan
You know, I want to sort of go back about what tactics parents can try. But first, you were talking sort of about the socialization of boys that it becomes feminized that what can parents do early on with boys that can really counter that narrative and make them feel more secure about talking about their feelings when they get older?

Lisa Damour
All right, I will tell you Reena, I am so glad you’re asking. We cannot leave the emotional work to women. So one of the things that we also see in this research I was looking at from my book is that kids very quickly learn that they’re going to get two different responses if this isn’t a heterosexual marriage, if they bring a problem to their mom versus if they bring it to their dad. So what kids quickly figure out again, broad generalizations, but that’s what research always is, is it if they bring a problem to their mom, she’s going to talk with them about how they feel and what’s going on. And if they bring a problem to their dad, their dad’s going to help them try to fix it. And so what happens is whether or not the culture messages have hit kids, you know, when they’re younger, they’ll certainly hit by adolescents. Even in our own homes. It’s so often the case that when there’s a big upset feeling to be addressed, it’s left to the women to do it. Because then absolutely entrenches or builds a fantastic foundation for this idea that talking about feelings is a girl thing to do. So to answer your question, if we really want boys to get good at and feel comfortable talking about the feelings they have, the men in their lives need to be on the frontlines of those conversations. So it can be their dad if there’s a dad in the home, but it can also be coaches and uncles and other guys that they have contact with. That is the only way to really work against the idea that talking about feelings is a girl’s thing to do.

Reena Ninan
Wow, I No one’s ever put that in that way. This is what I love about you and your thought process. When you go back to the teenage years. What are some strategies that might work. Lisa, when you’re talking about these teenage years, what do you find are strategies, sayings, things that can really make a difference and get kids to open up.

Lisa Damour
Okay, so let’s headline all of this under keep them out of the hot seat. Right? It is really like if we think about teenagers, and they’re all their intense emotions that they just have because they’re teenagers, for us to then be like, how are you what’s going on talk to me. Often they are trying to manage a great deal of intensity and having us roll up with a whole bunch of questions. They feel like you know, those old films, those old black and white films where like, you know, the spotlight is on the suspect and you’re smoking cigarettes, right? Like, that’s what it feels like for teenagers, they are in the hot seat and all they’re thinking is how do I get out of this conversation? Like, and it’s not even like they don’t like us? Or they didn’t even like the question. They’re just like, I’m managing a great deal of intense emotionality, you are now rolling up on me with a spotlight and a cigarette. I don’t want to be here, out, Grunt, one word answer, grab my bag and go, okay. So it’s not that they don’t want to talk about feelings. And it’s not that they don’t have feelings they’re willing to share, but on our terms on our time, not always gonna work so well. So instead, here’s a strategy I have learned from moms of sons, that is incredibly useful. And I want to unpack all of the value of this. How to have conversations by text, talk about feelings by text. So if you notice that your boy just left the house in a terrible mood, or your kid of any gender, left the house in a terrible mood, and you want to get a conversation going, consider dropping a little text saying, Hey, you really seem sad this morning are out of sorts this morning is everything. Okay? This is often the magic solution to getting kids who don’t like to talk to talk.

Reena Ninan
Wow. I love it. It also makes me laugh because I’m thinking of my own kids when I use the language that you so wonderfully offer. Now my daughter says, Mom, is this you talking? Or is this Dr. Lisa? Like, does it really matter if we could work through this problem together? She’s like, I’d like to know.

Lisa Damour
But they always have the drop on us. Right? That’s what that’s what your daughter’s figured out. Like, they always know what we’re up to. We think we’re so sly, they always know,

Reena Ninan
you would have been the one to make that revelation to me that like no matter what you do, they know like they see right through basically right past you. So why do you think texting works so well?

Lisa Damour
Okay. There’s so much magic in texting. So first of all, the kid doesn’t have to answer you on the spot, right? If you catch a kid in the kitchen, and you’re like, what’s up? You seem sad. They of course, in the normal discourse of conversation feel like they it was an instant answer. Whereas in texting, you don’t owe people an instant answer. And one of the forces that we don’t talk nearly enough about in development education, is what psychologists refer to as processing speed, which is how quickly a person thinks. And processing speed is pretty divorced from intellect. So you can be very, very smart, but need to think kind of carefully and methodically, you can also have less intellectual firepower, and actually think quite quickly and be able to produce the answers quite quickly. And so one of the things that texting makes room for is more time to process. And if we think about boys in particular, and the fact that we have not spent their entire childhood helping them become incredibly fluent in the language of emotion, why don’t we give them more time to process so the first nice thing is that they don’t have to answer on the spot, right? That it gives them room and time to be able to get back to us. And then the other nice thing is under the heading of keep them out of the hot seat, Hot Seat. They don’t have to look at us, right? They’re doing that on their own. You know, looking at their phone thinking it through. Some kids may throw in an emoji if they don’t have the word right that’s also an option that texting makes available. Yeah. And so they can do it on their own time. They can do it without looking at us. They also know that if we respond right away, they don’t have to answer us right away. And what I’ll tell you, Reena is I think, you know, some of the parents I’ve talked to sort of feel like, this is second best, you know that there’s some texting, like, both some really? Yes. But they’re like, shouldn’t we really be having heart to hearts at the kitchen table? Yeah, that’s how I feel. Yeah, okay, well, I think we got to get over it, get over it, like, let it go. Because the thing is, all we want is some connection. And all we want is for them to put their feelings into words, I don’t care if they are doing it with smoke signals, right? I want to see it happening. And I think when we move to texting and are totally cool, with texting being an option for how to have these conversations, we are acknowledging they are teenagers, they may need time to think they may need space to think they may, you know, they want more than anything in the whole wide world to not be put on the spot. Texting is a beautiful solution to this problem.

Reena Ninan
Wow, say that, again, about all you want is connection and communication. Essentially, you want them to connect, and to be able to say things to you to put

Lisa Damour
feelings into words, right? I mean, so if they want to draw, you know, an image of how they feel, which of course, no teenage boy, except for some teenage boys is gonna do like, we have to meet them halfway. And I think the the most important thing for us to say about this, because it’s so often in parenting, we are operating with the belief that if my kid is upset, the best and only solution is for me to ask them how they feel. And for them to tell me how they feel. And then for me to say wise words to help them feel better. That is very fantastic if it comes about extraordinarily rare in all of parenting. And so what we really want to do, as parents, especially of teenagers, is be open to the idea that there are lots of ways to help kids feel better with their feelings, and even to get kids to communicate to us about their feelings. But the idea that it’s always going to be in this kind of Norman Rockwell over tea in the kitchen vision, we got to let that go.

Reena Ninan
Yeah. Okay. I never, ever thought of it that way that this could be just so basic, and enough to get you through. That’s, that’s pretty, pretty huge. Are there times where parents should take the silence or the withdrawal? Personally,

Lisa Damour
actually, there are, you know, one of the things of having practice clinically and seeing a lot of things is you do get examples like that. And so one scenario that I’ve seen a few times is where a kid does share something that feels really important to them. And then the parent shares it with somebody else.

Reena Ninan
And you don’t want to you’re just you’re just you think it’s interesting, and then it gets back to them. And then you realize, oh, my God, I shouldn’t have shared that. Now I’ve broken your

Lisa Damour
trust. Yeah, totally. And it’s very easy to have this happen. Because like, they may be talking about like stuff that to us. We’re like, Oh, I remember that, or that’s so garden variety that’s so standard to being, you know, 14 or 15. But to them, it feels like a state secret, you know. And so then when we even offhandedly say like, Oh, I was talking with, you know, my friend, Beth, and I told her about what happened, and they’re like, oh, wait, you told her. So one thing we want to search our memory for is the possibility that we shared something they didn’t mean for us to share. And if you can find it, and you know, what you how you may have blown it. You need to apologize to your kid, you need to say, You know what, I was thinking about that, and I was wrong. You know, I that was not mine to share, I’m really glad you shared it with me. I apologize for spilling the beans about that. And I have a promise for you, which is whatever you tell me will stay between you and me. Unless I ask your permission to tell someone else. And I will always ask your permission. But mostly I just want you to know Home is going to be a vault. So that kind of very clear and very owning it. And forward looking apology can sometimes help get things back on track,

Reena Ninan
saying I’m sorry, and I’m wrong. And I shouldn’t have done that. And then letting them see that. But that’s great. I mean, that was one of the big things I think for so long parenting, to me, especially coming from an Indian, you know, South Asian household was I am God your child. You listen to me, I make no mistakes, you know, and that’s saying there’s such value in saying I got that wrong.

Lisa Damour
We are huge, actually so much. We’re gonna limit I’m gonna rest on this for a minute. cultural features aside, there are a lot of parents who worry that if they apologize to their teenager or they own a mistake in front of their teenager, that they will somehow compromise their own authority, right? Like, you know that I’m the authority and if I you know, admit that there’s a chink in the armor, I will somehow have less authority. Here’s the deal with it. Teenagers, teenagers are very aware when we have made mistakes. And if you want the respect of a teenager, if you want the respect of a teenager, if you want to maintain your authority with a teenager, you own all of your mistakes. And then you don’t make them again, that’s the those are the two key things, you apologize, and then you don’t repeat the mistake. And so when I have seen some of the most painful interactions between teenagers and parents, it’s when the teenager is pointing out to the parent, like, you mess this up. And the parent is absolutely rigid in their insistence that they didn’t you know, that they, they sort of take that posture of like, you can’t criticize me, I’m the adult, it really interferes with their ability to have a close working relationship. So absolutely apologizing to teenagers is critical for ongoing closeness.

Reena Ninan
Thank you for saying that. Because that’s sort of one of those perspectives that you don’t really realize as a parent, and you think it’s going to erode your authority somehow, but by not doing that. Are there points when a parent should actually be worried that your kid isn’t speaking to you? And how do you tell the difference between okay, this is the teenage years, they want a little space versus like, there’s a problem here?

Lisa Damour
Yeah, I think there’s a couple of times we’d really want to flag you know, so one is, if your kid is not only not talking to you, but they don’t seem to be talking to anybody, like completely withdrawn, completely withdrawn, because what’s pretty typical in adolescence is that kid suddenly, you know, the channel to their parents goes awfully quiet, or changes pretty significantly in terms of how much they are willing to talk with their parents about any given thing. But other channels open up, right, they start talking to their teachers more about stuff, they start talking to their coaches, they’re having really intimate conversations with their friends, even teenage boys, you know, will do some really have some, sometimes very close friend connections that are very powerful. You know, where they do, or girlfriends, you know, one of the things that we see with adolescent boys who are heterosexual is that some of their most intimate emotional relationships are actually with girls that are dating and you know, they take that intimacy there, or they actually explore that kind of intimacy there for the first time in terms of appear. So the question I would have a parent asking is not has my kid stopped talking to me as much? The answer to that is probably going to be yes. If your child is developing normally, as a teenager, the question we want to be asking is, as my kid stopped talking to everybody, do I have a concern that they are fully shut down? In which case I would be concerned, I would wonder about, you know, what is going on? Where’s that kid getting any emotional relief or emotional outlet? I would be concerned if you know, you feel like there’s a whole bunch of feelings that kid has, and the way they are managing them is playing video games all day, every day to either get those feelings out or distract themselves from those feelings. We want there to be some form of expression, some form of connection with someone somewhere, but it doesn’t have to be the parent.

Reena Ninan
So if they’re not talking to you, and they have no friends, they’re not texting, any friends are not hanging out any friends. major red flag something.

Lisa Damour
Yeah, no kids need to be connected. We everyone needs to be connected. And in adolescence, we expect to see connection.

Reena Ninan
So big picture here, when you’re talking about going back to this letter, you know, this parent is writing saying like, these are good kids, they were lovely. They were great. They want their space. I mean, it sounds like to me, they’re saying here, there’s no evidence that there really is something wrong. What’s ultimately your advice to a parent like this, who suddenly is experiencing this withdrawal? It doesn’t seem like anything is like Red Alert, Red Alert. But how do they how do they move on from this? Yeah.

Lisa Damour
You know, what I would say to this parent is hang in there, hang in there, do not give up right? Stay present, stay right there involved. You know, years ago, Reena, I wrote a column for The Times called What two teenagers want potted plant parents. And this is a metaphor that came to me after I’d cared for a bunch of teenagers who were really self sufficient, fantastic, put together, you know, managing things very, very well. And to my surprise, they would sometimes complain to me that their parents weren’t around that much. And, you know, there was any variety of reasons why this was true. Sometimes the parents were had felt rejected, right by the kid not wanting to talk. And so they’re like, Well, okay, if you’re not gonna talk to us, we’re gonna go out with our friends all the time. I remember one situation where there was a very, very troubled sibling who was just consuming the parents needs and time, you know, all the time. badly needed by the parents. And when these teenagers were telling me like, gosh, they’re not around that much. I would think to myself, but I’m pretty sure if they were around, you would be ignoring them, or you would not be answering their questions. And so it was so helpful for me to realize they just want us physically there. You know, they just want us around.

Reena Ninan
There’s like a sense of safety or security or something by having your parents sign loosely.

Lisa Damour
Absolutely. And you know what we know when we look at toddlers actually in toddler As in teenagers do have a lot in common sometimes is that in order to sort of safely explore a new environment, what toddlers will do is they will reach out into that environment go out and like check out new things, and then they’ll come back and they’ll touch the parents knee, and then they’ll go back out into the look at playing with new toys. Or even kids who are securely attached, they’ll know where their parent is in the house. And toddlers will, they’ll be very mindful of that, even while they’re playing independently at home. And so I think there’s something about teenagers where they may not always want to talk to us, they may not always know the answers to our questions. But that doesn’t mean that they’re our physical presence isn’t a value to them. And then of course, your if you’re around, and they suddenly want to talk, you happen to be able to catch the moment. But I would say to this, parents stay in there, don’t give up, be present be available. And depending on the relationship with the kid, I think it’s also okay to say, I miss you, I miss you telling me, you know, funny stories from the day. I’m not again, you know, I you don’t have to answer my questions. But I just want you to know, like, I just love hearing what’s going on in your life, you know, and sort of putting it out there and a no demand way.

Reena Ninan
This is what I love about this podcast is these are things that people are not talking about or realize they need to know. And I think everyone’s living with this, oh, my God, my kid is so withdrawn from me. And I missed that sense of connection, but that you’re saying this is actually part of normal child development in the teenage years?

Lisa Damour
Absolutely. So much. So Marina, it’s funny that you say that. I remember. I mean, this is the nice thing about having practiced for more than 25 years, right? Like, like, I’m like, Oh, I got a story for that. I remember. I mean, this must have been 15 or 20 years ago, I was evaluating a 17 year old girl. And I was just meeting her for the first time she was, you know, we were having our first session. In our first session, she said, I tell my mother everything. And I said, you do? Right, because it struck me is so concerning, actually. Like, yeah, it’s 17. And this child was offering it as like evidence of how well things were going. And I had such a like, I didn’t even go along with it. In the moment. I was like, really? Tell me about that. So no, we do not expect kids to continue to stay in that same clothes tell us everything relationship. And here’s why. They have to get ready to go. They have to get ready to move on and move out. And it would be so abrupt, if they went from that 1112 It’ll tell you everything love being with you want to go to the grocery store with you space into a, I’m off to you know, my job, my college, my you know, enlistment, whatever, without any period in between where they practice being more independent from us, even while being in our presence.

Reena Ninan
Wow. Nobody has said it that way. And this reminds me of sort of like the final final weeks of pregnancy where you just can’t sleep, you’re up all the night going to the bathroom. And you realize, like this is literally training your system for the sleep deprivation that is to come for the months ahead. Wow, it’s I made that connection. But it’s just

Lisa Damour
a year, like you’re getting ready for what’s coming and getting ready for what’s coming. You know, and I have a kid in college now. And most of our conversations are by text, which is wonderful. And it’s also the other nice thing about text, you’re not into it for very long, you know, like I can kind of throw out a, you know, a beginning of a conversation, and she can answer and then go on with her day. But she doesn’t have to feel stuck, you know. And so I think bottom line texting is the parent of the teenagers best friend often for having good conversations.

Reena Ninan
Wow, I know all this time. I thought it was like a way of avoiding conversation but you’re like this could be the conversation, the start or the end or all of it? Well, absolutely. Thank you for that perspective. So what do you have for us for parenting to go?

Lisa Damour
Okay, this is super corny, but I’m gonna go ahead and recommend one thing that parents can do if they feel like they’ve got a kid who is clammed up, is to begin over meals, maybe dinner, a process of doing something like roses and thorns or, you know, best part of the day, worst part of the day, most thing for which we’re most thankful. Some gimmick, it is totally a gimmick where everyone goes around the table and talks about the best thing that happened or the worst thing that happened, whatever your family will agree to own it as corny own it as like, I know, this is a hack I know we’re doing but I’m gonna do it anyway. And then especially if you have boys, and especially if there’s a man in the house, make sure that he’s doing it too, right. This is a great space for the men in a boy’s life to model talking about, you know, feelings or reactions to things. Kids can occasionally pass but I don’t think you want to make that a standard thing. But that can be again an admittedly corny but also very effective way to get some information and to maintain a connection.

Reena Ninan
Wow, the importance of having the men in your life. Talk about this. I am realizing today how that can be transformative Yeah, well this was great. And next week we’ll have an encore episode a mom writes in worried that her son might be canceled, and I stalked her Lisa for help. So I’ll see you next week.

Lisa Damour
See you next week.