Ep 55. Five Ways To Get Your Teen To Actually Open Up

In today's episode, I'm talking about how to help your teen open back up if things have felt shut down lately and you want to be the one they turn to again. 

Here's what we cover:

• The most common reasons teens pull away, including overwhelm, fear of judgment, their biological drive toward independence, and broken trust
• Why age 13 tends to be the peak of the pulling-away phase, and why that's actually a good sign developmentally
• Why forcing a conversation almost always backfires, and what to do instead

Plus, five strategies you can start using today to help your teen open back up:

1. Respect their space without disappearing
2. Rebuild trust by owning your reactions
3. Listen without trying to fix everything
4. Build connection in everyday moments
5. Choose collaboration over control

This episode is for any parent who wants their teen to come to them when things get hard, not just when they have to.

📘 Free Guide: 10 Steps to Build More Connection with Your Teenager https://youth.guided-passages.com/connect-to-your-teen-freebie

Want more support? Join Parents of Teens Rising, my monthly parent coaching community, for live coaching circles, monthly workshops, and weekly voice notes for just $24/month. Parents of Teens Rising Coaching Circle

Connect with Jasmyne:
Instagram: @jasmyne.guidedpassages
🔗 https://guided-passages.com/

Transcript

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When your team shuts down, it can be so tempting to push for answers, but forcing a conversation almost always backfires. So instead, what I would invite you to do is to respect their need for space while still keeping the door open. So you can say something as simple as, Hey, I'm here when you need me, and that can really help. It shows them that you trust them and it reassures them that you're available whenever they're ready. So when you take the pressure off, what you're doing is you're making it so much easier for them to come to you on their own terms. Welcome to Parents and Teens Rising, a podcast that bridges the gap between parents and teens and helps families thrive. I'm Jasmine Chandler, Teens and Parent Coach, Wilderness Rights and Passage Guide, and founder of Guided Passages. After over 16 years of working with young people, I know how challenging and rewarding these years can be. Each week we'll explore real conversations, practical tools, and fresh perspectives to help you connect with your team, support their confidence, and navigate the ups and downs. Let's rise together. I am a coach for parents and teens. I coach virtually and I also run wilderness programs, wilderness rites of passage programs specifically for teenagers and also in-person teen groups. So lots of different ways that I support teens and their families and have for the last 18 years as an educator and wilderness guide and in so many different ways. And so I'm so happy to have you here to share some of the things that I've learned along the way and that I'm still learning as a mom of two teenagers and in my work as a teen coach and parent coach. So today I wanted to hop in and talk to you about how to get your teen to start opening up to you more instead of getting one-word answers, grunts, eye rolls, or even silence when you try to talk to them. So many of the parents I work with are dealing with this exact same thing. And it can feel pretty heartbreaking when all you want to do is to connect with your kid and support them. And instead, you're just getting shut out. I have absolutely been there, so I definitely want to demystify it today. This is not just a you problem, it's an all of us problem, right? Especially because it's natural for our teens to want to pull away. And even so, I do have a few tricks up my sleeve that have really helped me with my own kids and has also helped a lot of the parents that I coach to create more of the moments that we all want. And the good news is that there are some really good reasons why teenagers pull away. And there are also things you can do to help rebuild that trust and get your communication back on track. So today I'm gonna walk you through why your teen might be shutting you out, and then I'm gonna give you five strategies you can start using today to help reconnect. Okay, so before we get into the strategies, let's start with why this happens in the first place. I know that it can be really easy to take our teenager's silence personally, but most of the time it's not about us at all. I want to give you a few of the most common reasons that teenagers tend to withdraw. So, first of all, they might just be overwhelmed between school, friendships, social media, and all the internal stuff they're processing. Teens are often running on empty and just don't have a lot of extra bandwidth to engage. They have a lot on their plates. They are navigating things all day long: social dynamics, teachers, assignments, the drama on the court during practice, just so many different things that are happening all day long. And so when they get home and we want to hear how everything went and find out all the details, they're just ready for a break. They're ready to decompress. And so a lot of times it's just that they have been going all day long and they just don't want to engage with another person in that moment. And that might not even be true for the entire night. It might just be true for that moment that you asked the question. And so it could just be a momentary thing where with just a little bit more space and time, they might be ready to share. And so sometimes it's just kind of reading the field, noticing their energy level, noticing their mood, and really catching them at a time when maybe they're not so overwhelmed and they're feeling more rejuvenated and recharged to ask the questions. Another reason that they might be shutting down is that they might be afraid of judgment or a lecture. So if past conversations have turned into criticism or a long lecture, even when it's unintentional, they might start avoiding talking just to sidestep that discomfort. No teenager wants to be lectured, no teenager wants to be criticized, no teenager wants a consequence if they share something about something they did that maybe we might disapprove of. And so sometimes our kids might shut down if they think any of those things might be the result of them sharing. We'll talk about how we can create that climate to where they know that they're gonna be safe no matter what they share, so that they will want to come to us. That is one of the reasons that they might shut down or might not want to share in any given moment. Another thing is that they are biologically wired to seek independence. And this is a really big one. As teenagers grow, they naturally want more control over their own lives. And sometimes that means pulling away from their parents. One thing I want you to understand is that this is almost never personal. It's simply their drive towards autonomy kicking in, which is developmentally appropriate and necessary. Their whole system is wired to help them become autonomous individuals out in the world. And that's what we want. We want them to be able to go out into the world as young adults and carve their path. If they are dependent on parents and not seeking that autonomy, it's going to be a lot harder for them to have that independence when the time comes. And so that's why it's wired into their systems to pull away, to seek friendships and other people outside of their family unit for advice and for companionship and for all of those things. And we want that. And it's not personal. So that is another big thing just to keep in mind. And then another contributor is that trust might have been broken somewhere along the way. So if past reactions included overreacting, harsh consequences, guilt, or promises that didn't get followed through on, your teen might have learned that staying quiet is the better option. So there's a lot of things that can play into this dynamic. It's usually not just one factor alone, but just keep that in mind as you're looking at the big picture here of your relationship, that there's a lot of things that have played into this moment. And so we're gonna try to address it in a holistic way. So really looking not only at ways that we can shift the dynamic, but also what's underneath and what's brought us to this moment that we're in together right now. And then before we move on to solutions, one final thing I want to say is that the age and stage that they are in right now really matters. One very helpful piece of information that I learned through Lisa Damore, who has written several best-selling books on teen psychology, is that the age of 13 tends to be the peak of all of this. So the attitude, the shutting down, the sense that parents are suddenly uncool. She ties all of that to a developmental push called separation individuation, which is basically the idea that teens are trying to build an identity that's distinct from yours. And she argues that that big push for individuation peaks at 13. And I have absolutely found that to be true with my two teenagers as well. And even though that's anecdotal, it definitely corroborates what Damore has said. I was actually just talking to one of my girlfriends today about this, about how just this weekend I was able to go out with my daughter and we had such an amazing time together. She is now 15, almost 16. It was something that I made a note of because it's a change. We went through a little bit of a rough patch when she was 13, 14. And she was really doing a lot more of that pulling away and shutting down and not wanting to talk, rolling her eyes at things that I would say, and just having more distance between us. It really did feel developmental. I just gave her more space during that period of time. She's come back around. And I saw that with my son as well during that stage of life. So that's something that I want you to hold on to right now. If your teenager is at the 13, 14-year-old age and stage, that it does get better, that that is kind of the peak of this moment with time and maturity and development, that that can shift for the better too. So a lot of things happening. A lot of things are going on under the surface of these outward behaviors. And once we understand what's actually going on underneath all of that silence, it gets a lot easier to know what to do about it. So, with all of that said, let's go ahead and dive into the five strategies so we can figure out okay, we understand what's happening underneath, but what can I do to shift the dynamic? Strategy one is to respect their space without disappearing. So when your teen shuts down, it can be so tempting to push for answers, but forcing the conversation almost always backfires. Instead, what I would invite you to do is to respect their need for space while still keeping the door open. So you can say something as simple as, hey, I'm here when you need me, and that can really help. It shows them that you trust them and it reassures them that you're available whenever they're ready. So when you take the pressure off, what you're doing is you're making it so much easier for them to come to you on their own terms. So it doesn't have to be your time right now in the heat of the moment, but instead you're saying, okay, cool. I'm noticing that you're not ready to share. When you are ready to share, I'm here. My door is always open. My door is open at 10 p.m. My door is open when I'm busy. My door is open whenever you're ready because this is important to me and I can tell that right now is not the moment, but whenever it is, I'm here and I'm available. So just take the pressure off a little bit. Strategy two is to rebuild trust by owning your reactions. If your past interactions with your teen have contributed to them shutting down, you want to own your part, which can go a very long way. What it does is it shows maturity and honesty and humility, and it models the exact kind of accountability that you are hoping to see from them. So you can say something like, I realize I reacted too strongly before and I'm working on handling things differently. Or you could say, I know I sometimes jump in with advice too fast. I'm really working on being a better listener, or even, I said I'd follow through on that and I didn't. That's on me. And I'm working on doing that better next time. When your teenager sees that talking to you isn't going to turn into an emotional explosion or an unfair consequence, and that you are owning your part in conversations that have gone sideways or interactions that went off the rails, that you own your part, then they know it's okay for them to mess up. They know it's okay to come to you, that if something goes awry in the conversation, that you guys are gonna be able to work it out and communicate through it. The problem really comes in when we have jumped in, we've given advice that they didn't ask for, we have given a harsh consequence, we have laid down the law, we have yelled at them, or whatever our reaction was that created distance or disconnection or shutdown. We want to own that because that's what we do in relationships that work. We know that if we just push things under the rug, pretend things didn't happen, get defensive about our reactions instead of owning our mistakes, we know that's not going to create the kind of relationship we want. And so we have to be the leaders in that arena. We can't expect our teenagers to own their own mistakes and to repair after conflict if we are not showing them the way. And we can't expect them to trust us if we're not leading in that way in our communication. All right, that's gonna move us into strategy three, which is to listen without trying to fix everything. This one is hard for a lot of parents, and it's also very hard for me, especially as a coach who feels like she has a lot of tools and strategies to share. I really have to tamp myself down when it comes to my own teenagers because they are not coming to me asking me for advice for the most part. Usually when they come to me, they want to share what's going on. They want me to validate their experience and they want me to agree with them for the most part. If my kid comes to me and talks to me about how they were wronged by someone on the team, or how so-and-so said this hurtful thing, or how a teacher was over the top with their assignments, or the way that they critiqued my kid. They don't want me to tell them that they overreacted. They don't want me to tell them that they should have done it differently. They don't want me to tell them that it wasn't that big of a deal. They're coming to me to tell me this because they want me to commiserate with them. They want me to say, like, oh my God, that sucks. I can't believe she did that. And this isn't to say that I need to validate everything, especially misbehaviors. If my teenager acted inappropriately to something that went on with a friendship or was disrespectful to a teacher, it doesn't mean that I need to say, oh wow, they they had that coming. But I also need to measure my response with their energy and their mood and what's happening. If my kid is coming to me in a heightened moment, they're stressed, they're angry, they're frustrated, they're hurt, the first thing I need to do is just listen to them and say something like, wow, that sounds like it was really hard. Even if their response was not good, I first just want to listen and validate their experience. Afterwards, once they have had a chance to calm down and they feel better because they shared, maybe that might be an opportunity where I could say, Hey, can we talk about what happened earlier? Because there was a part that concerned me a little bit that I just want to talk to you about. Then they might be in a position where they're feeling more open, but I can't do that in the beginning. Second of all, they're not in a place where they can receive it. And third of all, they're not going to apply anything I'm saying to them in that moment. So the only thing I'm doing is shooting myself in the foot. The only thing I'm doing is creating distance in a moment when we could create connection. The only thing I'm doing is producing more shutdown and more distant future interactions. And that's not what I want. I want them to come to me. I want to know what's going on. I want the ins and outs. And so I have to be really, really conscious of my response and that I'm not just jumping in with my advice and trying to fix situations that they're not even asking me to fix. All right, strategy four: build connection in everyday moments. Not every meaningful conversation happens in some big heart-to-heart moment. When we put so much pressure on having big talks, that can actually create a situation where our teen pulls away even more. So instead, focus on building small moments of connection into your everyday routine. And that can look like sharing a funny TikTok or meme or inviting your kid to run an errand with you since car rides are great for casual conversation. It could be asking their opinion on something they care about, like music or fashion or sports, or just playing a video game together or watching their favorite show with them. As you're adding in these moments, make sure it's genuine interest. Teens can tell the difference between a parent asking about their favorite show to check a box and a parent who's actually curious. So ask follow-up questions. Let them teach you about something. Watch the show they're obsessed with, even if it's not your thing, and then pay enough attention that you can bring it up again later. So you're not watching the show with them while you're scrolling on your phone. You're not watching the show with them while you're also on your laptop sending an email. You're actually engaging with the thing that they're interested in. For me, this often looks like being in the car with my daughter and having her put on the music and asking her what her favorite song is and then having her play that song for me and then finding the things about that song that I like too. So it can be connecting over little things. Even just this last weekend, the biggest connection moment that we had, which was so amazing, was taking her to get her belly button pierced. And then while we were there, I got my nose pierced at the same time. It was something that she wanted to do, and then I added in. And so it made it this thing that we could do together that we were both able to bond over. It was a scary moment for both of us. It was a challenge. It was out of our comfort zones. It was something that we did together. It was something that we laughed about together. It's something that we're now healing from together as we're taking care of our piercings and all of that. And so I found something that she was into that I also was curious about, that we could do together. And it created a lot of conversation. It was a whole car ride with playlists and music and conversations and all of that. So just finding those little ways to connect every day or once a week or over the meal or whatever it is, that's a way that we can really build that climate for more connection over time. That brings us to our final strategy today, which is to choose collaboration over control. A lot of us grew up with a pretty top-down style of parenting, where the parent made the rules, handed down the punishment, and then the kid's job was just to comply. And I get why that approach feels familiar, but if you want your teenager to actually open up to you, this is often the piece that needs to shift. Teenagers are wired to want a voice in the things that affect them. When every interaction feels like control and punishment coming from above, they will stop bringing you their problems because they've learned it's not going to go well for them. But when they feel like they have a say, they're a lot more likely to let you in. So what this looks like is discipline instead of punishment. Punishment is about making them pay for what they did. Discipline is about teaching them and helping them do better next time. And it comes from a place of connection instead of control. And it comes with often a natural consequence or a consequence that's very lined up with what just happened instead of an arbitrary punishment that's meant to create lots of pain and discomfort for them. So for example, if they didn't do their homework and they want to go do something fun, discipline would be saying, well, you can't go do that fun thing until your homework is done. And so they might lose out on doing that thing because they need to get their homework done. Punishment because they didn't do their homework would be like, you are losing your phone for a week, or you're grounded for a week, or some really extreme form of a consequence that is really meant to inflict pain on them instead of just helping them to resolve whatever the issue was. Resolving the issue is staying and finishing the thing before you go out and have fun. That's discipline. So that's a way that we can kind of shift that dynamic a little bit. It also means pausing before you react. So if you feel yourself getting activated and ready to hand down some consequence that isn't going to make sense in an hour, take a breath first. Come back to the conversation once you're regulated. And you're going to be a lot more likely to land on something reasonable that actually holds up. Then underneath all of it is respect. So valuing their point of view, even when you don't agree with it. That's what collaborative parenting looks like. And it's what tells your teenager that their opinion actually counts in this relationship. That absolutely matters if you want a teenager that's going to open up to you and have that closeness that you really want. All right, so those are the strategies that have really helped me a lot to create the closeness that I want with my teenagers and to create the relationship that I want. I love the fact that they come to me with what's happening in their life. And I want that to continue for a long time to come. And these are things that I can do on my end that are going to open the doorway to that, no matter what age and stage or challenge that they're facing. So if your teenager is not talking to you right now, or there's been a lot of distance or a lot of shutdown or eye rolls or all of the things that feel like disconnection, just keep showing up in small, consistent ways and let them know they're loved without pressuring them to talk. Getting your teenager to open up isn't about one big conversation. It is about building a safe, trustworthy relationship over time. You are laying the groundwork for the kind of relationship where you're the one they come to when things get hard. If you want more support with this, I have a free guide called 10 Steps to Build More Connection with Your Teenager. And I will drop that link into the show notes. Then as always, you can reach out for additional support too. I have a parent coaching community called Parents of Teens Rising, where I have an entire classroom of resources in there. I hop on twice a month for parent coaching circles where you can come get coaching support. I have a live monthly workshop that I lead in that group as well for parents with a range of topics from building connection to anxiety to screen time to what's happening in your teenager's brain and so many others. Every month I create something new to bring to the community. I offer weekly voice notes with encouraging tips and tools and support as well. So a lot of things inside that community, and that is just $24 a month. So it's a very low-cost way to get a lot of parenting support if you could use more support on this journey. And then, of course, I always have coaching support available for your teenager as well. So reach out if you are needing a little bit more. You can again just get that free resource that I'm going to pop in the show notes below as well. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks again for being the kind of parent that is always trying to learn and grow and become the best version of your parenting self. And I hope you have a beautiful rest of your day and I will see you next week. Bye everyone. Did you enjoy the show? If so, would you take 30 seconds to subscribe so you don't miss an episode? Leave a quick review so more parents can find these conversations and maybe even share this episode to your stories. And if you want to connect, please send me a DM on Instagram. I'm at jasmine.guidedpassages, and that's jasmine with a Y. Thanks so much for being here, and I'll talk to you next week.