Listen to your children and teens

DR ASHA PEMBERTON

teenhealth.tt@gmail.com

We have witnessed two of the current greats in their sporting disciplines recently openly acknowledge challenges with their mental health. First Naomi Osaka and now Simone Biles, proactively chose to walk away from potential victory, adulation and endorsement to protect their mental health. They made the world listen. Such bold but necessary moves of vulnerability and strength demonstrate the need that we collectively hold to listen to the voices of our tweens, teens and young adults and support them through even the most challenging times. While we must recognise the need to continue to de-stigmatise mental health concerns, at the foundational level, this also reinforces the importance of listening to young people and their struggles.

Simply listening can help your child process and handle trauma. By providing opportunities to allow them to speak, openly and without judgement, parents can help them navigate experiences. Sitting down to have a discussion about traumatic events, or even just opening the door for those conversations can help your child better face those events. Not only that, but it also increases the odds that they will make different future decisions to avoid such a recurrence.

An actively listening parent can significantly increase the odds that a child will develop skills of emotional regulation and control. Life experiences will be frustrating, irritating and disappointing at various times. Young people require the skills to process their emotional responses to life, accepting the things that they cannot change while learning to control the things that they can. These life lessons occur through processes of trial and error, optimally with the guidance and wisdom of parents and carers. The opportunities to provide this guidance, in ways in which young people will accept the information, arise through conversations and times of listening. It must be emphasised that lectures, quarrels and arguments are not goals, but instead open, safe spaces through which young people and their parents can communicate.

Listening to your child helps them show more interest in school, passions and activities. A child is more likely to be engaged at school if they have a parent to sit down and listen and allow them to vent various frustrations, learning challenges or peer related issues. When young people can acknowledge that someone cares, is willing to take time to understand and will join them to help problem solve, it improves their belief that they can be agents in their own future successes. Conversely, when young people believe that there is no hope, they continue down a trajectory of despair.

Learning to listen

Make conversation a priority. Take time out just for your child: not necessarily to do things together, but to just talk.

Create spaces that are private and quiet to reinforce that your recognise confidentiality is important to young people. Teens are far less likely to be completely honest if they believe any information will be shared with others.

Put your devices down. It is simply not possibly to properly engage in a conversation with someone who is focused on a cellphone. Even a casual glance disrupts communication.

Make a habit of taking into account what your child has to say. Do not dismiss their feelings or opinions or constantly try to correct them. From early childhood, young people will have thoughts and opinions of their own. Allow them to voice these thoughts and problem solve with guidance, love and support.