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

Ask Lisa: The Psychology of Parenting

Dr. Lisa Damour/Good Trouble Productions

Kids & Family, Mental Health, Parenting, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 720 Ratings

🗓️ 10 January 2023

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Is it normal for my teen son to not want to talk to me? That’s the question we tackle this week. Dr. Lisa explains that it can feel like a personal rejection when teens pull away from their parents, but that is rarely the case. So how do parents stay invested and find connection? Lisa and Reena unpack the strategies that work and Lisa draws on research from her new book The Emotional Lives of Teenagers. The conversation turns to how, without meaning to, we socialize boys to be less fluent in their feelings, and why we cannot leave the emotional work to women alone. Before wrapping up, Reena asks when parents should take teens' silence personally and what they should do. Pre-order The Emotional Lives of Teenagers by Dr. Lisa Damour. Available at www.DrLisaDamour.com Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn @AskLisaPodcast, @LDamour, @ReenaNinan Checkout Dr. Lisa’s website for more resources: https://www.drlisadamour.com/ Ask Lisa is produced by: Www.GoodTroubleProductions.com

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Ask Lisa, a podcast to help people understand the psychology of parenting.
0:10.0	Psychologist Dr. Lisa DeMore, author of two New York Times best-selling parenting books, takes your questions.
0:17.0	And I'm co-host, Rina Ninan, a journalist and mom of two.
0:24.2	Some of what we talk about comes from raising children ourselves.
0:28.2	Most of the time, I'll be getting answers to your parenting questions.
0:33.1	So send your questions to Ask Lisa at Dr.Lisademore.com.
0:43.3	Episode 101, how do I get my teen sons to talk to me? What's your secret to winter?
0:46.0	This is like the hardest part of the year for me.
0:49.2	This is so good because we come at this from such totally different angles.
0:52.7	Like me, the Colorado kid and you, the Florida kid, we see it very differently. I really get into bundling up. We have
1:00.6	a mud room. I have it all laid out with the hats and gloves and the scarves and everything.
1:06.6	We just lean into it. And you know, we've said this before on the podcast arena. There's no bad weather. There's only bad gear.
1:12.7	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 to be positive. But winter can be hard. So I think you've got to find the things that motivate you, like going to Florida. You've got to lean into it. So we got to lean into it. So we got this letter asking about
1:33.4	how do you get your teen sons to talk? That's an issue. Getting kids to open up, right? Especially
1:37.6	in the teenage years. Why is that so hard? You know, there's a lot going on. And what I really
1:42.4	love, I want to hear this letter. I already love that it's
1:44.8	asking about boys, because getting boys talking is different from getting girls talking.
1:48.6	I didn't know that. Well, so here's this letter. It says, Dear Dr. Lisa, I'd love to get your
1:52.6	opinion on how much I can expect my teenage boys to talk to me. They were chatty, sweet little
1:57.9	kids just a few years ago, and now they're 14 and 16, and find it
2:01.9	difficult to string together coherent syllables. I really try not to grill them and try to just
2:07.1	engage in light conversation, and sometimes it's just fine. But other times, I get just a grunt or
	...

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