Sue Scheff: Talking to your teens and kids about difficult topics

Last week we had a difficult week in South Florida with violence in a Coral Gables High School that resulted in the loss of a young life. Great Schools website offers a wide range of information about schools, parenting, educators and so much more. I am posting an article to help you talk to your kids about difficult situations in life.

How to talk to your child about events with no easy explanation.

By GreatSchools Staff

Whether it's a school shooting or a natural disaster, TV images of tragedies may upset and confuse your child. How should a parent talk about events that raise questions with no easy answers?

Experts advise that when your child asks questions, it's important to respond honestly but with answers that are simple and age-appropriate. Limit exposure to frightening TV and newspaper images, particularly for elementary school children. Small children may not realize that a tragedy isn't happening over and over when the TV plays the same images again and again. Here are five more tips and additional resources to help:

1.If your child asks you a difficult question, find out what she knows already so that you can correct misinformation. Be prepared to be asked the same question again as she thinks about issues that trouble her.

2.Be sensitive that some children are especially likely to be fearful if they have experienced a personal loss, such as death or serious illness in the family.

3.When your child asks questions, be aware of your own feelings of shock, anger or sadness. Your child is likely to reflect them.

4.Learn the emergency and communications plans at your child's school. Talk to your child about the steps school officials, the police and community leaders are taking to keep her safe.

5.Encourage your child to take action by sharing concerns about safety with school officials and by developing his own personal safety plan.

Follow Great Schools on Twitter @GreatSchoolsorg

Sue Scheff: Parent and Teen Communications

Opening the lines of communication with a teenager is sometimes nearly impossible, but it is critical to never give up! Here are some great tips from Brenda Nixon, author, educator, speaker and columnist.

Face Off: Communication Tips for Parents of Teens

By Brenda Nixon
Guest Columnist

CBN.com – “Dad, why are you mad at me?”

“I’m not mad, son.”

“Yes you are!”

“No I’m not.”

“You look mad to me.”

Sound familiar? Do squabbles with your teen begin like this or get sidetracked with these mistaken accusations? There are many reasons parents and teens argue but consider this; sometimes it’s because adolescents don’t “read” facial cues correctly. Often teens translate a parent’s worried or panic expression as anger or something else. Then they respond to that perceived emotion. Thus the vicious cycle of misunderstanding and miscommunication.

Deborah Yurgelun-Todd, director of neuropsychology and cognitive neuroimaging, McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts, suggests that the teen brain actually works differently than an adult’s when processing emotional information from external stimuli. In her landmark study mapping the differences between the brains of adults and teens, Dr. Todd put volunteers through a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine and monitored how their brains responded to a series of pictures. The volunteers were asked to discern an emotion based on the facial expression in each picture. All adult volunteers correctly identified the emotions. However, many of the teenagers misread and misidentified the emotions based on facial expression. When Dr. Todd examined the brain scans, she discovered her teen volunteers even utilized a different part of their brain when looking at the faces.

In terms of communication, adults can look at fearful faces and correctly identify them as such. But teens don’t see them the same way. This means your daughter probably reads your intended expressions differently than you, and she’s responding based on her perception. Carol Maxym, Ph.D., author of Teens in Turmoil writes, “One of the most common problems that parents and teens experience is a gulf in understanding.”

So, what’s a parent to do when you sense the tension rising?

1. Talk in a quieter voice. Adolescents can easily misinterpret facial expression and rising volume as “being mad.” A lowered voice may help in accurately identifying your true emotion. With my daughters, I found that my hushed voice brought relief to an escalating situation.

2. Teach teens. If you’re annoyed, say so and if you’re feeling panic identify that too. Naming your emotions will help teens learn about you and to identify their feelings too.

3. Be there for them. Teens must know you’re always available to listen, support, and give advice but this doesn’t mean you’ll try to run their life.

4. Have a sense of humor. Teens are like toddlers in big bodies. You don’t need to excuse their behavior but don’t expect them to act like adults…they are not.

Sometimes applying brain research to parenting can help us better communicate with our kids. Perhaps next time you confront your teen, part of the dialogue might go like this:

“Dad, why are you mad?”

“This isn’t anger, this is fear.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“Your safety. Because I love you, I worry about you. Love has many expressions.”

Brenda Nixon (http://www.cbn.com/redir/BrendaNixon.aspx) is a writer, speaker and educator on child development and guidance. Her book, Parenting Power in the Early Years on raising a child from birth to age five can be ordered at amazon.com or bookstores nationwide. As well as her most recent book, The Birth to Five Book, buy today! Brenda lives in Ohio with her husband, two daughters, a miniature dachshund, and a fat cat.

Sue Scheff: Communication and Your 13- to 18-year-old

Communication and Your 13- to 18-year-old

Source: The Nemours Foundation via Education.com

Topics: Teen Years (13-19),

During this period, teens spend much of the day outside the home - at school or at after-school activities and with peers. Take time every day to talk with your teen to share opinions, ideas, and information.

Here are a few tips to help you communicate with your growing teen:

Make time during the day or evening to hear about your teen's activities; be sure that he or she knows you are actively interested and listening carefully.
Remember to talk with your child, not at him or her.
Ask questions that go beyond "yes" or "no" answers to prompt more developed conversation.

Take advantage of time during car trips or standing in line at the supermarket to talk with your teen.

Provide activities that offer opportunities to improve communication skills, such as attending or engaging in sporting and school events, playing games, and talking about current events.

Typical Vocabulary and Communication

Patterns
Adolescents essentially communicate in an adult manner, with increasing maturity throughout high school. Teens comprehend abstract language, such as idioms, figurative language, and metaphors. Explanations may become more figurative and less literal. Literacy and its relationship to cognition, linguistic competency, reading, writing, and listening is the primary language focus in this age group. Teens should be able to process texts and abstract meaning, relate word meanings and contexts, understand punctuation, and form complex syntactic structures. However, communication is more than the use and understanding of words, it also includes how a teenager thinks of him/her self, their peers and figures of authority. They are seeking independence from family and trying to establish their own identity. They are now able to think in an abstract manor and become concerned with moral issues. All of this shapes the way a teen thinks and therefore communicates. Taking time to be with them and listen to them becomes increasingly important so that when they test the limits of their relationship with you, there is an established solid foundation that they will respect.

What Should I Do if I Suspect a Problem?

You should have ongoing communication with your teen's teachers about overall language skills and progress. If your teen's teachers suspect a language-based learning disability, comprehensive testing will be necessary. This can include a hearing test, psychoeducational assessment (standardized testing to assess a child's learning style as well as cognitive processes), and speech-language evaluation.

If your teen has a specific communication difficulty, such as persistent stuttering, he or she should be referred to the school speech-language pathologist. If your teen has already been referred to the school speech-language pathologist (an expert who evaluates and treats speech and language disorders), you should continue to routinely communicate with the therapist and your teen's teachers about goals, language activities to practice at home, and your teen's progress. Tutoring for specific subjects may be helpful.

Read entire article here: http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Communication_Your/