Posted on: Friday, April 22, 2005

What it takes to talk to teens

By Samantha Critchell
Associated Press

To parents, it may seem as if their daughters chatter incessantly while their sons only speak in grunts and groans, but the challenges in communicating with both sexes during their teenage years are the same: How do you connect with your kids? How do you get them to open up about their feelings?

Susan Morris Shaffer and Linda Perlman Gordon wrote two gender-specific guides, "Why Boys Don't Talk and Why It Matters" and "Why Girls Talk and What They're Really Saying" (McGraw-Hill), to help parents get their children to the same place by taking two different routes. Their advice:

• To help boys find their voice and then encourage them to use it, parents need to recognize subtle cues that their sons are amenable to a brief chat. Sometimes it's easier to talk "sideways," having a conversation when doing side-by-side activities so there isn't as much eye contact. You could both be working in the yard, sitting in the car or watching a baseball game, for example. And you'll just have to be satisfied with less information than you'd probably like, but if you push too hard, boys likely will retreat.

• With a girl, you'll probably have more information than you know what to do with. You'll know what clothes her friends are wearing and what they like to eat. You'll know gossip. But before she'll share specifics about herself, she has to feel confident. She has to realize that she's a whole person even without her friends. Nudge her toward some individual activities, such as dance, horseback riding or even science experiments — things that can be done without worrying about being "pretty" or "cool."

"Boys hide their vulnerabilities for fear of being weak. They are not taught the language of feelings. But for girls, they struggle in a tug-of-war between a need to individualize and find their place, and fitting into a group," Shaffer says. "This means both boys and girls disavow a part of themselves in an effort to fit in."

Maybe it's the part that's capable of carrying on thoughtful and meaningful conversations with adults.

Shaffer and Gordon say keeping the lines of communication open when the children are older might depend on how the family communicated when the kids were still learning how to talk.

By starting young, parents will become familiar with their children's speaking styles and will take note when the kids start to use new words and drop ones that they used to roll off their tongues.

Gordon offers two versions of a conversation that might play out when a parent takes a 4-year-old to the zoo: The parent might ask a daughter how she felt when the lion roared, but with a boy, the parent might say, "Whoa, that lion sure could roar!"

"Parents deny boys the opportunity to explore all their feelings. If the only emotion that you're really allowed to display is anger, it's like you only have a hammer, so every situation had better be a nail," she says.

Conversely, girls know the vocabulary for a complete range of emotions — and most don't shy away from using dramatic phrases — but they're so aware of what they say and how it will be interpreted by their friends, many girls don't even know what they are really feeling, Gordon says.

Gordon is a clinical social worker and the mother of a 22-year-old son and a 31-year-old daughter; Shaffer is deputy director of gender equity programs at the Mid-Atlantic Equity Center and has a 21-year-old son and 29-year-old daughter. Both women live in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.

"One thing that is very hopeful is that the power of parents is so incredible, and parents can get strength from knowing that," Gordon adds.

The two tout their four As — active listening, availability, accountability and appropriate boundaries.