Get them talking

by Dr Peggy on September 29, 2012

OK, we spent this time on recognizing teen suicide – a difficult topic. But as I thought more about the previous posts, a couple of important issues occurred to me. While we may know all of these warning signs and we know that it’s important to pay attention to our kids and teens, every parent struggles with the question of how to get our kids to talk about what really matters. We have discussed several tactics on this blog and our E-Book, Teen Talk – Ten Tipsgives you another set of options. You remember – Less talk, funny talk, soft talk??? Well, those tips are great so you have an opportunity to observe how your child or teen is doing at the moment. But there are some other tools that might also be helpful as you try to get underneath what’s going on with your children. So maybe instead of some of the gifts out there that everyone says you should buy your child or teenager – maybe one of these for the family might be a better choice!

Thoughts and Feelings and Thoughts and Feelings 2 – These are sentence completion card games. While the images may seem young, the questions aren’t. If you can get your family to play games – and some of us still can – this is a wonderful way to share thoughts and ideas while having a heck of a lot of fun at the same time.

Around the Table Games – These folks have a bunch of games encouraging conversation. Teen talk, Buddy talk, Family Talk – you name it.

And then there is Would you Rather – a “game of mind boggling questions.”

I think you get the general idea here. There are many good resources to help get the conversation flowing. It’s one of those times when you kids may decide that there parents are pretty cool – and their friends might like you too.

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