- How do you talk to your teenager? I don't know. (laughs) How do you talk to your teenager? (kiss) Hello and welcome back to Millennial Moms. If you're new, I am Kimmy. Welcome, welcome. And hit that Subscribe button down below so you don't miss any videos. And give this video a great big thumbs up because today we're gonna talk about how you could talk to your teenagers. I'm no expert but I'm a mom to two teens and I've learned some things along the way and guess what, I'm still learning. I know it can be hard
that they're growing up. It's exciting, but they all of a sudden are this new person. I think puberty happened. I think they don't want to be treated like a little kid anymore. And they have morphed into this person that sometimes
you don't even recognize. But, they definitely want to
feel validated and important. The biggest thing that I
am learning right now is they talk, I listen. So when they want to talk
to you, stop, drop, and run. - Yo, mom! Mom, can we talk? - What's up? - Okay - [Kimmy] Sometimes
these moments are rare. And it can be hard to sit back, keep our mouths shut, and let them talk without butting in. It is so hard, I'm trying so hard at this. But they want to be heard. Even if you don't agree
with what they're saying, they just want to be heard. So with that, the best
thing to do while they're talking to you is try not to react. Now again, I don't do this perfectly. There's times I've messed up horribly. My daughter was telling my husband and I how she wants a dog and that she would take care of him and when
she goes to college next year you know, she's got this
whole plan for the dog and we don't have to worry about the dog. So my husband was being
so good and listening and staying calm and asking
her engaging questions on how you know, 'What's your next step? What would you do then?' and I'm over here freaking out. - Can I please get a dog? I'll pay for it. I'll pay for all the food, the kennel, I'll tame it before I leave for college and if I can have a dog with me in my dorm or my apartment, I'll take it with me. - No, I don't want to talk
- And then, Lexie said that she'll help us train it
- No you won't - And then I'll keep it outside when I'm at school and I'll feed it
- No you won't. - when I come home, and play with it
- You're not gonna take care of it
- And then you'll love it - You're not gonna take it potty and then we'll have a family dog - Oh my gosh I'm gonna have another child
And then (mumbles) could go out with the dog experiences
- It's like having another kid Oh my gosh.
- They haven't had that yet and I have and you should
just let us have a dog. I handled that completely wrong. I should have followed my husband's lead and just listened. We validated her feelings, we told her how awesome it would be if she were to get that dog, but right now the timing was not right. It is so hard to let
go of control sometimes and just listen, but that's
all they want sometimes. Sometimes they don't want our advice. They don't want to be talked at. They just want us to listen. Okay, my friend gave me an amazing tip of how not to react in the moment. This is working for her
and her teenage daughter. What she did was got a notebook and it's a notebook that they
share between each other. They write to each other in the notebook. Her daughter can write
how things are going. "This is what happened in school today. I'm concerned about this. This is what I did, or
I'm having trouble here." And she writes it all out to her mom. She puts it in a spot
that her mom knows to go look for and my friend
has a spot for her daughter where she can know and go
look for that notebook. So my friend will go to her room and she'll read what her daughter wrote. That way, behind closed
doors, she can react so once she's composed, she
writes back to her daughter her advice or her feelings or
her thoughts to her daughter. That way, she is not
blowing up on her daughter. She's not overreacting and she's able to take a moment and breathe and respond to her daughter. So I just thought, "Wow,
what a neat concept." If you don't do it this way, take a moment to react away from them. A great way to have communication with your teenager is in the car. When you're driving with them, when you're taking them to practice or dance or just in the car in general so ask them open ended questions like, "How" or "What" 'cause don't you just love the questions that are
"Yep", "Nope", "Eeeh", "Mmm" I have to say that on
my drives with my teens we have some really good conversations. Some of them are deep,
some of them are heartfelt, and some of them are just so much fun that we laugh. And if you want to get 'em to open up add a couple of your
teenagers in the car together. They feed off of each
other, they open up more and create an open environment. If you're noticing that
they're having a problem and it's chaotic in the home, maybe go for a walk with them or put on some music,
have things calm down, and just create an environment for them that they feel safe and
want to open up and talk. We're a pretty open family and we have made it that way
since my daughter was young. We always said to her, "Any
time you hear something at school that you don't understand or it's a little weird,
or if it has to do about drugs or anything like that, come to us and talk about it. You won't be in trouble
and we can give you the information that you need." Of course it's scary at first, but my daughter, she started doing this and she would come home and be like, "I heard this at school. This was weird, and this
made me very uncomfortable." And so we just made it comfortable for her to come and talk to us. We have been a very open family. Communication is big here. We try to talk it out as much as we can. You know, teens are tough. I remember when I was a teenager, nothing my parents said or did was cool or it aggravated me to
no end, but enjoy them. We only have them for
a short period of time so soak them in and have fun. If you have any tips on
how to talk to your teens please leave them in the comments below so we can all learn. This is a new territory
for the majority of us and we would love to learn, especially from you parents that have lived though this already. Alright, thanks again for
joining Millennial Moms If you want to see more videos from Millennial Moms,
just click right here to see more of me here, click up here and to subscribe, click right here. Thanks again and we'll see you soon, bye.