SoulShine SOULutions: Let’s Shift Your Mindset on Having Difficult Conversations with Your Kids - How to Give Difficult the Boot

By Erika Fehrenbach Prell

When you become a parent, there are a myriad of thoughts swirling in your head, ranging in rationality. An innocuous thought of which diapers or bottles to use spirals quickly into, “Oh no! I used BPA-free bottles with my second but not with my first...have I set him up for cancer??”. Or, was that just me? While many of these topics may require some due diligence, there is something coming that is even more important, has a tendency to sneak up on even the most prepared parent, and WILL impact your child immediately and long term.

I am talking about how you handle having difficult conversations with your child. Let me be clear. There is a difference between awkward conversations that deal with the body changes of puberty or, ahem, what mom and dad were doing the other night and difficult conversations . I’m talking about hard topics that kids stumble into accidentally on the internet or hear on the news or that you want to prepare them for ahead of time like violence or sexual predators. 

I know, we want to keep our kids in a little bubble of innocence and safety. One of my most prized roles as a mother is to protect these little humans fiercely (followed closely by keeping them alive...lol...and hopefully, molding them into acceptable members of society). My instinct is to protect them from all these horrible things. The truth, however, is that by sheltering my kids from all the bad, I am actually setting them up to be the next victim. 

This hit home recently in our little, innocent town in Wisconsin. Our school’s superintendent was arrested and charged with several awful charges (out of respect to his family who had no idea, I am purposely being vague). It rocked us all on two levels; one, he fell into the you would never suspect category and, two, he was a teacher turned principal turned superintendent so way too close to our kids! My oldest son is in sixth grade and younger son is in second. Thanks to the internet, my oldest son knew as much as I did by the time he got home from school. During the school day, I consulted with my mom tribe and husband on how we would discuss with our two very different aged children. Did we want to talk about this horrible topic? Nope. Did we realize we HAD to? Yes. Why? We wanted to establish an open communication line with our kids for difficult topics, we wanted to be the source of the information and not media or friends, and this topic opened our eyes that we HAD to talk about the scary parts of the world to keep our kids safe.

These conversations do not have to be as hard as you think if you have a strategy going into it. Keep this in mind, depending on the age of your child, will depend on your strategy. The conversation we had with our 8 year old was done separately from our almost 12 year old and sounded totally different. For this reason, the following tips are broken down by age. You are the ultimate expert in your child and should decide the best way to conduct these conversations. The important part is to HAVE them!

Why Having Difficult Conversations is Crucial

• Establishes open communication between you and your child (and, spoiler, the earlier to start this, the better!)
  
• Communication makes your child feel safer, strengthens your bond to each other, and teaches them how to make sense of the world
  
• Helps develop critical thinking skills like checking sources, finding facts, and considering others perspectives
  
• Ask yourself, where would you like them to learn about these topics? If you don’t discuss them, they will hear them filtered through the media, accidentally find them on social, or believe what their friends tell them.
  

SoulShine SOULution Tips: How to Have a Difficult (or Awkward) Conversation With Your Kids

• Awkward conversations often happen spontaneously and might initially make YOU feel embarrassed or feel “deer in the headlights”. Take a deep breath and collect yourself.
  
• Get your mindset straight - remember, you are the adult and how you set the tone will determine how the conversation will go
  
• Prepare ahead of time (get your facts straight and know your general talking points)
  
• Keep your child’s age and development level in mind (younger kids are very literal)
  
• Face the conversation head-on and directly
  
• Pick an appropriate time or setting
  
• Remember, you can do hard things. The anticipation of these conversations is often harder and scarier than actually having them. You got this!
  

There are times you come across such an awesome resource that you say to yourself, “Whoa, this is amazing and NEEDs to be shared!”. That was my reaction when I stumbled across these tips from www.commonsense.org (and, I realized I could not make them any better). I love that these take into consideration the development stage of each of these age groups. Go to the website for even more details on each tip!

Tips for kids ages 2-6 from commonsense.org

Development Cliff Notes:

• Kids in this age group do not have enough life experience to understand the pieces in complex, difficult topics
  
• Kids do not understand abstract ideas or cause and effect
  
• This age group cares more about how the people they love most (mom, dad, grandparents, even their dog) react
  
• It can be challenging to explain big issues
  
• This age group is moves on quickly so don’t over-explain
  

Difficult Conversation Tips

• Limit exposure (this is the only age that you have the most control over what they see on social media and television)
  
• Address their feelings
  
• Ask what they know (or think they know)
  
• Keep your explanations simple 
  
• Relate to their life with an example, if this makes sense 
  
• Use basic feeling words like sad, mad, or angry
  
• Explain that someone in charge is taking care of it (like the police or mom and dad)
  

Tips for ages 7-12 from commonsense.org

Development Cliff Notes:

• This age of kids gets more complicated as they become exposed to age-inappropriate content more often (think accidental Google search or the dreaded bus conversations)
  
• Younger kids are still pretty literal
  
• Tweens need to be able to discuss things they see without shame or embarrassment (this is where YOUR reaction is important)
  

Difficult Conversation Tips:

• Wait for or create the right moment (have younger siblings leave the room, at a time when you aren’t rushing off to something else)
  
• Answer simply and directly, try not to over explain
  
• Provide context and perspective as they need to understand the why behind the situation
  
• Address their curiosity and concerns
  
• Be sensitive to kids’ emotions and temperament
  
• Encourage critical thinking (where to find information, where to go with questions, that this is not appropriate to discuss with their younger siblings)
  
• Look for positivity in the situation
  

Tips for Teens from commonsense.org

Development Cliff Notes:

• Teens are engaged in media independently (reading, interacting, and, blah, creating it themselves)
  
• They will hear about difficult topics without your knowledge
  
• Teens are more interested in the opinions of their friends or other people on social media over their parents (you have entered the dumb zone in their eyes)
  
• Teens have a tendency to bristle at lectures because they think they know everything already
  

Difficult Conversation Tips:

• Encourage teens to find media to enrich their knowledge and ask questions to get them to think through their opinions and arguments
  
• Encourage an open dialogue where they can speak freely without consequences (Spoiler: This will be more effective if you have started the conversation with awkward and difficult conversations when these teens were little kids and tweens)
  
• Admit when you don't know the answer, then show how you would go about finding the answer
  
• Get them to think of the complexities of the situation
  
• Share your values
  
• Talk about the different spins different sources put on information
  
• Ask what they would do in this difficult situation
  
• Get them to consider solutions
  

A few final thoughts, parents! Awkward and difficult conversations do not have to be a big deal. These are a part of life and a responsibility that we, as parents, have to teach our children so they are not victims themselves, have compassion and empathy for those that are, and learn how to critically think and handle situations in the world. I hope this mindset reset and these tips help you navigate this part of parenting and turns “awkward” and “difficult” conversations into just conversations. You were made for hard things; you got this!

Shine on!
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