Speaker 1Hello and welcome to the How Not to Screw Up Your Kids podcast, the bucket emptying episodes. I'm your host, Dr. Mary Han, psychologist and parenting expert. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. Today's episode, I think it's going to be a bit of a corker. It's going to be a really helpful one in terms of emptying our bucket because it is all about how to start a difficult conversation. Now, what I mean by that is it's either how to start a conversation that is around a subject matter that is going to be particularly difficult, or it's a difficult because you've got an uncommunicative child or a teen who isn't really up for talking really at any level. Either they just won't have conversations at all or their conversations tend to be at a superficial level and you never really get into any depth. Now, I've sort of decided to do this because I've done a lot of speaking in schools and in companies over the last couple of weeks. And so much of what I talk about when it comes to raising resilient adults, whether it's around anxiety, whether it's managing emotions, requires some level of communication, some sort of conversations. And so, I've been getting repeated questions from parents who've said like, "How do I even start this when I've got a child that just wants to talk to me?" And so, I've been getting repeated questions from parents who've said, "How do I even start this when I've got a child that just I can't get them to really talk to me about anything particularly meaningful. So this episode is for you. It is also for you if, like the rest of the United Kingdom and possibly the rest of the world, have been watching adolescence and it's triggered within you a desire to kind of open up some deeper, more meaningful conversations around raising boys, raising men. So this is for you. So let's talk about, I'm going to share five things. Normally in the Bucket Emptying episodes, it's much more of a sort of a quick hit, but I think this one warrants a little bit more. So the first thing that I would say when it comes to how do we start a difficult conversation is to remember that we're not looking for one big, deep, meaningful conversation. We're looking to have multiple small conversations. And this is particularly if you've got a child or a teen. Who isn't massively communicative, who tends to, it feels like you're kind of pulling teeth. So I think it's worth remembering that on any kind of topic that we're going to have conversations anyway, because we want there to be regular touch points. And so if we sort of frame it from this perspective of actually we're not having one big conversation, we're just going to have lots of little ones. So that's the first thing. Now, the second thing is. Where possible, and this is the most optimal way to sort of have these conversations is we want to seize natural opportunities because they're optimal because they feel much less contrived. So, for example, I don't know, your child comes back from school and we might say, looks like you've had a tough day. You look worn out. I'm conscious you may feel under a huge amount of pressure at the moment, whether that's exams, whether that's friends. And then we're nagging on top of that. I know it might not always feel like it, but we are on your side. We love you and we're always here if you need us. For example, that's a bit of a mini script in terms of sort of starting that conversation. And if it's helpful, we will include it as a free resource, that particular sort of starting point. And then you can kind of tweak and work around that in terms of how you might necessarily introduce it or use it. But it is those natural. Opportunities. There are more than we think there are if we just look for those moments, we just because those natural opportunities are where we can kind of acknowledge or get a bit of a glimmer of where our child is currently at, whether they're frustrated, whether they're irritated with their sibling, whether they're annoyed that we've asked them to do yet another task. Those are the moments where if we can acknowledge that, look, I get that it must feel like we're giving you a hard time all of the time. That can be a really good intro to and that and I recognize that there might also be some other pressures and, you know, it might be quite good to have a chat about it or I've noticed that this is happening. Those are the kind of the great ways of seizing those those conversations. And what you'll find is when you become really active in trying to seek out those natural opportunities, you notice the more it's all of that kind of the more we get intentional about something, the more we focus in on things, the more. We spot. So I think where possible, let's seize those natural opportunities. I will talk about how we can then if we can't seize natural opportunities, how do we then go about it? And so number three is this is how we might introduce a conversation where we're instigating it. We haven't got a natural moment, but we've decided that we need to have a conversation about something. Maybe something's happened and you need to have that conversation. Maybe you've seen adolescence and you want to have a conversation. Around it. So these are some of the mini scripts that you could start with. So it might be I've seen that I've noticed that I've learned that. So one of those sort of three intro bits. And I'd like an opportunity to talk to you about it. I know it might feel a bit weird. It might feel a bit awkward. It might be a bit embarrassing, but it's really important to have this conversation. When would be a good time for us to have to have five minutes? So, again, we can share. Share that little mini scripty piece, but you can kind of see that you would pick and choose the words that you want out of the different options that I gave you. What's crucial about when we're kind of, you know, to their mind might feel like we're suddenly pouncing on them and then asking them to have this conversation is when we say to them, when might it be OK to have five minutes? There are some crucial bits as to why I chose five minutes and I didn't add the word chat. Our children and our teens often switch off when we talk. Let's have a chat. And my suspicion is why they do that is because in the past when we've had a chat, it hasn't been five minutes and they have felt it's been a long lecture rather than a chat. So I have intentionally chosen in that script to just ask for a good time for us to have to have five minutes because that is just simply I'm not I'm not framing it from a perspective of we're going to have a long conversation. I just want five minutes of your time. So that's the first bit to notice. The other bit is that we're empowered. We're empowering them and acknowledging that we have now started a request for a conversation. And so we put it into their courts as when would be a good time for us. So, again, we're then asking them to then come back to us on when that might be rather than what we often do. And I'm guilty probably more than anyone. We need to have a conversation. So it's all on my time. I've decided. And now you need to drop everything. Whereas if we reflect on how we might feel if someone suddenly when we've just come back from school, when we're just having a relaxing moment, when we're just doing a piece of something that we then suddenly get pulled into right now, I need your time. You need to drop everything. So this gives them a bit of time to think, to reflect. And if we've given them a bit of heads up that we want to have that we want five minutes around something that we've noticed, something that we've heard, something that we've seen that we think is important. And we'd like to have a conversation. We'd like to talk it through. Then it also allows them and affords them that time for them to reflect and to think before they then come into that five minutes. So that can be a really good way. So we've got the way that we can seize the opportunities where we're looking for little aspects of our child's behavior or their life or their world that we can use that to leverage the conversation from that acknowledgement of how things are for them. Or. We start with this. I've seen that I've noticed that I've learned that number four in terms of this difficult conversations is pause, be mindful not to confuse your child or your teen's silence with an opportunity to keep talking. So I say this with love, but quite often as parents, one of the real ways we minimize the impact of the conversations that we have with them. Is by taking it too far, talking for too long, seeing their silence as an opportunity for us to keep talking. And in fact, it, we've, they've, they've done that glazing over. It's going in one ear, it's going out the other. We've switched from having a conversation to lecture mode. Now, if you are having a conversation and it is 100% two way, they're inputting, they're asking questions, they're clarifying. They're giving. Responses and it's an engaged conversation where you're both contributing, then keep going for as long as you need to. When it's an engaged conversation, that's completely different. What I'm asking with number four is just be mindful to pause because if you're not getting anything further from them within that pause, then it gives you an opportunity to begin to close it down. Remembering that first point. that I've made that we're not having one big deep conversation having multiple so we can revisit this we don't have to get it all out in one conversation so it's just reminding us to take that pause so that's number four and number five really feeds into that is that for me these conversations are all about leaving them wanting leaving them feeling that there's more to say leaving leave them feeling that they've got an opportunity to go away and reflect because what that happens is it's this short sharp drip drip that is so much more impactful around conversations and means that in future they're much more likely to engage in those conversations then because they know they're going to be listened to that it isn't going to be a lecture and it's going to be two-way so those are my five top tips for having difficult conversations either on difficult topics or with children that find it really difficult to start those conversations in the first place i will be sharing so in the free resource library drmaryhand.com forward slash library you will be able to get access to those two little mini scripts either from us seizing natural opportunities or the ones where we are particularly inviting them to have a conversation with us so we will share those in there so you just need to pop over to that web link and you'll be able to get access there now as ever if you have enjoyed this episode i would be eternally grateful you if you could rate follow and review this podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love so until next time
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