How to talk to your teen

We have all heard about the importance of communication with our teenaged children. Experts attribute a lot of behavioural issues in growing kids to "lack of communication", "communication breakdown" or "strained communication". We also believe that at the core of a good relationship is talking and speaking. That is the reason when our teenagers are going through difficult phases we like to tell them, "let's sit and have a chat" or "we need to discuss".
 What if I told you that all our sitting and talking is actually more damaging than helpful for children, especially adolescents?
Let us choose a typical scenario. You want to talk to your teenage son about his irresponsible behaviour. What is the first reaction you get when you ask him "Can we talk?" He might roll his eyes, heave a sigh that says "Here we go again" and brace himself for a long lecture session. As you start with your, "We need to talk", he sits slumped in front of you, eyes glazing over slowly with a look that can be best described as "whatever".
You try to be as kind as possible, choosing your words with care, peppered with "You know we want the best for you", "It is in your best interest". However, you soon feel irritated as your teen does not seem to be responding at all. You finally lose your cool when you see him looking at his watch furtively and shout out, "You are not really bothered are you?" He responds with, "Not really". A few more exchanges like that and the so-called 'talk' has been hijacked into a heated argument and door slamming. Both parties leave the table feeling angry, helpless and confused. All this talking is supposed to work right? Wrong! Here are some basics of communication to get your relationship with your teen off the "whatever" zone.

 Listen before talking. The most important part of communication is listening and not talking. And listening deeply "instead of just waiting for their turn to speak" (Fight Club, one of my favourite movies)! One complaint I hear from teenagers about their parents is that "they do not understand as they never listen". So take a little more interest in your child's life, spend time together to get to know his/her world, listen without judgeing and you will be surprised at what he/she will be ready to share with you.
Make it casual. Rather than that big talk which will always get their 'uh-oh' antennae up, make it brief, make it casual, rather than the "I need to talk to you about something". It could be done while you are dropping him/her to the bus stop or when you are clearing the table after a meal. Teenagers are particularly allergic to lectures and long speeches so cut out the spiel. Switch channels. A mother I met recently was very worried about her strained relationship with her daughter. Any attempt on her part to connect was met with a heavy firewall. After our discussion, she decided to write a long letter to her daughter. She wrote a most beautiful letter in which she told her daughter how much she loved her and what her daughter meant to her. The mother came back to me after a week with a big smile saying, "I have got my daughter back"! You could even email, SMS, BBM or leave little post-its. Define the bottom line. If there is something you need to take a stand on, then be clear about the boundaries and let your child know. It could be about switching off the Wi-Fi at 10 pm or scheduling study time. They will moan, groan, complain, try to get you into an argument. You know better now, so do not get hooked into any long talk or long reasoning. Be convinced, stay calm and see them settle down.