This article is brought to you by CHOC Children’s pediatric psychologist Dr. Carlos Konishi Ph.D on conversation starters for kids and advice on how parents can encourage communication beyond the one word answer. Getting kids to share more can be a challenge at times, especially for parents of teenagers. His information on how to get kids to open up gave me so many “AHA!” moments during my interview I actually had to apologize for saying “TOTALLY!” so many times after he said something that struck a chord. I was like an 80’s teenager myself. Totally.
One word answers.
Ugh.
How was your day?
Fine.
Good.
Okay.
What did you do?
Not much.
The process of trying to get more information out of your child can be painful at times, like pulling teeth. So how do you get beyond the one word answer?
Here is Dr. Konishi’s insightful advice… be ready to say TOTALLY yourself…