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Grunts, Snarls and Verbal Abuse

How to Break the Silence and Poor Communication Patterns

By Laura Paul

Foster starts with the basics: the art of conversation. To have a conversation with an adult, it's not necessary to have 25 questions lined up, he says. "You just ask simple questions and listen to the answer you get from the question you ask to come up with your next question," he says. "Then ... basically stay on three subjects: jobs, families and hobbies, because if you can stay on those subjects and ask simple questions and just base your next question on the answer you got from your last question, you can talk to anyone forever."

Communication is a skill. It can be learned, and it only improves when it is practiced, Foster says. "Many times, the most important communication skills between young people and adults are not learned between the young person and their parent but between a young person and another adult outside the home," he says.

Oftentimes teenagers will talk more when they are involved in a sport or activity. Turn off the television and video games and take children outside, Foster says.

"I have a teenager who works for us, and he goes every weekend with his father," Foster says. "They sit in a deer blind, and they have more communication taking place in that deer blind and on the hour-and-a-half drive down to that land than they ever do any other time in their lives."

Rae Simpson of Cambridge, Mass., the author of a report, Raising Teens

Want to see more?

• Shh, Mom! Stop Spilling My Secrets: Why Parents Should Use Discretion When Talking About Their Teens
• Behavior Contracts: What Can They Do for You? An Interview with Mark Kichler, President of KidsContracts, Inc.
• The Lost Art of Letter Writing: How to Get Your Child to Pick up a Pen
• Check out our Article Library.
• Talk about it!

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