6 Ways to Engage Your Kids in Conversation

Family RelationshipsMentor Mom WisdomTweens & Teens

May 8

Editor’s Note: We deeply value the wisdom and experiences of faithful moms in seasons ahead of us but also know that various discipline and parenting strategies play out differently in each family. In conjunction with your own Bible study, local church investment, research, and real-life relationships with mentors and other friends, we hope articles like this help you better understand your own family’s needs and encourage you in the trenches of motherhood.

Parents often ask me for advice on how to get their kids to talk. Why, they wonder, is it so difficult to have open and honest conversations?

There are a few big reasons kids don’t openly share with their parents:

“I don’t trust them.”
“They won’t understand.”
“I don’t want them to worry.”
“They will try to fix me instead of just listening.”

None of us want our kids to feel these sentiments. The good news is there are proactive preventive approaches we can take to help our kids know they can talk to us, not because we told them, “You can tell me anything,” but because we’ve showed them.

Here are six ways we can move toward our children and pursue redemptive conversations together:

1. Connection

First and foremost, intentional connecting time is key. We do this when we hold our newborn baby. We sing to him, feed him, and snuggle him tight, without anything else in the world distracting us. But somewhere between toddlerhood and the teenage years, we can forget the importance of continued connecting. Looking our child in the eyes. Giving healthy touch. Playing with and delighting in our child. Paying attention to what they love.

In our busy lives, we might think we are spending time with our kids when really, we are multi-tasking and only half there. Or we are around our kids but peppering them with questions: “Did you clean your room?” “Did you talk to your teacher about that missing assignment?”—and before we know it, we are in full-out lecture mode and our kids have tuned us out. While such questions have a time and place, let’s dedicate ourselves to making true connection a habit. Just ten minutes a day of undistracted connecting goes further than we might imagine for both our little and big kids.[1] For our delight in them is a picture of God’s delight in us.[2]

2. Active Listening

I wish I could take back the many times I was only half-hearing one of my children because I was zeroed in on my laptop, in the car caught up in my own thoughts, or distracted by my own to-do list. Consequently, I missed opportunities to engage. Instead of asking follow-up questions, too many times I simply nodded, “Mmm-hmm.”

We listen not only with our ears, but with our eyes and minds. When our children speak (or remain quiet), notice their body language. Be curious about why they share something, or what they talk frequently about. These observations help us engage on a deeper level.

Active listening includes paying attention to what we see, rephrasing what we hear, and asking probing questions. This is what counselors do, but as parents, we can do it even better! We know our child in a way that a counselor doesn’t. God has given them into our care,[3] and we are to be a good steward of them,[4] which includes faithfully seeking to draw them out. In hearing and knowing our children, we build a stronger connection and get to be the shaping instrument we are called to be in their lives.

3. No Nagging

Along with lecturing and passive listening, nagging has a way of quickly silencing our kids. Moms especially can have a hard time grasping this. We seem to be hardwired toward it, but if we trace the nagging backward, we can often find an idol of control.

When we nag, we convey to our kids they aren’t enough. It wasn’t until my daughter was a highschool senior that I learned that my nagging made her feel like a failure. The more I tried to control, the more she pushed away—why open herself up to extra stress and more critique?

My nagging was the outward expression of my real issue—falsely believing my security and rest was dependent on my ordered control as opposed to trusting the One who rules over all.[5]

4. No Shaming

“How could you?” “What were you thinking?” “What will people think?” Phrases like these can communicate to our kids that we aren’t fellow sinners living in a broken world—that we would never do something so bad. Consequently, instead of creating a safe place to share, instead of helping our kids process their heart motives, instead of lovingly leading our kids to repentance, we can fill our kids with more shame than they already feel.

When we repetitively over-respond, shame is heightened, and our kids default to hiding their sin. Then they stop telling us what is going on with them and their friends. But when we restrain our own emotions, we open the door to further conversation. We also open the door to grace-based parenting with an aim at heart transformation as opposed to law and behavioral modification.

5. Identifying

We must learn to get in the boat with our kids—identifying with their emotions, worries, struggles, and sin. We might be in different boats, but we are in the same choppy waters because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

When one of my children was in middle school, we learned this child had a vape. Instead of responding in shock or punishment alone, we asked probing questions. What we discovered is that the reason for the vaping was to fit in. Smoking with peers made this child feel accepted and cool.

I get that. I want to be accepted by others. I want to feel cool. Boom! That was the entry point. Because we could identify on a heart-level with the same idolatrous desires, we had a fruitful conversation that day. There were still consequences but none of the ostracizing or shame that often accompanies discipline. And because this child saw us in the same boat as fellow sinners, we have continued to have ongoing open dialogue.

6. Normalizing Taboo Topics

We can’t expect kids to come to us with their questions when we have not initiated certain awkward topics. What if a kid is struggling with temptation to sexual sin—will he come to Mom and Dad? Not if sex is not something freely talked about.

If we don’t lead the way into these conversations, someone else will become our children’s go-to source. We are the ones who are to train up our children.[6] If, from the time our kids are young, we start talking at age-appropriate levels about sex and other hard issues, they learn that these are things they can go to Mom and Dad with.

If you struggle to navigate these topics and know what to say and how to engage with your kids, remember you are not alone. God is with you. Turn to him in prayer, telling him your worries and fears.[7] Seek his wisdom.[8] And be encouraged that he will provide for all of your needs and, by his power at work within you, he will enable you to step into the challenging conversations.[9]

At times, we will miss opportunities for connecting and identifying with our children because of our own distractions. We will fail to listen well because of our own agenda or emotional response. We will default back into nagging or inadvertently shaming because of fear and the “need” to control. We will never be the perfect parent.

Parenting is hard and connecting takes work, but God has not left us to ourselves. As we seek to draw out our children, God calls us to draw unto him. In our uncertainty and inadequacies, fears and weaknesses, hopes and hopelessness, he calls us to come.[10] For he will “equip you . . . that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ” (Hebrews 13:21). By his strength and because of his grace, our sin and failures can be the catalyst for growing in grace together.

[1] Karyn Purvis and David Cross, TBRI, 1999–2021.

[2] Ps. 18:19; Pr. 8:31; Is. 62:4

[3] James 1:17

[4] 1 Cor. 4:2

[5] Ps. 22:28; Col. 1:17

[6] Eph. 6:4

[7] Phil. 4:6–7

[8] James 1:5

[9] Phil. 4:19

[10] Kristen Hatton, “Behind a Counselor’s Door: Why Kids Don’t Talk to Their Parents,” Rooted Ministry (blog), June 16, 2022, https://rootedministry.com/blog/behind-a-counselors-door-why-kids-dont-talk-to-their-parents/.