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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Joanna Moorhead

10 questions to ask a teenager to start an important conversation

Siblings from the North West of England. Photographed in Manchester.
Siblings from the North West of England. Photographed in Manchester. Photograph: Dean Davies/Getty Images

Communication is one of the biggest issues when you’ve got a teenager. Conversations can be fraught, loaded – they often feel as if they’re about to go ballistic – or worst of all, they’re just nonexistent. Your teen seems to be a closed book – they don’t want to talk and you don’t seem to be able to coax them out of their shell.

And yet there are effective ways to open up a conversation with your teenager – though you need to be very sensitive, and self-aware, and genuinely interested in creating a dialogue rather than just a chance to ram home what you think about an issue.

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