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> When I was your age I was more lonely than anyone knew. Is anything going on in your life that no one knows about? I spend my entire working day, and many ho

> When I was your age I was more lonely than anyone knew. Is anything going on in your life that no one knows about? I spend my entire working day, and many hours afterward in extracurricular activities, with teenagers. This is a remarkably bad question. None of the questions, to be honest, is very good, but this one in particular would earn you a straight-up blank stare. It’s good to ask kids direct, deep questions, but they have to believe—-like feel in their guts—-that no matter what they tell you, you will still be there for them and you won’t judge them. Especially when kids are doing something they know is dangerous or harmful (like, say, cutting or acting out sexually). And if we’re completely honest, kids are often most afraid of telling their parents about that stuff. I deal with this a lot, in part because of the environment my kids (at school) are growing up in leading to a shitload of trauma and in part because I am one of the adults in the building who truly gives a shit about their mental health and emotional well-being (there aren’t that many of us, unfortunately, out of 120 teachers). The single most common element every case of a kid confiding in me has is terror over what their parent(s) will say/do. So, these questions are, like, not exactly designed to elicit real answers.

kayodelycaon 3y ago
Terror is a good word for it and is not exaggerating.
sdwr 3y ago
So true! The question at the top is a power play, a sales pitch, an ego boost that fakes reciprocity but keeps all the cards. Notice how the vulnerability is kept in the past. "I used to be lonely, but now I'm fine! I don't need anything from you, but I bet you need something from me!"
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  It's generally taken as good advice for parents to not rely on their children for emotional support ie: preferring unidirectional emotional regulation as opposed to co-regulation. Emotional co-regulation is seen as being as placing undue burdens on children. Is that what you were referring to or is it something else?
  - sdwr 3y ago
    I'm saying it's stealing! You have a pre-existing equilibrium with your child (the parent asking the questions). Maybe it's good, maybe it's ok. But you want more! You want access to their inner thoughts, and fears, and deep recesses that they barely understand themselves. What are you offering in exchange for their lifeblood?
    - kelseyfrog 3y ago
      It's funny. I read it in an entirely different way. The way I took it was an invitation to share rather than some expectation or requirement. To me the author regrets having never been asked this question during childhood and learned the lesson, "Take time to ask open-ended questions." I didn't read it as, "demand access to your child's inner thoughts," but I find it interesting that you did. There certainly are parents who do demand access to their children's inner thoughts l, but I didn't interpret the author as being one of them. It seems we agree that this behavior from parents is bad, but disagree that the author is advocating for it.
      - devilbunny 3y ago
        You do you, but how else is a parent's question to be taken? I've never had any interest in sharing the depths of my life with my parents, and I'm in my late 40s. That's not because they're bad people; they're not. But they have always kept their life before me separate from their life after me, and I think that's a two-way street. I don't need to know about how they hoovered up lines of cocaine and went to fetish parties (I don't really think they did either, but it could have happened and I'd never have known), and they don't need to know what I do with my spare time.
        kelseyfrog 3y ago
        > How else is a parent's question to be taken? Process of elimination is a very poor strategy for explaining other's behavior. Worse, much worse, than chance in my experience. I find even random selection to be better at behavior explanation over process of elimination. Among all of the behavioral explaination tactics, I've found asking people to have the best predictive power. To that effect, you would have to ask those parents.
pseudoramble 3y ago
A tangential question then - what do you think or suggest is a good way to reduce that fear on the part of the parent? It kind of sounds like a long term project, as in through most of their lives prior to these teenage years. It seems like a great point you've got and I'm wondering if there's much directly that can be done to improve the situation.
- dmvdoug 3y ago
  You know, I honestly don’t know. In all the situations I’ve dealt with that involved getting kids into counseling or stuff like that, the parent(s) have been extremely supportive of the kids. It’s like it took going through it once for the kids to realize they don’t have to be afraid of being honest about serious stuff with their parent(s). On the other hand, I do have kids who are gay who will not, under any circumstances, come out to their parent(s) because of the parent’s homophobia. And I see the damage it does to kids who have and who live with people who basically hate them. So that sort of thing is a tough nut to crack. Maybe it’s just because of my substantive views on sexual orientation, but it strikes me as doing it completely wrong if you hate your own kid because of it. I guess it also matters that I deal with 9th graders, so they are just in that stage where they’re discovering themselves as people independent of their parents, and they’re afraid of being rejected or punished for things because they haven’t experienced dealing with Serious Life Issues in relation to their parent(s) yet.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

kayodelycaon 3y ago

Terror is a good word for it and is not exaggerating.

sdwr 3y ago

So true! The question at the top is a power play, a sales pitch, an ego boost that fakes reciprocity but keeps all the cards. Notice how the vulnerability is kept in the past. "I used to be lonely, but now I'm fine! I don't need anything from you, but I bet you need something from me!"

kelseyfrog 3y ago
It's generally taken as good advice for parents to not rely on their children for emotional support ie: preferring unidirectional emotional regulation as opposed to co-regulation. Emotional co-regulation is seen as being as placing undue burdens on children. Is that what you were referring to or is it something else?
- sdwr 3y ago
  I'm saying it's stealing! You have a pre-existing equilibrium with your child (the parent asking the questions). Maybe it's good, maybe it's ok. But you want more! You want access to their inner thoughts, and fears, and deep recesses that they barely understand themselves. What are you offering in exchange for their lifeblood?
  - kelseyfrog 3y ago
    It's funny. I read it in an entirely different way. The way I took it was an invitation to share rather than some expectation or requirement. To me the author regrets having never been asked this question during childhood and learned the lesson, "Take time to ask open-ended questions." I didn't read it as, "demand access to your child's inner thoughts," but I find it interesting that you did. There certainly are parents who do demand access to their children's inner thoughts l, but I didn't interpret the author as being one of them. It seems we agree that this behavior from parents is bad, but disagree that the author is advocating for it.
    - devilbunny 3y ago
      You do you, but how else is a parent's question to be taken? I've never had any interest in sharing the depths of my life with my parents, and I'm in my late 40s. That's not because they're bad people; they're not. But they have always kept their life before me separate from their life after me, and I think that's a two-way street. I don't need to know about how they hoovered up lines of cocaine and went to fetish parties (I don't really think they did either, but it could have happened and I'd never have known), and they don't need to know what I do with my spare time.
      - kelseyfrog 3y ago
        > How else is a parent's question to be taken? Process of elimination is a very poor strategy for explaining other's behavior. Worse, much worse, than chance in my experience. I find even random selection to be better at behavior explanation over process of elimination. Among all of the behavioral explaination tactics, I've found asking people to have the best predictive power. To that effect, you would have to ask those parents.

pseudoramble 3y ago

A tangential question then - what do you think or suggest is a good way to reduce that fear on the part of the parent? It kind of sounds like a long term project, as in through most of their lives prior to these teenage years. It seems like a great point you've got and I'm wondering if there's much directly that can be done to improve the situation.

dmvdoug 3y ago
You know, I honestly don’t know. In all the situations I’ve dealt with that involved getting kids into counseling or stuff like that, the parent(s) have been extremely supportive of the kids. It’s like it took going through it once for the kids to realize they don’t have to be afraid of being honest about serious stuff with their parent(s). On the other hand, I do have kids who are gay who will not, under any circumstances, come out to their parent(s) because of the parent’s homophobia. And I see the damage it does to kids who have and who live with people who basically hate them. So that sort of thing is a tough nut to crack. Maybe it’s just because of my substantive views on sexual orientation, but it strikes me as doing it completely wrong if you hate your own kid because of it. I guess it also matters that I deal with 9th graders, so they are just in that stage where they’re discovering themselves as people independent of their parents, and they’re afraid of being rejected or punished for things because they haven’t experienced dealing with Serious Life Issues in relation to their parent(s) yet.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]