Parker is so quiet. It really bothers me. I feel like I’m losing touch with him.”
I was talking with Renee, Parker’s mom, at the grocery store. Her son had always been quiet, but now that he was a teenager, he hardly talked at all.
“Is he mad at you?” I asked.
“I don’t know. He doesn’t seem mad. He just doesn’t say anything.”
I didn’t think about the conversation again until our families got together a few weeks later. Then my eyes were opened as to the reason for Parker’s withdrawal.
Walking over to him, I asked, “So, how is baseball going?”
“Pretty good; my swing is . . .”
“His swing is better than it was last year, now that he’s getting lessons,” Renee interrupted.
As his mom was speaking, I watched Parker withdraw.
I began again: “So, how are the lessons going?”
“Well, he’s working with me on my stance because . . .”
“Because he stands away from the plate and loses power.”
Again, I saw Parker pull away inwardly.
As I watched Renee interrupt her son and speak for him repeatedly over the course of the evening, I felt I had to do something. The next time she interrupted Parker, I looked directly at him and said, “Parker, I want to hear this from you.”
I talked with Renee later about what I’d observed. She hadn’t realized how much she ran over Parker, and she didn’t like what she was doing. She realized that in constantly speaking for her son, she was discounting and devaluing him as an individual who had his own opinions and feelings.
Defining the Problem
Parents are sometimes dismayed and worried that their chatty ten-year-old has become a withdrawn fourteen-year-old. However, many times a teen’s silence is due to adolescence rather than a problem with him or with the parent.
Silence is a necessary and healthy part of the transition into adulthood. Teens need to create a place in their mind that their parents do not occupy. They have to clear room so they can separate others’ emotions and thoughts from their own. Silence is like random access memory (RAM), the part of the computer used by programs to perform tasks. Silence provides the thinking space teens need in order to sort out what and who they are.
Remember, too, that adolescents prepare for adulthood by withdrawing from their families and engaging more with the outside world. If parents can give teens freedom, love, and acceptance, they will come up for air and relate again to the family. However, their views will be their own and they probably will not share every thought and feeling as they often did when they were young.
But as Parker’s mom discovered, sometimes a teen’s silence does indicate a problem. If your teen’s silence is caused by any of the following reasons, it isn’t normal or healthy and is cause for concern.
Withdrawal from an intrusive parent. When parents interpret their teen’s silence as either a withdrawal of love or a serious problem, they sometimes overwhelm the teen with words. This can hinder a teen’s ability to have her own experiences. By being overly intrusive, the parent creates an actual problem and perpetuates a cycle of interrogation and withdrawal.
Limited ability to describe experiences and emotions. Teens sometimes don’t have a vocabulary adequate to describe their experiences, feelings, and reactions. They are much more comfortable simply commenting briefly on their activities. Emotion-laden words, such as sad, angry, confused, hurt, and scared, aren’t as comfortable for them, and so teens often avoid using them. They experience these emotions, but they don’t find them easy to articulate and express.
Fear of emotion. Even when they have the emotional vocabulary, teens often prefer to avoid dealing with strong negative feelings. They are still working on experiencing emotions without being afraid the emotions might get out of control or become too painful to bear. In response, the teen shuts down. The emotions don’t go away, but the teen is, temporarily, spared his fear and anxiety about what might happen inside himself.
Depression. Teens who are depressed are often silent. Depression is painful; often a depressed teen feels as if everything is wrong with her and her life; she has lost hope for anything good. Often she will withdraw from her parents, and sometimes the world, as a way to manage very strong emotions with which she is unable to deal.
Passive punishment. At times teens withdraw into silence because they feel angry or hostile toward their parents and don’t want to risk incurring their parents’ anger with angry words or actions. Instead, they withdraw in passive retaliation toward real or perceived mistreatment. Their silence conveys anger, dismissal, or contempt.
Handling the Problem
Fortunately, with the right understanding and patience, parents can make significant inroads with a silent adolescent. Here are some suggestions.
Talk about the root of the silence. You might be tempted to talk first about the silence itself; however, your teen lives and focuses more on the problems that shut him down. So first address the reason behind the silence, whether it be punishment, depression, fear, or withdrawal from intrusiveness.
Discuss the silence. Once you’ve discussed the reason for the silence, bring up the silence itself. You might say, “I’m glad we talked about how mad you are with me for grounding you. It’s really hard for me when you shut down. I can’t tell where you are, and I don’t know what to say or what will help. I need you to let me know when you are upset and not just remain quiet. You may not even know when you are doing this, but it happens pretty frequently. If you aren’t aware of when I need to hear from you, I’ll let you know so we can talk about it. Okay?”
Give space and time. Remember that even when life is going well, your teen may be reserved. Don’t force chatty connectedness and press her inside herself again. Instead, allow enough space and time for her to assimilate what has been said and done so far. You want your teen to come out of her silence because she wants to, not because she feels coerced.
Require dialogue. You may need to go beyond invitation to expectation. This is truer with teens who are angry and punishing than with those who are hurt or running. The latter tend to need more problem solving and connecting. For example, you might tell your teen, “I’ll do everything I can to change the things I do that make it hard for you to talk to me. I don’t need you to talk all the time about everything, but I do need you to talk to me — if not on your own, at least when I want to know how you are doing. I need you to have real conversations with me because I love you and care about you. If you refuse to talk, you are telling me you don’t take your responsibilities for being in our relationship seriously, and there will be consequences.”
Whatever consequences you establish, remember they are for the purpose of helping your teen open up. When he makes the effort to dialogue, drop the consequence and connect.
You Can Do It!
Dealing positively with silence takes work. At the same time, the lessons you teach your teen about handling difficult situations through alternatives to silence will help guide her through future relationships.