Living the 7 Habits, by Stephen Covey

Here's a story from Covey's novel.

Silence is Golden

Notice how the father in this story sincerely empathizes with his daughter and, without pressing her or making her feel guilty, reflected her desire to not communicate.

A year or so ago, my daughter, Nell, and I had fallen into a troubling routine.

She would come home after school and I would ask her how she was doing and she would say, "Fine." That was it. I could only get one or two words out of her. It had become a daily routine of non-communication. By asking her questions each day when she got home it seemed like I was only exacerbating the tension.

I remember reading once that one way to deal with someone who does not want to communicate is to break the routine. So one day when Nell came home I asked her how she was doing. But when she gave me the standard one-word response before heading to her bedroom, I said, "You don't want to talk to me, do you?"

She stopped instantly, gave me a strange look, and said, "no" and went to her room. That was the end of it, but I knew I had touched her feelings.

The next day, I repeated the new routine. This time when I said she didn't want to talk to me, Nell said, "Not right now, Dad."

This went on for a few days before slowly, and on her own terms, Nell began talking more to me. Then one day I was sitting at the kitchen table thinking about something, in sort of a trance, while she was doing the dishes. I was quiet, not talking to her even though she was just a few feet away, and it must have bothered her that I wasn't asking her questions as usual. All of a sudden she started talking about her day and she brought me out of my trance. It struck me that suddenly she was sharing her feelings with me and it was so wonderful I got tears in my eyes.

Sometimes I think the most valuable tool for communication with teenagers is silence.

What would happen if you went into a forest to hunt and began by firing a shot in the air? That's often what asking questions is like; sometimes questions are so autobiographical and controlling that people simply don't want to talk about their deeper or most vulnerable issues. The key is to go into the forest and be quiet; then animals will begin to appear. The same thing happens when you go to a beach. Waling back and forth you won't see the sand crabs, but if you sit there on the beach quietly, soon they will appear all over the place.

Teenagers want to talk -- they really do. They want to open up, but the want to feel that it is safe. They want to it on their terms and on their time and parents must simply have the patience to allow this -- to be present, to be available, to be accessible, and to be quiet. We have two ears and one mouth and we should use them accordingly. Interestingly, the ears never close, but the mouth can.

In my own life with my teenage children, I have found that if I am simply present, doing no particular thing, but just kind of being attentive and aware, within a few minutes they begin to open up. Silence is truly golden.