Regular reader and commenter Bipette recently posted a question asking how I managed to get my kids to talk to me about their issues. It was an interesting question, and one I pondered all day today. I was still pondering it when I rocked Dora before bed tonight and we ended up talking for an hour—notwithstanding the fact that I told her it would be a short session tonight, not a long one. We talked until we reached a logical point to table the discussion until later.


Of my four kids with “issues”, two have talked to me and two haven’t. Amy arrived at age 21 months with the “deer-in-the-headlights” look and was already quite accomplished at shutting down whenever anyone broached any subject remotely personal or deep. It never changed. She was incredibly adept at tuning us out, although my husband was more effective than me in being able to slide a few thoughts into her head. Additionally, she is fundamentally opposed to doing any thinking about her own issues, or processing of them on her own. She subscribes to Dora’s current approach of looping through the “poor pitiful me” cycle and studiously avoiding any change of direction or ownership of different choices. This is as much my husband’s assessment of her approach as mine. I would periodically wonder out loud about talking to her about something, or wonder if she was thinking about something, and my husband would look at me askance and remind me that Amy made a point of not thinking about these issues … much less talk about them.


I think Dora and Beth talk to me because they are emotive kids and because they trust me. I provided Amy with all the same opportunities to trust me, but she never did. My conversation with Dora tonight focused on trust—on dropping walls and ceasing behaviors that protected her heart in the past. I told her how sad it was for me to watch Amy waste day after day after day after day in her own pity party, refusing to be real and take ownership of her life. I pointed out how each day lost could never be recovered. I said for each day spent repeating bad habits, it was just a little harder to change the next day. I also theorized that the longer Amy stayed in denial, the harder it would be to acknowledge and admit the years she has wasted if or when she does alter her approach. Dora and I had a very good conversation.


I don’t think there is a magic answer as to how to get kids to talk to you. I know when Beth arrived at almost three years old, she was essentially not speaking to her first family. Within a month she was speaking full sentences to me. Now, she offloads her feelings with abandon. Just one more awesome part of her personality!


One tip I have heard, even from "normal" parents, and it has worked for me ... and that is to have heavy discussions in the car, when it is "legitimate" to not have opportunities for eye contact, thus decreasing the pressure of intimacy while talking about intimate things. I have had similar success in talking over or around a horse ... I remember discussing making an adoption plan with a pregnant birth mom as we groomed my horse. She placed her son twelve years ago in an open adoption with a friend of mine.


Negative consequences of non-feeling personalities

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