The Challenge of Talking to Your Child About Difficult Subjects

Some parents find talking to their child about difficult subjects very simple. Others find it incredibly hard, failing to find the right words to use or the right terms to simplify in order for their child to understand something. We believe that it’s one of the most challenging aspects of raising children because your responses to their questions can have a profound impact on their life.

But how exactly do you deal with difficult subjects? How do you react when your children come to you with a difficult question, and how do you speak to them when there’s a tragedy or upsetting situation?

1. Initiate the conversation

Firstly, you’ll want to be the one that initiates the conversation whenever possible. For instance, if you’re unable to go on a family vacation due to work, then you’ll want to break the bad news to your child first and explain why it’s happening instead of having them slowly figure it out.

2. Don’t hide anything

Try not to hide anything from your children if it’s related to a difficult subject. The more you hide things, the more curious your children will get and the more betrayed they’ll feel when they finally find out.

3. Be honest with your child

In the theme of not hiding anything, make sure you’re honest with your child. If they ask about a difficult topic, don’t try to give them the answer you think they want to hear. Instead, give them the answer that they need to hear.

4. Don’t overcomplicate things with analogies

One of the most common ways to deal with complicated topics is to sugar-coat things, but we don’t believe this to be a viable method of talking about complicated or difficult subjects. Instead, keep things simple, explain things in a blunt fashion and you’ll avoid further complications in the future.

5. Include facts and truths

Make sure you add facts and truths to reinforce what you say to your children about difficult subjects. For example, you can consider a mail order paternity test whenever there are parental disputes. These don’t take long to perform and are a convenient way for a mother to establish proof about a biological father.

6. Continue the conversation

Follow up on the conversation later in the future to keep the talks going.

7. Don’t forget to listen

Talking helps a lot, but it’s also important to listen especially if your child is having trouble coping with what you’re talking to them about.

8. Speak somewhere comfortable

Never speak in a random place. Instead, bring up the topic when you’re at home, when you’re in a comfortable location and when you’re in the mood. Don’t force these difficult subjects unless absolutely necessary.

Speaking to your child about difficult subjects is never easy, but we hope that this article has given you some advice on how to approach it. At the end of the day, every parent has their own style of parenting that can change how they approach difficult subjects, but there are a couple of similarities that can be carried over regardless of your parenting style.