A Guide to Fostering Communication and Confidence in Young Adults
50 Questions to Ask Your Teens is a guide for parents and carers navigating the confusing and exciting world of adolescence. For anyone who wants to better connect with their teens and help them to be functioning, self-aware and kind adults, Daisy Turnbull offers a simple framework with clever questions to engage your teen and pre-teen from ages 10+.
In it, you’ll find questions that encourage your teen to master the practical as well as trickier topics, including friendships, consent, self-compassion, managing conflict, mental health, boundaries and media influences.
Moving beyond the predictable milestones of childhood, this book addresses the nuanced social and emotional needs of teens that we often assume are being met elsewhere. Parents and carers will learn how to promote their teens’ awareness of the world, while also encouraging them to take responsibility and understand consequences and risks in a fast-changing world.
Underpinned by research and informed by Turnbull’s own experiences as a teacher of teens for more than a decade, a Lifeline counsellor, and a mother of two, 50 Questions to Ask Your Teens is a warm, relatable book that’s perfectly in tune with where teens are at right now, and the ideal starting place for parents to raise an adult they can hang out with.
To be clear, this isn’t just a standard list of questions, one after the other. Each chapter starts with a question, with Turnbull then explaining that question in more depth. This provides context for why this is an important question, and what other things to consider and discuss during this conversation.
For example, chapter sixteen begins with the question ‘What makes a good friend?’ Then the chapter addresses healthy and unhealthy relationships, and the value of maintaining friendships when you’re in a relationship, or during the pandemic. Chapter twenty-two asks ‘How does your phone impact your relationships?’ This is an excellent chapter for discussing both the positive and negative sides of the digital age.
This really is essential reading for any parent or caregiver right now. We don’t know what the long-term impacts of this pandemic will be on our young people but Turnbull highlights the “importance of protecting our mental health through relationships, connection and conversation.” If you’re feeling overwhelmed by parenting a teenager and looking for help, this book is an excellent place to start.
Buy a copy of 50 Questions to Ask Your Teens by Daisy Turnbull
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