Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy How to make her talk?

I am in a dare need of similar experiences since I have no idea what to do. I am also frustrated as I don’t even know how to precisely describe an issue. Sorry, it will be a very long post…

My DD7 just turned 7 and in a second grade (skipped 1 year). She is a cheerful, "happy-at-school" child. For as long as I can remember she would refuse to discuss, tell, explain anything about her feelings, emotions, even anything as simple as “how was your day/what did you do during the day”...

Whatever your say/ask the answer would be “good” and “great”. Since she was a baby I encouraged open ended questions (when she doesn’t have a choice to answer simply yes/no) yet she manages to describe anything in two words - good or great. I am exaggerating but not really. She seems to talk nonstop about immediate things (“mom look at me all the time”) but mum when it comes to “please share your opinion/feelings”. I would be surprised by other people’s knowledge about what is going on in schools and how much they know about my child and I am yet to hear from her about her day/friend/likes and dislikes.

It comes to small things as simple as her breakfast… She would never say what would she like for breakfast or if she likes my cooking or not… I can guess by amount of leftovers if it was good or bad and make a mental note about it. If I ask she would simply say (as you can guess) It was good Mommy, thank you…

Don’t get me wrong if she doesn’t want to do/eat something – she would not do so by any means but in a subtle way that you wouldn’t even acknowledge until later… It seems like there is so much under this happy surface that I get a glimpse of once and while when she asks one of her questions out of the blue… She would ask these questions, take in an answer and if it is to her satisfaction – mum after that. When I pressure her into tell me about her day it will sound as “in the morning we had seat work, after that I played with so and so”. This is as descriptive as it gets…

I guess I was like this is as well when I was a child, when all of my emotions were inside and I was “all over” happy child. I made an assumptions that it was my parents who really did not encourage much of a sharing but it doesn’t look like it now, since I had my DD…. I am at lost as to is it my fault? Her personality? Should I worry? How can I ensure she will share if she needs help? I am monitoring her very closely for signs of stress/discomfort (through her drawings, writing, play, etc.) and nothing alarming but since she is getting older I want to make sure I give her what she wants and what is needed by her but it is hard to do what she is not verbally expressing her needs/likes/wants…

It's hard to guess from one child to another. I know DS7 is very sensitive to any criticism of his emotional responses. Also, given alternatives A & B he always picks C. There is some tricky line between someone to talk to and "the parent" that can be hard to navigate. The one questioning approach that I've found helpful is to ask future planning/creative questions like:
"If you could change anything about school, what would it be?"
or
"I was thinking of making this meal something we have on a regular basis, do you think it should be once a week, once a month or once a year."

You might like "Raising Your Spirited Child" by Mary Kurcinka. One of the sections discusses communication strategies in situations where one party is an extrovert and the other is an introvert. Great book overall.

One thing we do to have conversations about school is talk about highs, lows, what made us laugh and what we are proud of. I do this with my kids when then get home from school, but we also do it around the dinner table. Of course there are follow up questions, too. It's not perfect, but it does start conversations with my reluctant boys.

Two thoughts here.

One: some people are just not as self-aware of their own feelings/emotional responses to stimuli. In this situation, one person who has emotional OE's may well read another person's more muted responses to life as "flat" or "elusive" or even "dishonest/secretive" when it's just that those things don't make much of a ripple on the other person. In the extremes, of course, emotional experience can be pathology, but it doesn't sound as if that is the case here-- the OP is describing a child that seems to enjoy life in the moment, but not be that introspective (or communicative, anyway) about that enjoyment.

Two: some people (introverts, most notably) regard their feelings as intensely private. In this case, talking to other people about their feelings feels... well, intrusive is probably the kindest term. It's very distressing, and it makes the person experiencing it wary and defensive.

Just a couple of thoughts about this kind of thing. I tend to experience emotional highs/lows via emotional OE, and I have a spouse who does not. He is an extravert, but he is NOT a 'talking about my feelings' person. At all.

A third thought occurs to me-- is it possible that your child lacks some of the language to discuss emotions well with you? Some kids need to be coached to find words for their emotional reactions to life, and only then can they talk in more emotionally descriptive terms. Are those terms mostly absent in discussions in your home? She may really not know what it is that you are asking her when you become frustrated that she doesn't share her emotional responses to her day.

Can/does she talk about OTHER people's emotions? Using a proxy might be a way to bring up the subject in a less direct/threatening manner.

"Wow, Mr. Neighbor seems grumpy/quiet/withdrawn/sad today. Do you think he has had a difficult week? What do you think might have happened?"

One thing that has work for us with talking about school is similar to the above.
I ask what was the best and worst part of the day. I ask what did you do a particular class. I don't tend to ask about the same class daily but just mix it up. It has helped mine talk more about their days. I will use the same tactic with other thinks too. What did you like best about dinner or that book? Whatever area I'm curious about getting more information from them.

hi MorningStar! i've recently found two practical ways to work on getting my little clam (DD5) to open up. i get her started on something quiet like colouring, and then start asking a range of questions - keeping the conversation quite light in the beginning but gently steering it toward deeper stuff. it's interesting - having an occupation like colouring seems to allow her to be slightly distanced from the conversation if/when she hits difficult emotions.

the other thing that works is to engage her on open-ended questions while we're driving somewhere - it needs to be a decent-length trip, but i think there's something about the fact we're both facing forward that frees her up to talk more frankly. it's probably the same principle at work with the colouring - we can talk without her having to make eye contact and i think it all feels less emotionally charged.

hope this helps and good luck!

You're 100% correct in your conclusion. You've independently discovered something here that's formally taught to people who deal with children that have been subjected to traumatic experiences. These children will often relax their guard and open up in situations where they don't have to confront eye contact. Driving is a specific example given. Art projects or other activities that keep the hands busy and the eyes away will also do.

Not saying this child we're talking about here is traumatized, but this can work with any child who feels reluctant to open up.

I know people who use a back and forth journal to communicate with reluctant preteens and teens...might work with a younger child too.

how cool this is really a thing! thanks so much, Dude, for telling me about that!

i just realized something - my kid is so in tune with the expectations of others... i think she may have simply been loath to worry me too much. when we factored out the eye contact, she would no longer have to deal with the emotions she might find on my face and could focus solely on her own thoughts.

it's worked so well - it's been like kicking over a rotten piece of wood and seeing what's living underneath... she's had a really terrible year, which we are now equipped to make sure we don't repeat!

Here are some things I would try:

1) Begin each question by opening up yourself. Offer her something personal that's a bit deeper and more open than what you'd like from her. If she sees that you are willing to make yourself vulnerable to her, she'll feel more comfortable opening up to you.

2) Try talking to her gently at night in a quiet room with the lights off. It's easier to open up when there's no expectation of eye contact or appropriate body language.

3) Offer her multiple choice questions. "Did you have a good day or a bad day?" Perhaps she doesn't offer firm opinions because she always feels a mix of opinions and needs encouragement to average and summarize them.

4) Her emotions may be complex and she may not know how to express them concisely. Keep your questions simple and follow each of her answers with validation and a branching question that allows her to refine her answer. "I'm sorry you had a bad day. I hate it when that happens to me. Did something bad happen to you or did something bad happen to someone else?"

Good luck! If you find an approach that helps, please let us know!

Here's a game I play with DS sometimes. He thinks of an X which is a superlative (best, worst, most difficult, most fun...) but doesn't tell me what X is. Then he tells me about the X exoerience of the day and I have to guess from what he says what X is. I'm allowed to ask questions or ask for clues! It can be hard, and can be quite interesting when I guess completely the wrong X ("most frustrating", when the right answer is "most fun", for example).

My DS14 is older but one of the keys for him is timing. Immediately after he gets home from school NEVER worked. He talks the most when we are in the car. There is something about being cooped up with mom & having nothing better to do. I usually just try to get him to talk about something non threatening and after a while bring up something specific. I never ask 'how was your day?' because that never results in an answer.

I'll confirm the effectiveness of the conversation while driving. I have learned the hard way that despite my best efforts at controlling my outward demeanour that I can come across intimidatingly to my dd8 face to face. I am a pretty intense person while on the trail of an answer to an 8 year old it seems - a painful truth to deal with but nevertheless the truth.

The same question that will elicite nada 'face to face' often starts a conversation lasting the entire journey whenI ask it while driving. The lack of eye contact is a huge benefit it seems.

Thank you so much for your responses. You gave me lots of ideas to consider.

I guess I was at lost just because I wasn't sure of a reason she cannot share her felling/thoughts with me. Now I think it was all my fault!

She is a very vocal child (non-stop talker) and a reader as well so I wouldn't think she is out of words to name her fillings. But while trying to approach her in a past couple of days I did realize she needs coaching in expressing herself the way majority of people expect her to.

She is a "matter of fact" type instead of a descriptive person I, for some reason, expected her to be... So I see two separate issues as of right now.

She is communicating with me but in a very straight to the point “we had lunch” kind of way. So I don’t think she is seeing a need to expand this into more complex “and my friend was very nice by sharing her treat with me” as I expected her to. I don’t know why these were my expectations since her father and I both have issues with sharing our feeling (except standard “I am upset because I did not like the way your loaded dishes into dishwasher”… LOL) I guess, this brings me to a next issue.

I never taught her how to expand on her feelings/thoughts. I would state facts and relay on her to get to the end result on her own (so that I cannot influence her decision) and she would but this only works for “science/learning” purposes, I guess. I think I fail to show her what is “expected” way to hold conversation with another person…

I still have a lot to consider since I did have a very good (I say great) feedback from the outsiders regarding her “collaboration with the group” and “leading the discussion” skills. But again – it was science/project related and not an “every day“ type of conversations…

I think I am on a right track here…