Helping your teen to be polite at family gatherings

You have family and friends over and your teen is sitting staring silently and it is clear they are bored and can't wait to leave the room.

You feel like everyone can see how bored and rude they are.

You are wondering how this happened?

When you were a teen you talked to adults and gave the elderly time and smiles and politely engaged in conversation.

You're thinking maybe this generation is just self centered and don't care about anyone but themselves.

How did it come to this?

You think maybe you didn't teach them well enough?

Maybe you should have talked to them and prepared them before people came over?

Maybe it's all the phones and screens they don't know how to have a conversation anymore?

Should I tell them off now?...

but that might be more embarrassing...

maybe they will be rude to me at the table too.

This is so bad, okay how can I get them involved and looking less rude.

Think.

Throw them a question... yes... "Tell grandma about your school assignment"...

Teen looks at you, and shrugs and says something mumbled under their breath.

Fail.

You think okay not the best question why would I ask them that?

Maybe if I give them a job it won't look so awkward.

"Can you clear the table please?"

Your teen clears the table and....

.... then mysteriously disappears.

Fail again.

You are left trying to entertain and distract everyone hoping they don't notice how rude your teen is being.

How do we get our teens to interact with people that aren't their best friends???

The key to changing any behaviour in your teen is understanding what is causing the behaviour.

So, I can almost hear you running to their bedroom door with ideas you have about why your teen is so rude and how you are going to tell them to stop it and be more polite.

You’re guessing it’s the phones and screens, entitlement, self-centredness, laziness etc….and you are ready to take their phone, tell them to think of someone else for once and be polite next time people come over.

But spoiler alert, if you go and do that then you won’t get real genuine behaviour change from your teen.

You may get eye rolls and arguments, or polite silence (…yes they know how to be silent politely when they don’t want to really listen).

You may have even tried this and found it made zero difference to their behaviour next time and all they say is “What! I was polite. I sat through your boring dinner with your boring people, now can I go please.”

The real key to finding out why they were silent at the family gathering is to ask them.

There are many reasons why teens are silent and look rude in front of others. These reasons can vary from I didn’t know what to say, I was tired, I was anxious…all the way to I had a big exam on Monday I’m stressed about and I think I’m going to fail, or my best friend isn’t talking to me and I was sad.

If we know why they are appearing rude.

It’s easier to know how to help them.

We need to start with talking to them with curiosity about what their experience was like at the family gathering.

It’s hard to socialise when we don’t know what to say and have nothing in common.

It’s hard to hold conversation when we are anxious, stressed, worried or feeling down.

It’s hard to spend time doing things for others when we would prefer to be having fun with friends.

These are things our teens need to learn to do.

And they need to know that they may appear rude to others at times without meaning to.

But the way to help them change is to start by understanding them and then talk it through with them.