Disclaimer: This is an unedited transcript produced mechanically from a recording. For accuracy, please listen to the original programme <3
Host: Helgi Sigurður Karlsson, behavior analyst, psychologist, and teacher. Welcome, Helgi.
Helgi: Thank you, and thank you for inviting me.
Host: What is the best way to approach this, really—to talk with children?
Helgi: Yes, that is the big question. Fortunately, it is not impossible to answer. First and foremost, what helps us talk with children is cultivating the right kind of communication from an early age rather than beginning only after the child has become a teenager. But even then, all hope is not lost; we can always repair things and do better. What matters most is listening, and that is sometimes what we forget to do as adults.
Host: But what if the child or teenager has nothing to say?
Helgi: If they have nothing to say, then it is time to nurture family life and communication. You do not change that instantly. Communication and talking together are behaviors that need to be practiced like anything else.
Host: So is the question “How was school?” simply the wrong question?
Helgi: It is not necessarily wrong, but you need to show consistent interest and do so regularly. If you throw the question in once when you happen to remember, after work has been busy, and ask the teenager, “How was school?” and they say, “Fine,” then you should expect a response of comparable depth. They are effectively saying: “My life has become my own. I am with my group of friends, and this has become a different reality from the one you and I share, Dad.” If you want insight into that reality, you have to do more than ask how school was.
Host: What is the trick? Are you going to teach us?
Helgi: Yes—shall I bring out the magic wand now? The trick is to cultivate good, regular communication, make conversation part of the routine, ask open questions, and talk regularly. Here is something interesting: I entered psychology because, as a young man, I noticed that if parents do not stop being directors at a certain age and become guides instead, they lose their teenager.
When children are younger, you are the light in their lives. You are the person around whom everything revolves, and everything you say matters. If we do not use that time to cultivate communication, it becomes harder as time passes. But it is never too late. Begin honest, positive communication; sit together at the kitchen table; use open questions; show patience; and repeat the practice. When that small, rare moment arrives and the child opens up about something important, how you respond matters.
Host: These are enormous responsibilities. Open questions and small tricks such as “What was the most enjoyable thing today?” or “What was the most interesting thing?” Can little tricks like those become a key that opens the lock?
Helgi: They are a good way to get started. But you need to repeat them and ask deeper questions. You also need to prepare yourself: What am I going to ask about? Know something about what is happening at school, for example, so you can help the child enter the conversation. You cannot simply jump straight in. The child needs to feel that Mum and Dad are interested in what is happening at school. If you show regular interest, your child will become more interested in talking about it.
Host: So perhaps the adult’s first response should simply be: “Tell me more”?
Helgi: Exactly. Put your fist under your chin and simply say, “Tell me more.” That is precisely what I recommend: show your child that you are genuinely interested in what they are talking about and want to know more. Repeat this, and do not expect everything the first time.
Host: But what if the teenager or child simply says, “I don’t want to talk about it”?
Helgi: That is their right. But as parents, you must then assess whether the subject they do not want to discuss is nevertheless something that needs to be discussed. That becomes a different conversation.
Host: And how do we deal with that?
Helgi: There is no single valid answer for every situation. You would need to give me a more specific example.
Host: Let us say something dramatic happens—something that genuinely needs to be addressed in the teenager’s immediate social environment.
Helgi: As I say, and as I emphasize a great deal in my work, behavior never exists only in the here and now. It has developed through your interactions with your child over a long period. In my experience, what we call unconscious reciprocal shaping takes place. What you say to your child affects how you speak with them the next time, and vice versa.
Host: I wanted to ask about looking through phones and the communication taking place on them. Do you recommend examining a child’s phone?
Helgi: Not without their permission, unless it has become absolutely necessary because the risk behavior is extremely serious. Once you break your child’s trust, you do not win it back easily. And if you cannot listen to something difficult your child wants to tell you, but instead react angrily, you can be almost certain that your child will not speak to you about it again.
Host: So it matters to remain calm?
Helgi: It matters enormously. Remember who the adult is. Stay calm, approach the issue thoughtfully, and let consequences speak rather than agitation or anger. Agitation and anger do not work. It is much better to leave them aside and move directly to clear consequences.
Host: Speaking of agitation and anger: the PISA results were released recently, and you discuss them in an article on Vísir. Are you connecting stress and constant busyness with limited communication and, consequently, poorer PISA outcomes?
Helgi: Yes, I am afraid so. This is one of many factors, but I still believe it is one we need to examine more deeply, and my work has shown me that. We are extremely busy; everyone is busy. Society has developed in such a way that everything is about doing more, not less, and not about enjoying life. I am making a somewhat sweeping statement, of course, but this is what I see. We are constantly engaged in a quality-of-life race—not only in our work, but in the need to keep doing: “I have to make something of myself. I have to become greater and more than I am.” At the same time, we forget the core of what we are doing.
Quality time with your child is not an optional extra. It is enormously important for strengthening communication with your child. Like other important things in life, it needs to be given enough time to maintain a good, strong relationship with your child.
Host: So is PISA a kind of warning?
Helgi: I would call PISA a warning sign. We need to stop focusing only on the child. We are the environment—the parents and the teachers. We determine the environment in which the child is expected to flourish. If that environment does not allow the child to flourish—for example, because school is crowded with tasks and everyone is too busy to take an interest in what the child is doing, praise it, give it attention, and show the child, “Here is the goal. This is something I am proud to see you doing”—then we need to reconsider our own conduct.
Host: Helgi, one good piece of advice before we lose you: something parents can begin doing tonight to increase the chance that their teenager will talk with them when something goes wrong.
Helgi: Rather than saying how to make the teenager listen, I will say how parents can do better in parenting: Talk with each other and agree as parents. That is the first thing I work on with every parent. If you do not agree, how are you going to raise your child together? That is the first step. Parents need to be aligned in their parenting. It is the first thing I discuss with all the parents I work with, for example when addressing behavioral difficulties.
Host: I think we will be much better fathers after this. Helgi Sigurður Karlsson, behavior analyst, psychologist, and teacher, thank you very much for speaking with us.
Helgi: Likewise—thank you for inviting me.