“Connection doesn’t come from control—it comes from curiosity.”
The Silent Car Ride
We’ve all been there. My 12-year-old daughter slumps into the passenger seat, backpack dropped carelessly at her feet. I glance over, trying to read her expression without being obvious, and launch into the same question I ask every day: “How was school?”
“Fine,” she mumbles, already reaching for her headphones. Which, in tween code, translates roughly to: “I will now disappear into the void. Please don’t speak again.”
The silence that follows is awkward. That dad instinct kicks in—should I dig deeper or just let it go? Turn on the radio? Try another angle? Something clearly happened today, but whatever it was, it’s locked behind a door I can’t seem to find the key for.
For years, I thought the problem was my kids not talking. But lately, I’ve been wondering if the real issue is how I’m listening.
Here are six shifts I’m learning to make—one car ride, one conversation, one awkward silence at a time:
1. The Myth of the “Open Door”
I used to tell myself, “My kids know they can talk to me anytime.” I said it to other parents, to teachers, even in my own head when I’d lie awake worrying about them. I had an open-door policy! What more could I do?
But here’s what I’ve learned the hard way: just being available doesn’t equal being approachable.
Kids—even the little ones—are reading our tone, our presence, and our distractions more carefully than we realize. My son can tell the difference between me looking at him and me looking through him while mentally reviewing my to-do list. My daughter can sense when my “What’s up?” means “Talk quick, I’ve got things to do.”
The open door doesn’t matter if they can see I’m too busy to really sit down once they walk through it.
✅ Takeaway: Being available is passive. Being approachable is intentional.
2. Listening as a Skill, Not a Reflex
Last month, my son came home frustrated about a group project. As he vented, I caught myself doing all the things I always do—jumping in with solutions (“Have you tried talking to your teacher?”), minimizing his feelings (“It’s not that big a deal in the long run”), making it about me (“When I was your age…”), and finally, the rapid-fire interrogation (“Who said what? Then what happened? What did you do?”).
He eventually just shrugged and said, “Never mind, it’s fine,” and disappeared into his room.
That moment hit me hard. I realized I wasn’t really listening—I was reacting. And there’s a big difference.
Listening isn’t just hearing words, it’s holding space without trying to fill it. That means:
- Putting down my phone completely (not just flipping it over).
- Lowering my voice instead of matching their frustration.
- Getting on their level—physically and emotionally.
- Letting silence breathe, instead of rushing to solve (resist the urge to fill the void with a TED Talk no one asked for).
- Using simple, reflective responses like:
My daughter: “Everyone ignored me at lunch.”
Me: “That must’ve felt really lonely.”
The hardest part? Resisting the urge to turn every moment into a life lesson. Sometimes my kids just need me to get it, not guide it.
✅ Takeaway: You don’t have to fix it. Just be the one who can hold it.
3. Ask Better Questions
I’ve been experimenting with swapping out my tired old questions for ones that actually invite conversation:
Instead of “How was school?” I try:
- “What was something that surprised you today?”
- “Who made you laugh today?”
- “What was the best thing you ate?”
“Did you do your homework?”—that question usually earns me a sigh so deep it might register on the Richter scale—I might ask:
- “What part of today felt the longest?”
- “What are you working on that’s interesting right now?”
- “What’s something you learned that I probably don’t know about?”
I’m also trying to use what’s happening around us as conversation starters:
- “What’s that drawing about?” (instead of just “That’s nice”)
- “I noticed you were quiet after practice—what happened out there?”
- “This song always makes me think of summer. Does music ever make you remember specific things?”
These aren’t magic questions, but they do signal something important: I’m not just going through the motions. I’m actually curious about what’s happening in their world.
✅ Takeaway: Good questions don’t pry—they invite.
4. Trust Is Built in the Boring Moments
The biggest revelation I’ve had about talking with my kids? The meaningful conversations rarely happen when I schedule them. They happen during the in-between times:
- Making pancakes on Saturday morning
- Shooting hoops in the driveway
- Driving to soccer practice
- Folding laundry together
- Late-night snack raids to the kitchen
I had this moment last week when my son and I were cleaning up the yard, not talking about anything important just joking around, when suddenly he started telling me about a kid at school who makes him feel insecure. We were just standing there, shoulder-to-shoulder, and it came out naturally.
I realized then that trust doesn’t come from the big “let’s talk” moments. It comes from the hundred small moments where we’re just being together and they feel safe.
✅ Takeaway: Show up in the ordinary, and the extraordinary moments will come.
5. What If They Still Don’t Talk?
Some days, despite my best efforts, I still get one-word answers and shrugs. On those days, I try to remember:
- It’s not personal. Kids have their own internal worlds and sometimes they’re just not in a sharing place.
- Consistency matters more than perfection. I keep showing up, keep asking, keep being there.
- I need to model what I want to see. I’ve started sharing more of my own day: “I had a tough meeting today, I felt really misunderstood by my boss.” It shows them that talking about feelings is normal, even for dads.
My son went through a particularly quiet phase last year. For weeks, everything was “fine” and “good” and “whatever.” I kept showing up, kept asking better questions, kept making space. Then one random Tuesday, while we were walking the dog, the dam broke and he talked for an hour straight.
The breakthrough didn’t come because I found the perfect question. It came because I had consistently shown him that when he was ready to talk, I was ready to listen.
✅ Takeaway: Keep showing up—even when they don’t. Trust takes time, not tactics.
6. Focused Practice
I’m still very much a work in progress on this front. But here’s what I’m committing to this week, and maybe you can try it too:
Three Micro-Shifts to Try This Week:
- Let my kids talk without interrupting—at least once a day. (Set a mental timer if needed!)
- Ask one “better question” from the list above.
- Reflect back what they say instead of responding or fixing.
The beauty of these small changes is that they don’t require special training or a personality transplant. They just require intention and practice.
You Don’t Need to Be a Therapist—Just a Safe Place
I spent years thinking I needed to have the perfect response to whatever my kids brought me. The perfect advice. The perfect solution. The perfect perspective to help them see the big picture.
What I’m slowly learning is that they don’t need me to be perfect. They just need me to be present. They don’t need me to fix everything. They just need to know I’m not going to freak out, shut down, or make their problems about me.
The more they feel seen and heard, the more they speak. The more they trust that I can handle their reality—whatever it is—the more of that reality they’ll share with me.
I’m not there yet, but I’m working on it. One car ride, one bedtime chat, one ordinary moment at a time. And if all else fails, bribe them with snacks. I’m not above using Cheez-Its for emotional breakthroughs.
Because maybe, just maybe, the key to getting our kids to open up isn’t about being the dad with all the answers.
It’s about being the dad who knows how to listen to the questions. So the next time the headphones go in and the car goes quiet, I’ll remember—it’s not silence. It’s a signal. And I want to be the dad who hears it.
Leave a Reply