When Your Teen Says “I Don’t Know” Part 2

Compassionate curiosity creates a very different conversation

There’s also a difference between asking a question because we genuinely want to understand and asking a question when we already have the answer we want them to give us.

Teens can usually feel that difference.

Curiosity creates room for your teen to think, reflect, and share their experience without feeling like they are being pushed toward the “right” answer.

Compare:

“Why didn’t you just start your homework when you got home?”

with:

“I’ve noticed getting started on homework after school has been really hard lately. What do you think is making it tough?”

And then being willing to hear whatever comes next—even if the answer is “I don’t know.”

Curiosity leaves room for your teen’s experience.

Your response becomes part of their inner voice

Many teens with ADHD already carry a lot of frustration, shame, and “Why can’t I just do this?”

They may have heard some version of:

“Why can’t you just get started?”

“Why can’t you remember?”

“You know what you’re supposed to do.”

Over time, those messages can easily become the way they talk to themselves.

“Ugh, why can’t I just get started!?”

“Why can’t I remember?!”

That’s another reason the way we approach these conversations matters.

When your response instead communicates:

This is hard, and I want to understand why.

You don’t have to have the answer immediately.

We can figure this out together.

you’re helping create space for curiosity instead of shame.

And let me tell you from experience, it is a lot easier to get out of the shame spiral with compassion, not more shame.

And that doesn’t mean there aren’t expectations or boundaries. It means that expectations and a safe relationship can exist at the same time.

If you want your teen to talk to you, make it safe not to know

You won’t always agree with your teen.

They won’t always make the choice you would make.

And sometimes you’ll need to step in as the parent.

But as teens move toward adulthood, they also need opportunities to practice thinking through their own experiences and choices.

When every conversation becomes about getting an immediate answer, correcting the problem, or finding the solution for them, there isn’t much space left for that process.

Sometimes one of the most powerful things you can do is leave the door open.

“I’m here when you want to talk.”

“We don’t have to figure it out right now.”

“When you’re ready, we can work through it together.”

Then give them room to walk back through that door.

Our relationship with our teen can be one of our greatest tools for supporting them.

When stressed out conversations about homework, being on-time, or cleaning their room shout louder than the message of “Hey, I am here for you,” our teens can begin to feel that those things are what matter most.

A quote I come back to often is:

“The more you try to control, the less influence you have, and influence is the only thing you can hope to have after they get too big to pick up and move." - Jeff Copper 

That can be incredibly hard when you’re parenting a teen.

Our fears get tied up in questions like, How are they going to manage this on their own? What happens when I’m not there to remind them? How are they going to cope?

Those fears make sense, especially when the road has already been hard and the struggles have felt big.

But part of growing into adulthood is having opportunities to make choices, experience the outcome, reflect, and try again.

Experience can be a powerful teacher. But having a safe, supportive adult alongside you while you learn can make all the difference.

At SpiritED Bloom, I support parents and teens in better understanding what may be happening underneath ADHD and executive functioning challenges and finding ways to communicate, problem-solve, and work together that fit how their brains actually work.