Sometimes silence says more. How to use strategic silence to make your message stick

SALT LAKE CITY — Most parents have been there. What starts as a simple conversation turns into a five, ten, maybe fifteen-minute lecture while your teenager mentally checks out. We assume that if they aren't getting it, we need to say more, but the opposite is often true.

KSL Parenting Contributor Heather Johnson taught us the power of strategic silence and explained why saying less can make our message more likely to stick.

She explained that teen brains actually respond differently than younger kid's brains.

"At 12, a brain's neural response actually changes," Johnson said. "MRIs show us that an adolescent's brain actively tunes out their parents' voice, and instead it tunes into outside social cues."

She said it's not that they don't care what their parents think, but their brains are in the middle of a normal developmental shift.

"They are desperate to be independent of us as they're preteens and teenagers," Johnson explained. "The more we talk to them, the more their brain is actively shutting down the things that we say.

Teens interpret lengthy lectures as attempts to control them. Johnson said that "strategic silence" is a better way to communicate. It sounds harsh, but Johnson emphasized that it's not a cold silence. You're not withholding affection, crossing your arms or withdrawing from them emotionally.

"We are soft, when we stay close, when our body language expresses that we're there for them," Johnson explained. "We want a warm, a very selective silence that brings us closer together."

Johnson said strategic silence is helpful in everyday parenting situations.

"If you've got a child who's actively melting down, selective silence," she said. "If you've given a directive and you've got a teenager who's having a hard time following what you've asked them to do, selective silence. When we see their eyes roll, when they throw daggers, selective silence."

Silence interrupts the cycle before it can escalate.

Use the Under-10-Word Rule

"When you're talking to your kids... say it in 10 words or less," Johnson said. "Put the keys on the counter. Pick up your backpack, please."

Instead of repeating the instructions over and over, make your request clear and brief. Then stop talking.

"Once you say it, take a step back, not away, just a step back, and don't repeat yourself," she explained.

This can feel uncomfortable because parents are used to continuing until they feel heard, but Johnson said to do the opposite.

"We tend to talk until we feel better," she said.

Instead, she said to ask: "How little can I talk?"

Offer an 8-second Brain Pause

"It takes a solid eight seconds for their brain to go from I'm being controlled by what my parents said to I'm gonna reasonably and rationally work this through," Johnson explained.

When parents repeat themselves, they never give teens the opportunity too process because the next reminder or lecture starts before they can.

"We need to say things to our teenagers and let their brains catch up," she said. "At least count to eight."

That pause gives them room to think, take ownership and make independent decisions.

Don't Take the "Attitude Bait"

One of the hardest parts of parenting is staying focused when a teenager gives you attitude.

"Teenagers are really good at that age at rolling their eyes and throwing the jabs and saying the unkind, disrespectful thing," Johnson noted.

Parents usually go straight to correction, but she said that shifts attention away from the original issue.

"As soon as we do, we've left the boundary or the directive, and we're talking now about the drama," Johnson explained. "Do not react. Otherwise, we're arguing about the wrong thing."

Offer "Parallel Silence"

Johnson also recommended using what she calls "parallel silence."

"We put ourselves in these positions where we're often asking our teenager to go eye to eye and have conversations with us," she explained.

That setup feels more like an interrogation to teens than a conversation. She said to sit next to your teen instead of across from them.

"Get in the car with them, turn the music down low, but don't say anything. What you will see is they will start to fill in those gaps," Johnson said. "They'll talk to us if they feel as though they're not being interrogated."

This story originally aired on KSL TV and has been reformatted for a digital audience using artificial intelligence.