When a child or student shuts down and refuses to talk, it can leave adults feeling confused, worried, and frustrated. By understanding the “why” behind silence and responding with empathy, caregivers and educators can create safer spaces where communication naturally grows. This article explores how adopting a mental health mindset and fostering empathy in the classroom or home environment can help build trust, reduce resistance, and support meaningful connection.
Supporting Connection with a Mental Health Mindset
Techniques from counseling psychology can assist caregivers and educators in connecting with youth who seem difficult to access.
As a mental health professional, one of the most common concerns I hear from parents is that their adolescent or teen won’t open up to them. By reframing the child’s behavior developmentally and biologically, and then responding intentionally, you allow for alternative pathways to understanding the child that can strengthen your relationship.
What is going on? What are you feeling? Why won’t you talk to me? For parents, teachers, and caregivers, it’s not unfamiliar that these inquiries are often met with resistance.
For many adults, verbal communication is the primary method for exchanging valuable information from one person to the next. It can be perplexing to us as adults, when our child or student suddenly clams up, and even though they may be capable of verbal language, they seemingly are choosing not to tell you what you so badly are seeking to know.
To adults, this can be somewhat confusing. You have learned through life experience that seeking help from others is beneficial. You’re probably asking because you hope to ease their pain or hardships and offer them resources. The intention is generally well-meaning.
Understandably, not having access to what is going on inside the mind of a young person in your life can seem quite concerning. With fears around anxiety, depression, suicide risk, and high-risk coping mechanisms among youth, it is natural that your own internal alarm system alerts you that something is wrong.
The issue arises though, when our own response is one of anxiety (“fixing”), irritability, or disappointment, and our child’s response is to further dig in. As a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, my aim in working with parents and educators on this common challenge is to support them in finding a different, and hopefully more effective, approach to their child’s resistance to talking. Here’s what I’ve found helps.
Step 1: Empathy Before Intervention
Reflecting on Your Own Experience is the Foundation of Empathy
It sounds simple, but the first step in understanding what is going on for your child is to take a moment to remember what your own experience of being young was like: What do you remember about your relationship with adults? What pressures or expectations did you face? What about it was stressful?
Notice what effect lack of choice may have had on you. Like youth today, you may have been told when to wake up, what to eat, when to go to school, what you were allowed to do after school, and when to go to bed. Or, if you had to do all these things on your own, this was also likely not your choice, and you had a different kind of stress. In addition to your lack of control, you may recall the difficulty of getting peer interactions just right and figuring out who you wanted to be.
Youth today face many similar stressors as you did. However, increased expectations in academics, sports, and appearance, worse sleep, and access to everything that the digital landscape has to offer, which is often not developmentally-geared, take their toll. In addition, the adolescent brain is still using the amygdala (an emotion-oriented part of the brain) for its processing, rather than the planning and decision-oriented pre-frontal cortex. It’s a lot!
Step 2: Understand the Behavior Through a Mental Health Mindset
Control, Trust, and Development
Often, when a human of any age is feeling a lack of control over their world, they will adapt by finding any way to take some control. One parent shared with me that her middle schooler insists on handling the TV remote and not allowing anyone else to hold it. Another wondered why their teen insisted on shorts in winter conditions. These acts of autonomy may seem strange, but they are often key developmental markers of building the appropriate amount of independence that is necessary to create a strong sense of identity that is ultimately needed for survival.
Withholding information from adults also typically falls into the category of needing to reclaim some amount of control. It also can be indicative of a lack of trust in what the adult will do with the information. As many youth I work with report, there is often concern about the risk of disappointment, repercussions, or unwanted intervention if they share what they are thinking. Interestingly, this is even the case if the caregiver reports that they would be positively supportive to whatever the child has to say.
The Nervous System and Communication
When humans are seeking control in noticeable ways, it is usually a sign that a part of them is operating from a position of overwhelm. Their internal resources do not believe that they can handle the stress. Within their nervous system, they are highly activated in their sympathetic, which is the “fight or flight” system, or the parasympathetic, known as dorsal vagal activation or “shutdown.” When these systems are engaged, it can make social behaviors that would typically occur when their ventral vagal or “safe and social” system is fully engaged—like talking or listening—difficult.
Increasing the pressure to talk when a nervous system is stressed will only result in increasing the survival response of fight, flight, or shut down. As psychologist Stephen Porges notes, when these threat systems are activated, behavior is not as much of a choice as it is a biological reaction.
Even if you can’t fully identify with the behavior your child is expressing, truly seeking to understand it is essential to improving the conditions of your relationship.
Step 3: Less Talk, More Being
Create Space for Regulation
Once you’ve empathized and accept that your child may be experiencing a biological reaction to real stressors, you can now help them navigate to safety. Rather than try to access your child’s internal world through talking, instead provide a space that allows their nervous system to regulate again.
Allow for low-key transition times, especially after high social encounters, such as a school day or peer event, by offering time with little to no dialogue—remember, they are usually processing so much about their social interactions that just looking out the window or listening to music of their choice will give them a chance to process and relax. Having a snack that is easy to access also provides an energy reset after a day of little body care.
Follow Their Lead in Conversation
Look for “open doors” in conversations; don’t force it. Given enough quiet or lack of direct questioning, you’ll often be given something verbally in a bid for connection. The best language to respond with is flexible: it’s present and open, warm, natural and curious, and shows your own humanity. It avoids interviewing for problems, attempting to fix, or projecting your own feelings onto them. A helpful phrase is “Tell me more.”
Validate Before You Fix
If interactions lead to more dysregulation, respond to it calmly and try to not dismiss their feelings regardless of what they are. Validating another’s emotional experience is always the first step in a supportive interaction—“Yes, I hear you. That’s a bummer!”
Connect Through Shared Experiences
Do something together. To co-regulate, show the nervous system a path back to safety. Offer activities that encourage interactions beyond talking, like taking a walk, attending a class, or doing dinner prep. Conversation flows more naturally when it’s not the only reason for an interaction.
Once relational safety is established regularly, your child or student may be willing to share some of what they are holding. No matter what it is, thanking them for sharing (“I am so glad you told me.”), deeply listening and noticing what their body language is telling you, and managing your own anxiety or desire to do something immediately to help is essential to creating a space where they may want to talk to you more.
By interacting with each other with all our senses engaged, we reveal deeper and more important aspects of ourselves, making breathing room for connection and trust that talking alone has difficulty fostering.
Building Trust Through a Mental Health Mindset
When children or students won’t open up, the solution isn’t more pressure—it’s more presence. By leading with empathy, understanding behavior through a mental health mindset, and creating safe, low-pressure opportunities for connection, adults can reduce resistance and build trust over time with empathy in the classroom or home. These approaches help young people feel seen, regulated, and supported, making communication something they choose, not avoid.
