Introduction
“Fine.”
That’s the whole report on a day that lasted eight hours. How was school? Fine. What did you do? Nothing. Who were you with? People. Then the bedroom door closes, the headphones go on, and the child who used to tell you every detail of every break time on the drive home might as well be living in a different postcode.
If you’re the parent on the other side of that door, it can hurt more than you expected. You miss them. You worry about what you’re not being told. And somewhere underneath, there’s the question most parents ask me, sooner or later: did I do something wrong?
“My teenager won’t talk to me” is one of the most common things I hear from parents in my room in Claremont. It’s usually said quietly, and often with a lump in the throat.
Usually, no. Some of this silence is exactly what’s meant to happen. Some of it is a message worth listening to. This post is about telling the difference, and about the small, unglamorous things that tend to get teenagers talking again.
Some Silence Is Supposed to Happen
Adolescence has a job to do. Somewhere between about twelve and twenty, your child has to build a self that’s separate from you: their own opinions, their own friendships, their own private inner world. Working out who they are needs a bit of room. A closed door is often part of how they make it.
There’s research to back this up. A well-known study that followed young people from 10 to 18 found that the share of their waking hours spent with family dropped from 35% to just 14%. That’s a steep fall, and it matches what most parents see. But here’s the part that doesn’t make the headlines: the time teenagers spent talking one-on-one with a parent stayed steady right through those years.
So the door hasn’t shut. It’s narrowed. The family supper where everyone shares their day may be gone for now. The quiet ten minutes, just the two of you, is very much still there.
Why Teenagers Stop Talking
Beyond ordinary growing up, there are a few common reasons a teen goes quiet with a parent in particular.
Talking has started to cost them something
This is the one parents find hardest to hear. If sharing a small worry reliably leads to a lecture, a fix they didn’t ask for, a worried face, or the story being passed on to Granny, a teenager does the maths. It’s easier to say “fine”. Most of us don’t notice we’re doing it. They always notice.
They don’t have the words yet
Teenagers feel things enormously, and often can’t name them. “I don’t know” is frequently the honest answer, not a brush-off. That can be especially true for a neurodivergent teen, for whom putting a feeling into words on demand (and face to face) takes real effort.
Their world lives somewhere you can’t see
Most of your teen’s social life now happens in group chats and on apps you’ve barely heard of, in a world that lives on a screen. Much of what’s going on with them is happening there. It’s hard to explain a friendship drama that played out in forty messages at midnight, so they don’t try.
They’re working something out
Sometimes a teen goes quiet because they’re working through something big about who they are (sexuality, gender or faith, say) and aren’t yet sure how you’ll take it. The silence can be a kind of waiting: for the right moment, or for a sign that it’s safe.
Something is wrong
And sometimes the silence is covering something painful. Bullying. A relationship that’s gone bad. Pressure to drink, vape or send photos. Something that happened at a party. Low mood that has crept in slowly. Teens who are struggling often go quiet precisely because they don’t want to worry you, or are frightened of what you’ll do if you find out.
Ordinary Withdrawal, or Something More?
There’s no perfect line, but a few patterns help. It’s more likely to be ordinary teenage distance if your teen:
- is grumpy and private with you, but still has friends and still sees them
- still does the things they enjoy, like sport, music or gaming with mates
- is eating and sleeping more or less as before (teenage hours aside)
- still surfaces now and then: for food, for a lift, for a laugh at something on their phone
It’s worth paying closer attention if:
- they’ve pulled away from friends as well as family
- they’ve lost interest in things they used to love
- their sleep, appetite or weight has changed noticeably
- their marks have dropped suddenly, or they’re avoiding school
- they seem flat, hopeless or unusually irritable most of the time
- they seem frightened of their phone rather than attached to it
- you’ve seen signs they might be hurting themselves
A rough rule: if the change has lasted more than two weeks and it’s showing up everywhere, not just with you, it’s time to get support. That could be anxiety or depression, and the earlier a struggling teen gets support, the better things tend to go.
If your teen ever talks about not wanting to be alive, or you’re worried about their safety, don’t wait. Stay with them, and call SADAG’s suicide crisis line on 0800 567 567, which runs 24 hours a day.
What Actually Gets Teenagers Talking
Here’s something useful from researchers in Sweden, who looked at how parents actually knew what their 14-year-olds were up to. It wasn’t mostly from checking, tracking or asking questions. It was mainly from what the teenagers chose to tell them.
That changes the goal. You can’t make a teenager talk. What you can do is be someone they want to tell. These are the things I see make the biggest difference.
Sit side by side, not face to face
Eye contact across a kitchen table can feel like an interview. Side by side is easier: in the car, walking the dog, cooking supper together, on the long drive to Saturday sport. Cape Town traffic is good for something. Some of the most important conversations of your teen’s adolescence may happen somewhere on the M3.
Take the night shift
Teenagers seem to open up at the least convenient moment, usually half past ten at night, when you’re exhausted and about to switch off the light. If you can, stay up. That late-night knock on your door is an invitation, and it may not come again for a while.
Ask smaller questions (or none at all)
“How was your day?” is too big to answer. Try something smaller and more specific: “What was the worst part of today?” “Who’s annoying you at the moment?” Or skip the questions entirely, and just be around. Teens often talk more into a comfortable silence than into a gap they’re expected to fill.
Listen longer than feels comfortable
When they do start talking, resist the urge to fix, advise or reassure straight away. Count to five in your head. Say “that sounds rough” and wait. Most of the time they’re not asking you to solve it. They want to know you can hear it without falling apart.
Handle small things the way you’d want to handle big ones
This is the long game. If you explode when you find out about a vape, you probably won’t hear about the party where things got scary. Your teenager is watching how you react to small disclosures to decide whether the big ones are safe to bring. You can still have limits and consequences. Just keep your first reaction calm.
Use the channels they use
A teen who won’t say it across the table might send it on WhatsApp from the next room. That’s not a lesser conversation. Reply warmly, and don’t insist it moves to “a proper talk”.
Say sorry when you get it wrong
You will lose your temper. You’ll say the thing you swore you’d never say. Coming back later and saying “I handled that badly, I’m sorry” teaches your teen more about safe relationships than any talk about safe relationships ever could.
What Tends to Backfire
A few common moves tend to close the door tighter:
- the ambush talk, where you corner them with a planned conversation they didn’t see coming
- sharing what they told you with other adults, or on the family WhatsApp group
- comparing them with a sibling, a cousin, or yourself at their age
- reading their messages in secret
That last one needs a little nuance. If you have a real concern for their safety, you may need to look, and that’s a parent’s call to make. Where you can, be honest about it. Teens usually find out, and a secret search that’s discovered can cost you trust for years.
When the Silence Is About the Family
Sometimes a teenager’s silence says as much about the house as it does about them. A separation or divorce, constant arguing, a parent who is ill, drinking or overwhelmed, a sibling who takes up most of the oxygen. Teenagers go quiet to protect themselves, and sometimes to protect you.
If that sounds familiar, the answer might not be to get your teen talking. It might be to get the whole family in the room, where everyone can be heard, not just the one who’s gone quiet.
How Therapy Can Help
Parents sometimes feel it’s a defeat when their teen will talk to a counsellor but not to them. It isn’t. It’s often the point. A teenager can say things to someone outside the family that feel too risky to say at home, and practising those words in a safe room usually makes it easier to say them at home later.
When I see teenagers, I explain confidentiality clearly at the start, including its limits: if I’m worried about their safety, their parents will know. Most teens find that reassuring, not threatening. I also meet with parents, because the goal isn’t to replace you. It’s to help the two of you find your way back to each other.
Conclusion
When a parent tells me “my teenager won’t talk to me”, my first question is usually: when do they talk, and to whom? There’s almost always an answer, and it’s often the place to start.
A teenager who won’t talk to you hasn’t stopped needing you. In most cases they need you just as much, only differently: less as a commentator on their life, more as a steady presence they can come back to. Resilience is built in relationships, and yours is still one of the most important they have.
If the silence in your house has started to worry you, you’re welcome to get in touch. I see teens and parents in person in Claremont (close to Rondebosch, Newlands, Kenilworth and Bishopscourt) and online across South Africa.
Keep the kitchen light on. Keep the car keys handy. They’ll come and find you.
About Me
I’m Paula Marais, a registered specialist wellness counsellor based in Claremont, Cape Town. I hold an Honours in Psychology (Unisa) and a Master’s in Creative Writing (UCT), and I’m registered with the Association for Supportive Counsellors and Holistic Practitioners (ASCHP).
I offer individual and couples counselling, in person in Claremont and online across South Africa. Online sessions are equally as effective as in-person sessions.
There’s no pressure and no judgment. You can reach me at info@paulamaraistherapy.com or on WhatsApp at 072 633 7661.
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