Back-to-School Relationship Conversation Tips for Families
- Sojourner Staff
- 19 hours ago
- 4 min read
As back-to-school season approaches, this can be a great opportunity to have age-appropriate conversations with children around communication, boundaries, and healthy friendships. Having these conversations early gives them a head start on developing strong social-emotional skills, including self-esteem, confidence in relationships, and communicating with others. Although these conversations can be challenging, you don’t have to know everything! The goal is to build trust and transparency, so they understand expectations and know that they can always go to you for help.
Here are a few tips for parents on navigating conversations with kids around communication, healthy relationships, and boundaries.
Start with Values
When talking with kids about healthy relationships, the first step is to think about personal values. Our values help us determine what friends we want to have and what kind of a friend we want to be. To guide conversations with your child, think about your own values. What does a healthy relationship (of any kind) look like for you? What kind of friend do you want your child to be?
It’s helpful to name some of the qualities that you find to be important parts of any healthy relationship. Maybe things like respect, shared interests, or empathy come to mind. Let these values guide your conversations.
Communicating Feelings
Communication is an essential part of any relationship. For young children, encourage them to speak about their emotions and name the emotions they’re feeling. This encourages their social-emotional learning, while making it easier for you to help them. Model good communication for them by actively listening to your child, making eye contact, asking follow-up questions, and giving them your full attention during conversations.
Teaching them “I statements” is a helpful way for your child to understand how to communicate their feelings without hurting others. “I statements” involve “I feel, I need, and I will”. For example, instead of saying “you’re making me angry”, say “I feel angry when you call me that word and I need you to stop calling me that”.
For pre-teens and teens, they learn the most about communication from parents. Treat them with respect and make it clear that you expect respect in return. Continue normalizing talking about feelings instead of ignoring them. Continue encouraging your teen or pre-teen to communicate with you about their feelings and let them know you’re always there for them if they have a problem with a friend.
Healthy Relationships
Even on a basic level, we can talk to children about how to be a good friend and what healthy friendships look like. When they’re old enough to interact with others, look for ways to encourage them to take turns, share, and be kind. Always set ground rules and let them know from a young age what behaviors are and are not okay.
For older children, look for ways to insert teaching moments into media or everyday activities. For example, if you’re watching a movie or tv show, ask them about whether the relationships are healthy or not. How do we know? How could that character have communicated better? Also, be clear what your expectations are for dating. Whether that’s a certain age they can begin or whether they can go on dates, involving your child in setting expectations will make it more likely they’ll follow them.
No matter what their age, stay involved in their life. Get to know their friends, and if you find out they’re in a relationship, ask them questions about it: Do you trust each other? Are you able to disagree while still respecting each other? Do you always feel safe around each other?
Owning your Body (Bodily autonomy)
This is an essential concept for helping children have the confidence to say no to others and will build the groundwork for having conversations about consent later on. Let them know that their body is their own and everyone has a say in deciding what happens to their bodies.
For elementary children, this conversation could be framed as the personal space bubble. Imagine everyone has a bubble around them, and we can’t go into each other’s bubbles without asking first. You can also teach them the real names of their body parts, who can look at or touch their body parts, and that it’s okay to say no to hugs or kisses, even from adults. As they get older, continue repeating this, while bringing it into conversations around consent and boundaries.
Consent & Boundaries
Consent and boundaries apply to every relationship, and it’s important for your child to learn them from a young age. You can have conversations about consent that don’t involve sex. It can start with developing a shared vocabulary like body, personal space, and touch. For young children, let them know that you have to ask before touching someone, and if someone says “no”, they have to respect that. It’s about teaching your child the basics of empathy: everyone has their own feelings and everyone gets to make decisions for themselves.
It’s also important to teach young children the difference between secrets and surprises. Surprises, like a surprise birthday party, can be kept. But secrets sometimes require telling an adult.
For middle school and high school students, you can start talking about romantic relationships, sexual harassment, and alcohol. Especially for high schoolers, it’s time to start breaking down the concept of consent more thoroughly. Consent is something you have to proactively ask for, it can be taken back at any time, and it’s freely given. One framework we use is called ‘the FRIES of Consent’: consent is Freely given, Reversible, Informed, Enthusiastic, and Specific. Remember that this is often a confusing time and they might be learning about sex and consent from unreliable sources, so it’s important to clear up any confusion they have.
Although these conversations can be uncomfortable, don’t let that get in the way of providing essential information to your kids. Keep the conversation low-key, and don’t push them if they’re not ready. You can even use tv shows, news stories, or things they’ve heard from friends as a jumping-off point.
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