Many to whom I began to tell about my next experiment assumed that in the second part I would test the parents of teenagers in the same way, and then in one way or another compare and analyze the results and draw some conclusions. It seemed to me that the editors of Snob thought so too.
And no.
The second part of the experiment was about something completely different. In it, we found out what parents really talk about with teenagers.
Here’s how it was organized.
After receiving requests (in the form of previous testing results) from teenagers, I called two more members of their families to me. One of them was the one whom the teenager chose to speak (I remind you that only in eight cases it was the father, and in the remaining 49 it was the mother), and the second was another family member (father, mother, grandmother, aunt, uncle, elder brother or sister, even one grandfather). I spoke to them separately. For averting eyes, I gave out a completely “left”, long and tedious questionnaire to the experimental parent, which I had left from some previous experiment, and stated that this is how I explore the moral climate and communications in the family. It had to be filled out at home. In addition, I gave the “experimental” parent the impression that now another invited family member would receive approximately the same questionnaire (but they would have to be filled out independently of each other, without discussing anything). However, with the second member of the family, it was a completely different matter. He had a very special assignment. He had to somehow contrive and over the next month record on one of the gadgets all the communications of a teenager and a parent in one (maybe two, three or more) day. Neither the parent nor the teenager should have known that they were being recorded.
If you already thought: “God, but this is a huge volume of records!” must disappoint you. All children are learning. All parents work. The average daily communication time according to the experiment was 11,76 minutes. That is how much time per day my «experimental» parents, on average, communicated with their teenage sons and daughters. The total number of daily records in the experiment is 241. That is, approximately 4,23 records per family. It is clear that there were «lazy people» who recorded only one day. And the drummers who recorded (and analyzed!) for a whole week. My condition was that all participants in the experiment would later admit that it was a typical communication day, there was nothing outstanding about it.
After a month, we «opened the cards.» Everyone found out about everything, and the whole family sat down to analyze the records received. All available communications were roughly spread by topic. The topics were the same as in the teenage questionnaire, and I also included there what teenagers described (in plus or minus) additionally. Of course, there were also free columns where one could enter special topics, so to speak, endemic for this particular family. I will say right away that in twenty-seven families (more than half of the participants in the experiment), these additional columns were left blank.
After analyzing all the records according to the specified algorithm, the family (all three participants, sometimes someone else) came to me with the results, and we discussed them.
The results
First, about the sad.
I already wrote about 11,76 minutes a day. Did you feel like there should have been more? That’s what they all thought. And let’s also remember that all the parents in our experiment are highly motivated (initially they wanted to analyze their interactions with their teenagers) and with higher education. And if these two points are removed? How many minutes will we have there?
But that is not all. In fact, everything is much worse. I would even say that everything is almost catastrophic. Because almost 76 (!) percent of these incomplete twelve minutes of daily communication between children and parents is occupied by the following items:
— about grades, lessons, school performance;
— about computers, gadgets and computer games (in terms of their impact on health, intellectual development and school performance);
— about the rights and obligations of a teenager living in a family;
— about health;
— about the future in a negative way (“you can’t achieve anything if you don’t try now”);
— about the dangers of the modern world (“what do you think about when you walk from the circle across the yard?!”);
— about money (“Are you crazy, it’s too expensive!”, “Do you understand how they (money) get?”, “That’s when you start earning yourself …”);
— about cleaning (“how many times do I have to tell you not to throw your socks?”).
You remember, these are exactly those points and topics that all teenagers really did not want to talk to their parents about. And now, please get 76 percent (more than three-quarters of those miserable twelve minutes) — just about that!
Seventeen mothers cried when we analyzed all this. “How does she tolerate us at all!” — the cry of one of them. Where, you ask, is she supposed to go?
Absolute negative favorites are gadgets, computer games and lessons. For the younger ones, health occupies a large place (“if you hunch over like that …”, “your whole back is already crooked …”, “have you put on a hat?”). For the elders, parental worries about the future (“you won’t go to college!”, “you won’t pass the exam!”). Remember, we were surprised in the first part that teenagers do not want to talk with their parents about the future? So, they seem to be understandable.
And what about the remaining miserable three minutes?
All eight «experimental» dads talked with their children about sports (I — shame and disgrace! — I completely forgot about this important point for a modern person).
Many (almost everyone who has one) discussed with their children the daily lives of their pets (dogs, cats, rats, fish, parrots, and even one iguana).
Thirty-two families talked about what they saw on TV (in different contexts).
Forty families discussed what they saw on the Internet (music, fashion, gadgets and technology, social networks).
In nineteen families, computer games were discussed in a positive way — both the child and the parent play. At ten, a parent asked a teenager for computer advice. Eight is the opposite.
At thirty-eight, a teenager asked for money for this or that.
All fifty-seven families talked about food.
There was a little gossip in fifteen families.
Thirty-one families mentioned clubs or other activities that the child attends. But formally: was, was not, what the leader or tutor said.
There was one conversation: “Well, why did you leave everything, what do you want yourself?” The teenager would like a motorcycle. “Alas,” they told him, “this is impossible for the money, and it is too dangerous.”
Eighteen families mentioned politics. Two heated but brief arguments ending in slamming doors as a parent and teenager disagree over political views. The parent is a liberal. The teenager is a patriot, he wears a T-shirt with some kind of crosses, or with Putin in glasses.
In five families, they talked about books (three of them — according to the school curriculum). In twenty-one — about movies and television series.
Thirty-seven families talked about family purchases (already completed or just emerging).
Nobody talked about sex. Nobody — alas! about the progress of science. No one even mentioned the meaning of life.
Almost all «positive» topics — the teenager himself comes out to talk. All «negative» — the parent enters the conversation. There were, of course, exceptions.
One conversation about friendship. His resume: “Here we have, in our time there was friendship, so friendship. And you have everything virtual, not real, but in real life you don’t even know how to make friends. ”
One mother had a heartfelt conversation with her thirteen-year-old daughter about her first school love.
Another mother told her son in detail how she was afraid, passing the entrance exams to the institute.
One of the fathers, having seen the story on TV, told his son how they blew up a World War II shell in the village with the boys.
There were no more «author’s stories».
Endemic topics:
Father and son have been playing huge railroad together for years and discussing it. Mother and teenage daughter talk in detail about the illness of the sister-baby. Caring for a paralyzed great-grandmother — who will do what today. The son moonlights in the company with his mother, the discussion of working moments. Tourist family — discussion of the upcoming trip to the Khibiny (the conversation is recognized as typical by all family members).
In eight families, they actually talked about nothing. Moreover, this does not mean that the teenager and the parent in these families are in a state of quarrel or boycott. Nothing like this. It’s just that all of their daily communications consisted of phrases like: “Hi, ma! How are you? Never mind! Where are you going? Yes to training! Yeah. Will you eat? I ate at school. OK then. Are you leaving already? Well, yes, I’m at seven today. Understood. Don’t forget the card. Are you sleeping? No, I’ll go to bed now,” and stuff like that. These phrases could not be attributed to any of the graphs we invented.
Now, finally, about the good.
I consider the main result of this experiment to be that all the families who came to me after it ended (without a single exception) said the following: this experiment and this joint analysis of its results have already changed a lot in our family. We learned a lot from him and immediately began to act. And we already have shifts for the better (this was recognized by everyone — both teenagers, and parents, and my assistants in the experiment).
Agree, with one, in essence, a small experiment, to «psychotherapy» 57 families at once so that everyone sees shifts for the better — this is not weak, right? So I’m satisfied with myself. It can be recommended to readers as a method of family self-knowledge.