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Tips to Help Your Teens Navigate Cancel Culture
Almost all good parenting advice starts with communication. Here are some tips to help guide your conversation when it comes to tackling cancel culture.
The first step in any hard conversation is to be a detective. Before you share your ideas and concerns, if you find out what the other person thinks, you will have a much more successful talk and be more likely to be heard yourself. You have to know what kids think and believe before you can provide any guidance. Their view and priorities are unlikely to be the same as yours. You want them to grow up to be happy, fulfilled, and strong. They want to have friends and get invited to the party next week (or next year, as the COVID-case may be).
Keep communication open and nonjudgmental. News stories about cancel culture make great conversation starters. Use them to find out what your kids think and if they are aware of it happening among their friends or at their school. Having an open conversation about what happened to someone else provides a safe space for kids to talk about a subject without having to disclose what is happening to them. It also provides a way to discuss strategies for dealing with it.
Listen empathetically. While cancel culture moves fast, don’t dismiss your teen’s anxiety, pain, and angst. Don’t say, “oh, it will all be over in a week. A week…
