7 Tips For Talking to Your Kids About Tough Topics

As a parent, you know the value of challenges and trials to your children’s growth, but it’s still difficult to see your children struggle. These struggles, however, can be a chance for you to build solid relationships with your children as you foster an environment of love at home. President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) encouraged parents to provide such an environment: “My plea—and I wish I were more eloquent in voicing it—is a plea to save the children. Too many of them walk with pain and fear, in loneliness and despair. Children need sunlight. They need happiness. They need love and nurture.”1

There are many difficult issues your children could face, such as bullying, bad language, cheating at school, same-sex attraction, eating disorders, depression, and suicidal thoughts, for example. As a Latter-day Saint parent, you know you “have a sacred duty to rear your children in love and righteousness,”2 but how do you go about that when your children struggle with difficult issues, whether in their own lives or in the lives of their friends? Here are some guidelines:

Ask questions that invite conversation. You can ask a question like this: “It looks like something may be bothering you. Do you want to talk about it?”

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