In many households dinnertime provides the best opportunity for family members to chat together. Because tweens are often immersed in their own thoughts and have difficulty expressing themselves, they tend to be out of the verbal loop, remaining silent as conversations swirl about them.

When tweens do interject comments, their contributions can sound a bit strange, somewhat bizarre, or completely off the wall. Besides the fact that what they say is unrelated to the general topic being discussed, they often relay facts and information that they picked up in school, on television, or in the neighborhood, and that are so outlandish it is immediately obvious that they misunderstood or misheard something.

Older siblings love to one-up tweens by making fun of them. Parents are likely to adopt a gentler approach as they point out the flaws in logic and try to correct erroneous information, but the result can be to squelch conversation rather than enhance it.

Although some tweens gratefully soak up whatever information their parent offers, the majority don't appreciate being contradicted and having their parents go into teaching mode every time they try to speak. Having parents continually focus on their mistakes erodes self-esteem, and sensitive children may feel hurt and embarrassed.

Possible Responses

What to say when your youngster suddenly announces that grass doesn't have to be watered because the moisture in the air is enough to keep it growing and green? Or when he states that Texas isn't part of the United States but a separate country? Or when he informs you that a friend's mother has subsisted on a diet of 100 percent candy since birth without ill effect?

Although the urge to set your tween straight when he has clearly misunderstood some bit of information is understandable, and although many parents seize such opportunities to deliver brief lessons, parental responses that are either critical or designed to instruct have the unfortunate side effect of discouraging communication. By finding ways to affirm your tween when he shares his thoughts and ideas, you encourage him to talk about whatever is on his mind and open the door to future conversations.

Both critical and controlling responses are designed to convince a child that he is wrong:

• “Where did you get such an idea? I hope your teacher isn't passing out that kind of misinformation. Probably you just heard wrong.”

• “Texas is a state, not a country. You must not have been listening.”

• “Use your head! Babies drink milk. They don't eat candy.”

Responses designed to teach relegate the child to the role of a student.

• “Well, probably in the tropics people don't have to water the grass. Too bad the humidity is so low around here. I get tired of sprinkling the lawn.”

• “Texas was under Mexico, then it was its own country, then the United States took it over, then it was part of the confederacy. It's existed under six flags, like the name of the amusement park, though I understand it's flying under the U.S. flag again.”

• “I know some of those nutritional drinks that taste like milk shakes are supposed to have enough in them to keep people healthy.”

Finding something to affirm in a child's statement encourages conversation:

• “Hmmm. I never heard that before. Probably lots of people water their lawns more than necessary.”

• “Well, many people do say Texas seems more like a foreign land than part of the United States.”

• “I know some poor kids live on a bowl of rice a day. A lot of them are malnourished, but some grow up healthy enough. Candy, huh?”

Keep the Conversation Going

Instead of leaping in to set your child straight, it can be more helpful simply to express interest in whatever information he has chosen to share. Communicate your own ideas without discounting his. Trying to prove him wrong may only cause him to defend his mistaken notions.

At this developmental stage, tweens must learn from people besides their parents, so debunking what he tells you may do more to undermine your credibility than shore it up. Contradict your child's teachers and friends and discount what he learned as silly or flat-out wrong, and whether you deflate his ego and discourage future sharing, you may well diminish yourself in your child's eyes.

Tweens learn on the playground that insisting on having the last word is the power play of a bully. If you always respond like an all-knowing parent, you relegate your tween to the role of eternal child. Share your experiences or other knowledge that have led you to a different conclusion but refrain from insisting that you are right. In that way, you model how grownups disagree — at least, when they are behaving like adults.

After a straightforward discussion in which you share your views on the subject without discounting your tween's, there's a good chance he will proceed to try to straighten out whoever gave him the erroneous information by dropping those famous lines, “My dad said …” or “My mom said …”

However, if he felt belittled and demeaned during his conversation with you, he's likely to try to restore his sense of dignity by adding, “But what does he know,” or “But she always thinks she knows everything, and she doesn't!” Having the correct information about trivial things matters less than his willingness to continue to learn from you. Lots of other people will be more than anxious to leap forward to set him straight when he has his facts mixed up.

Certainly it is important to correct misinformation when you fear that your child might act on it to his detriment. For instance, if your son declares his intention not to wear his bicycle helmet anymore because he “heard” that wearing one is more dangerous than going without, he at least needs to be told that wearing a helmet is the law of the city or of your household. Still, you can protect your youngster's ego by expressing interest in learning more about this “fact.”