词汇大师(Wordmaster)--Talking to Teens (and Getting a Rep

AA:   I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: advice about talking to teenagers. 

RS: Our friend Ali the English teacher in Iran told us about a book called "Raising Children with Character." 

AA: He suggested we talk to the author, Dr. Elizabeth Berger, a child psychiatrist² in Pennsylvania.  So we took his advice.

RS: "Now how is it different, the interaction between two teenagers and the teenager and his or her parents?

ELIZABETH BERGER: "I think what makes it different is not the words, per se, but that teenagers are extremely sensitive to feeling that they have a hostile audience or a judgmental audience.  And parents often are conveying that they're exasperated³, and that has a tendency to shut down communication from kids who are really craving⁴ the parents' good graces as much as they may not seem to be."

AA: "Now I know expressions like, for a parent to begin a sentence with, 'What I'm hearing is' and 'What I'm feeling is,' things like that -- you see that in the popular literature sometimes -- I mean that, to me personally, that kind of gives me the creeps [feel uneasy]. But, on the other hand, are those the sorts of ways to broach⁵ a conversation with a teenager? I mean, what advice do you give?"

ELIZABETH BERGER: "I have to say I share your 'creeps' there, because it's a little too politically correct or psychobabble -- therap-ese.  I think that parents need to be honest with themselves first about recognizing that often they want to control and badger⁶ and nag¹ and preach at and scold and sort of beat the kid into line. And in order to have a respectful conversation you have to lay that aside."

RS: "So what's the best approach?"

ELIZABETH BERGER: "I think the best approach is to be a good listener."

RS: "So how do you start a conversation?"

AA: "Yeah, you can't listen till they actually are saying something! [laughter]"

ELIZABETH BERGER: "Well, first maybe you have to have a physical setup in which there are expectations on both sides that they are going to be communicating with one another. Car rides are good places for this in our automobile-dominated society, oftentimes the one place that people really have a chance for an intimate exchange."

RS: "Also, for me what works is right before bed, I don't know why -- or right after exercise or sports. There seems to be a little bit of ... "

ELIZABETH BERGER: "I think the bed thing is very telling because little children, especially, become very inspired and chatty at bedtime. It's often transparent⁷ that they don't want the grownup to go. They're lonely. You're all alone in that bed."

AA: "What about for older kids, for teenagers?

ELIZABETH BERGER: "Well, even there, it's an opportunity to say, 'Well, what's going on with you, catch me up, what is going through your mind lately?' You know, to put it in a neutral way, in a curious way, in an appreciative⁸ spirit works better, of course, with anyone."

AA: "Now how should you not approach a conversation with, let's say, a 14-year-old?"

ELIZABETH BERGER: "Well, I think American parents are unfortunately highly brainwashed by the idiom of the personnel department, the head nurse, the math teacher. These are great approaches for keeping a disorganized group together. Right? The sort of military, you know, 'we got a task, we're going to do the task and you got to fly right because we're organized around a task.' You can't teach math class without that premise⁹, or have everybody sing on key in a glee club or whatever the group activity is. But intimate relationships are not like that.

"Parents sometimes feel fearful of their teenager, so they hang on to what they learned when they got their M.B.A. They hang on to a whole administrative¹⁰ set of rules and consequences. But a child is not a corporation. It just does not work that way."

RS:   Child psychiatrist Elizabeth Berger is author of the book "Raising Children With Character: Parents, Trust, and the Development of Personal Integrity."

AA:   And that's Wordmaster for this week.  You can find our segments on American English, dating back to 1998, on our Web site, voanews.com/wordmaster.  And our e-mail address is。。。。。。With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

 

1 nag   

v.(对…)不停地唠叨；n.爱唠叨的人

参考例句：

• Nobody likes to work with a nag.谁也不愿与好唠叨的人一起共事。
• Don't nag me like an old woman.别像个老太婆似的唠唠叨叨烦我。

2 psychiatrist   

n.精神病专家；精神病医师

参考例句：

• He went to a psychiatrist about his compulsive gambling.他去看精神科医生治疗不能自拔的赌瘾。
• The psychiatrist corrected him gently.精神病医师彬彬有礼地纠正他。

3 exasperated   

adj.恼怒的

参考例句：

• We were exasperated at his ill behaviour. 我们对他的恶劣行为感到非常恼怒。
• Constant interruption of his work exasperated him. 对他工作不断的干扰使他恼怒。

4 craving   

n.渴望,热望

参考例句：

• a craving for chocolate 非常想吃巧克力
• She skipped normal meals to satisfy her craving for chocolate and crisps. 她不吃正餐，以便满足自己吃巧克力和炸薯片的渴望。

5 broach   

v.开瓶，提出(题目)

参考例句：

• It's a good chance to broach the subject.这是开始提出那个问题的好机会。
• I thought I'd better broach the matter with my boss.我想我最好还是跟老板说一下这事。

6 badger   

v.一再烦扰，一再要求，纠缠

参考例句：

• Now that our debts are squared.Don't badger me with them any more.我们的债务两清了。从此以后不要再纠缠我了。
• If you badger him long enough,I'm sure he'll agree.只要你天天纠缠他，我相信他会同意。

7 transparent   

adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的

参考例句：

• The water is so transparent that we can see the fishes swimming.水清澈透明，可以看到鱼儿游来游去。
• The window glass is transparent.窗玻璃是透明的。

8 appreciative   

adj.有鉴赏力的，有眼力的；感激的

参考例句：

• She was deeply appreciative of your help.她对你的帮助深表感激。
• We are very appreciative of their support in this respect.我们十分感谢他们在这方面的支持。

9 premise   

n.前提；v.提论，预述

参考例句：

• Let me premise my argument with a bit of history.让我引述一些史实作为我立论的前提。
• We can deduce a conclusion from the premise.我们可以从这个前提推出结论。

10 administrative   

adj.行政的，管理的

参考例句：

• The administrative burden must be lifted from local government.必须解除地方政府的行政负担。
• He regarded all these administrative details as beneath his notice.他认为行政管理上的这些琐事都不值一顾。