They wish their teens would listen more and criticize them less. Improved communication has been suggested as the solution for nearly every social problem imaginable. Unfortunately, the word has lost much of its meaning through overuse. Communication comes from the Latin communis which means common. Simply saying more words and talking longer is not necessarily communication.
Effective communication means the message sent equals the message received.
People communicating must establish a shared understanding of what is being communicated. Although this process sounds simple, it isn't. It's complex because people are complex and because there are many different means of communicating. Parents and children communicate from the moment of birth in a never-ending process. By the time children are teenagers, parents have established a complex and fairly rigid communication style with them.