This is also an area where the quality of communication with parents is so urgent. When such connections between adolescents and their parents or other adult authority figures thrive, kids exhibit a much stronger internal locus of control, i.e., they make decisions and exercise judgment based on personal standards learned from significant adults in their lives. They become personally stronger and are less vulnerable to indiscriminate peer pressure. An infinite number of topics and issues are on the minds of contemporary young adolescents. We can anticipate some of those conversational possibilities, so it is worthwhile to contemplate the shared social context as a source of possibilities.
Music is almost always a good entree to conversation.
Most young adolescents have preferences for types of music or genre and performers. I have enjoyed ongoing dialogue with adolescents about their musical preferences, and I am certain that those conversations have served as a path to other talk about matters of considerably greater consequence. There are numerous topics youngsters write about at school, and sometimes those may become a basis of conversation. An eighth grader recently told me about a paper she had written in which she compared the structure of music to that of a house. Given my limited understanding of the structure of music, I can't judge how well her concept worked.