Because I’m writing a Young Adult novel at the moment and don’t have any teen-agers in- house, I started reading a book called Teen Scene, which is written by a teen to help parents have a better relationship with their teen offspring. It was all going well until the author, Dana Bernstein, suggested questions for when you are chauffeuring your teen around and the conversation has ground to a halt (or never started). Below you will find the questions and, in italics, my best guess as to the answers you’ll get:
- Anything interesting/exciting/funny happen at school today? No.
- What's new in your life? Nothing.
- How does this year compare to last year? What kind of weird question is that?
- If you had to pick your favorite year, what would it be? The year I get my own driver’s license.
- How was yearbook/tennis practice/debate today? Fine.
- What did you learn at school today? Nothing.
- What's your hardest/easiest subject? I hate all of them.
- What TV shows are your friends watching? You wouldn’t know them.
- Who has a bad reputation at school? You want me to narc? Forget it.
- Who is the smartest person you know? (sarcastic: You.)
- What is the best video game out today? I don’t know, whatever.
- Where should we go on vacation this year? I don’t want to go.
- Did you have any weird dreams last night? The sheet was like that when you put it on.
The upside of all this is that if you’re writing books about teens, they can be shorter, because the conversations sure will be.
