Questions To Ask Young Relatives To Get To Know Them

Baby boomers and Gen-Xers, we know younger generations are giving you a hard time these days. Your millennial and Gen Z relatives don’t always understand where you’re coming from or what you’ve experienced, and their stereotypes about your generation may seem undeserved.

If you’re craving deeper relationships with your younger relatives, one powerful way to bridge the gap is to ask thoughtful questions to get to know what matters to them and how you can best show up for them. Questions like these can open up a more fulfilling way of relating to each other.

We asked three experts on family dynamics to suggest meaningful questions to ask younger relatives, which they’ll deeply appreciate. And they may lead to you learning some important things about your loved ones. Win-win.

It may seem obvious, but asking this question in a way that shows you truly care about the answer can help your loved one open up.

“Family members tend to assume they know everything about one another,” Everett Uhl, a licensed marriage and family therapist, told HuffPost. “Asking open-ended questions encourages detailed responses rather than a yes/no or simple (good, fine) answer.”

Engaged listening will make all the difference in how the conversation goes. “If one continues to listen, stays curious and makes neutral statements (‘I support your position here; I totally agree with you; you are making total sense’), there is opportunity for continued dialogue with depth,” Uhl said.

“This benefits both parent and child as there will be deeper understanding between generations and each will understand the other’s inner world more.”

Your younger relatives are in a different phase of their lives, which means that their days are very different, as are their goals for the short and long term. So asking about their hopes for the future can really help you understand where they’re coming from and figure out how you can support them no matter what stage they’re at.

“This question allows you as the parent to really see and be with your child in their life stage and understand what is important to them,” Uhl said. “This can lead to a back and forth about the life stage the adult child is in and if they are interested in moving to the next one, or if they are happy staying where they are a little longer.”

This question can replace more intrusive ones, such as “When are you getting married?” or “When are you having kids?” with empathy and curiosity. “This open-ended question lets the adult child share their wants, hopes and dreams about the future without the burden of pressure to be in a life stage by a certain age,” Uhl said.

All three experts suggested you ask your younger relatives some version of this question – it’s that important for a thriving intergenerational relationship.

“This question does something quietly radical: It assumes that support is wanted and that the older relative is willing to provide it in whatever form is actually useful, not just the one they’re most comfortable with,” Saba Harouni Lurie, marriage and family therapist and founder of Take Root Therapy, told HuffPost.

“By asking rather than assuming, the older relative opens the door for the younger relative to be explicit, which is itself a form of respect. And for younger generations who have often felt like their needs were either invisible or inconvenient, simply being asked can be meaningful before a word of the answer is even spoken,” she continued.

Whatever the answer is – whether it be financial or emotional support or something else entirely – try your best to be open to it and to find ways to provide that support in a way that works for both of you.

This is a winning question because it invites your child or younger relative to share what has perhaps felt difficult in your relationship or simply what’s important to them in life right now, and it demonstrates that you’re willing to look at your “blind spots” (because we all have them), said Harouni Lurie.

“The conversation that follows might surface moments the younger relative felt misunderstood or hurt and never knew how to bring up,” she added. “Or, it might open into bigger territory: the political climate, evolving values, the ways the world has changed in ways that aren’t always visible from the outside.”

Your family member will be grateful for your curiosity and open-mindedness.

We all grow up in families that have specific expectations of us in one way or another, whether these are explicit or implicit. Depending on our individual personalities and trajectories, though, some of these expectations can start to feel heavy – even if it’s totally unintentional.

“Expectations are the dirty word in parenting adult children,” said Catherine Hickem, a licensed clinical social worker. “They ruin relationships, damage trust, hurt a child’s self-worth, and place a burden on them that is not theirs to carry. They can put a child in the position of choosing between keeping peace with their parents or fulfilling their own needs, dreams, and desires.”

Knowing this, you likely want to help free your relative from any inadvertent expectations they may be living with, which is where this question comes in. When you ask, try your best to avoid getting defensive and listen with an open heart.

We are all shaped by our family histories in big ways, and chances are your younger relatives have many questions about the values, events and traumas that have made up the generations before them.

“Younger relatives are often deeply curious about, and are being shaped by, family history that they were shielded from or handed down in incomplete or distorted form,” Harouni Lurie said. “Asking this question signals something important: that the older relative is willing to be honest, even about the hard things.”

Where previous generations might have preferred to leave the past in the past, younger generations are often highly introspective and want to better understand their family history.

“And with this question, the older relative becomes someone who wants to reckon with the past rather than guard a particular version of it,” Harouni Lurie added.

You love your children (or nephews or nieces, etc.). For you, that’s a given. But for them, they may need more hard proof than you think.

“Listen carefully to how your child responds to this question. Do you notice hesitancy? Defensiveness? Nervous laughter?” Hickem said. “Whatever their response, reinforce that nothing could change your love for them. But let me caution you on this: Do not say this if you are not certain you mean it. It is better to leave this question alone than to offer words you cannot stand behind.”

Loving your child or younger relative is one thing, but liking them for who they are is another.

“This may sound elementary, but when people are asked what their parents like about them, there is often a puzzled look or a joking response like, ‘I was the kid who didn’t keep them awake at night,’” Hickem said.

When asking this question, “parents should have a list ready in both their head and their heart of what they genuinely like about their child,” Hickem said. “Even if you have to reach back into childhood or adolescence to remember qualities you may not see clearly right now, look for the unique features that make them who they are.”

Asking this question and engaging in the conversation that ensues can help your loved one feel seen and valued, which in turn will naturally deepen your relationship.

The socio-political climate today creates a huge rift between older and younger generations, something that has a significant effect on families. “We no longer know how to disagree without taking it personally or making the other person wrong or bad,” Hickem said.

Asking whether these differences between you and your younger relative cause them any fear gives “a parent the opportunity to clarify the difference between disagreeing about social issues, political concerns, or personal values and loving their child for who they are,” according to Hickem. “The relationship always matters more than the issue.”

Disagreeing on particular issues can feel really difficult, but it doesn’t mean you can’t have a healthy relationship that also includes disagreement. “Respect, compassion, sincere curiosity, and love can bridge differences,” Hickem said. “Parents may need to say, ‘I may not understand how you landed where you did, but I know you, I respect you, and I trust that you take these things seriously.’”

Many people end up dreading family gatherings because of their complex relational dynamics, but it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, why have family gatherings at all if the guests don’t enjoy them? This question can encourage some beautiful dialogue about how to make family get-togethers occasions everyone looks forward to.

“We might not be able to take a family trip to Disney World anymore, but creating quality time and fun memories matters,” Uhl said. “This could allow for flexibility around who hosts during the holidays, roles that members play and/or contributions that family members provide. Sharing what would improve the overall experience or motivate family members to have more quality time together can strengthen the connection between generations.”