Charley Locke | Vox

What broke teenage romance?

2025-06-16T18:14:52-04:00

Ren, 18, describes herself as “a big romantic.” Like so many teen girls who came before her, she loves love: Ren is obsessed with rom-coms, develops crushes quickly, and dissects texts from boys with her friends. But, like many of her friends, she hasn’t dated anyone; as a rising sophomore in college in New York, Ren has yet to experience her first kiss.

She wants genuine connection and intimacy. But Ren doesn’t find the current slate of options appealing: neither the cycle of what kids term love-bombing — excessive attention and compliments early in a relationship — and then ghosting that seems to comprise romance in her circles, nor an anonymous hookup at a frat party. “I want my first kiss to be with someone that I like, rather than someone random,” she says. “I feel like there’ll be someone who meets my energy someday.” (Vox is using pseudonyms for all the teenage sources in this story, so they can discuss their romantic lives freely.)

Ren’s experience is increasingly common among teenagers coming of age today. You may have come across some alarming (and alarmist) headlines about Gen Z’s aversion — and even hostility — to sex and romance: They’ve been branded “puriteens” who have regressive attitudes about sex; they’re more interested in their phones than dating; they can’t even stomach sex scenes in the movies.

Indeed, rates of sexual activity among teenagers have dropped in the last three decades: In 1991, about 54 percent of high school students in a government survey said they’d had sex; in 2021, it was 30 percent. But Gen Z may be getting unfairly maligned. Teenage romance has actually been on the decline for far longer, decreasing generation by generation for 75 years: According to a 2023 survey from the American Enterprise Institute, 56 percent of Gen Z adults report that they had a boyfriend or girlfriend as a teenager, compared to 69 percent of millennials, 76 percent of Generation X-ers, and 78 percent of baby boomers.

What’s certain is that while romantic connection has lessened, yearning for it certainly hasn’t.

“This generation is characterized by less in all of these areas: less dating, less sex, less togetherness,” says Lisa A. Phillips, who teaches a course on relationships at SUNY New Paltz and wrote a book on teen relationships, First Love: Guiding Teens through Relationships and Heartbreak. There are many possible causes, including the loneliness epidemic, overreliance on technology, fears of sexual assault, unrealistic expectations of relationships from social media, a rise in teen anxiety and depression, the ubiquity of porn, the gender disparity on college campuses, and a decrease in leisure time for teenagers. But what’s certain is that while romantic connection has lessened, yearning for it certainly hasn’t.

“The desire to connect is still very prominent, but the rules are different and confusing, and there’s a lot of reluctance and wariness,” Phillips says. The limited data on this group bears this out: A Hinge survey of Gen Z daters published in 2024 found that 90 percent of them hope to find love. In other words, it’s not that young people are too anxious and online to want in-person love and physical intimacy. It’s that they don’t quite know how to get it.

New (and confusing) rites of passage

In eras past, when teenagers didn’t spend an average of about eight hours a day behind a screen, the rites of passage of a typical romance may have looked something like this: you have a crush on someone from English class or homeroom; you flirt in the hallway and ask your friends to get intel from their friends. Someone works up the nerve to ask the other out, so you go on a few real-life dates and seek each other out one-on-one in bigger social settings, like at parties. That progresses into a full-blown relationship (which most likely ends in heartbreak after a few weeks or months).

Emily, 16, who lives in New Jersey, always imagined that those milestones would be a part of her high school experience. She was “not necessarily expecting a whole love story, but like High School Musical,” where you ask each other to dances, she says. “But that didn’t exactly happen.”

She was “not necessarily expecting a whole love story, but like High School Musical,” where you ask each other to dances, she says.

Unlike in the movies she grew up watching, she finds that crushes don’t develop in the cafeteria or school hallways. Instead, it all happens online, mostly on Snapchat. “The majority of my week, that’s how I’m interacting with people,” says Emily, who’ll start her senior year of high school in the fall.

Instead of a furtive note passed across class, if someone has a crush on you, they’ll send you the ultimate romantic gesture: a photo of their full face. “Not just of their ceiling or a half face,” says Emily. If you like them, too, then you’ll start sending texts back and forth on Snapchat.

This is “the talking stage,” a new — and extremely confusing — kind of milestone. It’s one version of a situationship, a type of relationship without clear boundaries, rules, or commitment. This gray area — when you both like each other, talk occasionally but don’t move toward exclusivity or more intimacy — has come to dominate Gen Z’s dating woes. “Normally, it doesn’t escalate from there, because most people don’t like to have labels or a real relationship,” Emily says. “It’s crazy because you can be in ‘talking stage,’ and you see them at school and just pass by each other. Social media is where it all happens.” Sometimes, two people in the talking stage will meet up in person, but that doesn’t last long.

Emily’s friends mostly hang out in big group gatherings, which are also arranged via Snapchat. “That could be at someone’s house, or at Chipotle, or at a school football game,” she says. “But you wouldn’t split off to hang out with someone one-on-one.”

Pau, 18, a rising sophomore in college, also describes the few relationships she’s experienced and witnessed among friends as nebulous and far more verbal than physical. She and her crush from a summer program in high school, for instance, would largely work on papers and take early morning walks together. “[People] are less affectionate publicly, so it’s more difficult to spot who’s in a relationship,” she says. “Then you find out by Instagram post.”

In the fall of her junior year, Emily had her most significant relationship so far. She and her crush started Snapchatting back and forth, and to her surprise, they actually talked in person, too. Sometimes they sat together at lunch; when their friend groups would hang out, he’d give her a ride. “In my head, I was like, maybe this is real, he actually wants something real,” she says. Then, after a few weeks, he abruptly stopped responding to her messages. “I tried to talk to him about it, like, ‘We don’t have to have anything, but I want to make sure I didn’t hurt your feelings or something.’ He just laughed it off,” says Emily.

When you never exit the “talking stage,” it can lead to an unsettling whiplash effect.

This is how situationships tend to end: an ambiguous tapering off instead of a clear breakup.

Connecting with someone emotionally rather than physically can be a good way to start a relationship, of course. But when you never exit the “talking stage,” it can lead to an unsettling whiplash effect. You get emotionally close, without the accountability inherent in an in-person commitment. You can easily confess feelings for someone online, and just as easily shut down and go silent, too.

Emily isn’t happy with Snapchat situationships. She wants a boyfriend or a girlfriend, someone to do “the corny stuff” with, like decorating gingerbread houses at Christmas and wearing matching pajamas. “I think [we] should go back to literally talking face-to-face, that’s so much more fun, honestly,” she says. “But I don’t know if people would be on board with that, because I think a lot of people enjoy being behind the screen.”

Practicing romance behind a screen

There’s plenty of concern about how the pandemic shaped the development of children who experienced it. A 2025 Gallup poll found that 22 percent of parents thought it had lasting negative effects on their children’s social skills, a slightly higher percentage than were concerned about effects on mental health or academic prowess. The worry about social skills was particularly acute for those whose kids were in middle school during the pandemic.

Teenagers, of course, have come of age online for the last 20 years, ever since the AOL Instant Messenger days of yore, and there’s always been anxiety about how that technology would shape their social development. But never has the contrast between teens’ online and offline lives been so dramatic as for those who experienced adolescence during the pandemic. Just as they entered a period crucial for developing independence and peer connection, they were cut off from most in-person interaction.

Emily, for instance, did school largely virtually from sixth to eighth grade. She and her friends learned what was normal and safe during an exceptional time. At the same time, screen time for teenagers increased precipitously: In 2022, nearly half of teens surveyed said they were online almost constantly, compared to 24 percent in 2014, according to Pew Research studies. “A lot of those fundamental years of growing and learning about sexuality and being with other people was online,” Emily says. “We started that process being behind a screen, and now that we don’t need to be, we’re choosing to, because it’s more comfortable. Now it’s hard to let that go.”

Yet she hasn’t pursued taking a step back from social media or questioned whether there’s another way. When I ask whether her friends are happy with a largely online social life, she’s not sure. “I’ve never really thought about talking to them about it,” says Emily. “But I’d be curious.”

“Being online is actually really safe, compared to doing something in real life.”

Curtis, now 17, was in seventh grade when the pandemic started. He, too, noticed how the isolation made his generation more emotionally risk-averse. “Ever since the pandemic, teenagers have been more afraid to actually show how they felt,” he says. “For years, most of us were trapped in our rooms all day, stuck on a computer, so the only way to express ourselves was through an anime profile picture on TikTok or comments on Instagram posts, [so our] idea of expressing emotions and feelings has been kind of limited.”

Restricting romance to the online sphere is a way of exerting control and protecting yourself, says Curtis, who lives in Kentucky. “Being online is actually really safe, compared to doing something in real life.”

That guardedness is especially true for boys, who often both have less experience articulating their emotions and face greater social risk from doing so.

Daniel A. Cox, director and founder of the Survey Institute on American Life and author of Uncoupled, a forthcoming book about the growing gender divide between young adults, believes that young men in particular struggle when it comes to romance. They have no manual for how to be truly intimate. “For boys and young men, friendships are much more activity-based and competitive, which doesn’t allow them space to share feelings of vulnerability and insecurity.”

As for Curtis, the emotional risk of putting himself out there feels especially acute as a queer teen. He’s had one serious crush, which started when he and a classmate started chatting more sophomore year.

Two years later, Curtis still thinks about him. When he sees a video of two queer teenagers on social media, he imagines him and his crush in their place.

Their romance followed all the same, enigmatic beats: They started sending each other songs, then memes, then baby photos; soon, they were messaging every day and FaceTiming late at night. They’d find each other at lunch and look forward to seeing each other in the hallways. The crush, who Curtis describes as a “popular kid,” would physically hang onto Curtis in front of his athlete friends and described Curtis as his best friend. This went on for a whole school year. Curtis said his friends said, ‘“It’s obvious he’s putting in effort to show that he cares about you.’”

Then they just…stopped texting. Two years later, Curtis still thinks about him. When he sees a video of two queer teenagers on social media, he imagines him and his crush in their place.

Curtis thinks about messaging his long-time crush, to share his feelings and get closure. But he’d never do it in person. “In real life, I’d probably be shaking, and my heart would be beating really hard. … I’d feel so crazy and emotional,” he says. “But if I tell him online, I could block him, or go to school the next day and ignore [him].”

Curtis is hopeful about finding a different kind of relationship once he starts college, but his first real experience with romance has made him undeniably wary. That’s a sentiment that Phillips often hears in her conversations with teenagers. Moreover, a study conducted in 2023 by the dating app Hinge found that 56 percent of Gen Z respondents didn’t pursue relationships because they were worried about rejection. “If I tried once and it didn’t happen, why should I try again?” says Curtis. “If I put in as much effort as I could at 14…it didn’t work out, why should I try to do it again at 17?”

Yearning for something more

When you talk to Gen Z teenagers, it’s clear that they long for romance and intimacy, even if they feel that they have no playbook for it.

“The news portrays us as engaging in it less, but people still want romantic relationships,” says Pau. She’d like to experience romance, but mostly feels like she hasn’t been able to think about it very much.

“Especially with the current political climate, the economic climate, and even just recovering from Covid — it’s kind of difficult to think of being in a relationship,” says Pau. “There’s so much going on with my family and immigration status, it’s very difficult to just breathe.” She’s already experienced so much vulnerability that she’s hesitant to seek out more through romantic relationships.

In a way, the situationships that reign among young people today feel more like the pseudo-relationships that could play out in middle school, as young people try on what a relationship could feel like and test the boundaries of what it means to date before they really experience it. “The pandemic stunted our growth a little; we lost two years of our life,” says Ren, who grew up in California.

She still wants a boyfriend: a primary person, someone who has her back, someone to explore physical intimacy with. In the meantime, she’s made a close group of friends, with whom she shares emotional intimacy.

As long as young people are having deeply meaningful connections through friendships, Phillips allows that it may not be so bad not to experience romance or sexual intimacy. It’s not a big deal if you don’t date or hook up in high school; that doesn’t predict worse outcomes socially or otherwise. What does worry Phillips is if teenagers aren’t finding closeness in platonic relationships, either. “If this is the narrative: I can’t do these things because they’re risky and connection is painful, [then] I’m more worried about that than whether a 16-year-old decides to have a boyfriend or a girlfriend,” she says.

For Ren, her friendships are deeply meaningful — and they help her make sense of why romance hasn’t happened for her yet, as she approaches her second year in college. “I thought a high school relationship was normal until I got here, and I realized that being in relationships or kissing or having sex isn’t as normal anymore,” she says. “It makes me feel better — it’s the culture now.”

What are extracurricular activities for?

2024-08-19T09:04:23-04:00

Extracurriculars can feel thrilling — or like a complete waste of time. Savana Smart, 13, knows that from personal experience. These days, the rising ninth-grader in Smyrna, Georgia, spends many of her afternoons working on two passions: coding and playing guitar.

“Coding caught my eye because it’s really fun to have the power of making things with your computer, in your hands,” says Smart, who often finds that she wants to stay at her after-school coding program too long.

“At first I had a hard time going to Code Ninjas, because I’d want to stay so long,” she says. “I’m juggling my want to invigorate myself and know more things, but I still have to eat dinner and get my homework done.”

To find her passions, Smart had to try out a lot of unfamiliar activities, from tennis to dance to theater. She also had to learn how to decide when something wasn’t right for her. “I hated piano, and I don’t want to do it ever again,” she says. “I realized that it didn’t excite me anymore — it just wasn’t my instrument.”

For Smart, and many other kids, extracurriculars are a way to figure out what they like, which will shape what they want to spend their lives doing. “As we grow older, we’re developing our own understanding and perspective of the world,” says Fedjounie Philippe, a high school counselor at KIPP New Jersey, a charter school in Newark, who also teaches a summer college admissions course at Princeton University. “These experiences help us grow into people, because we start to articulate our own skills and interests.”

In other words, parents and kids shouldn’t think of extracurriculars as part of a checklist for getting into college. They’re more meaningful than that: They’re a way for kids and teenagers to figure out what they’re passionate about, what they value, and who they are — and to have fun. Parents can help their children learn how to pursue their interests (and model how it’s done).

Let the kid lead

How do young people figure out what they’re passionate about? By trying things and following their instincts, whether that means starting their own neighborhood newspaper, volunteering at an animal shelter, or joining an astronomy club at the local planetarium.

“Extracurricular activities don’t need to be team sports. They can be academic competitions or clubs associated with their cultural background or performing arts,” says Dr. Harpreet Kaur, a board-certified clinical pediatric psychologist in Orange County, California.

When her patients draw a blank about what they’re interested in, she likes to ask them to explore their values — creativity, family, faith, friendship, nature — and then use those values to set specific goals. “When I do that, kids know that I’m listening, but they’re also more motivated to engage in activities because they align with their values, not mine or their parents’,” Kaur says. “If we start thinking outside the box and using their values, I’m confident we’ll be able to find something they’re interested in.”

Philippe suggests exploring different opportunities within your community, especially since so many public institutions offer free or financially accessible extracurricular options. “If you’re interested in roller skating, go see if there are club events at your local community center,” they say. “This is an individualized process, and everyone finds the right answer in their own time.”

Smart emphasizes that you need to try lots of different activities to find the right fit. “There’s no harm in trying something,” says Smart, who plans on trying lots of activities in high school, including an interior design elective and culinary arts. When you take a chance, be open to seeing where it leads you.

Be a trusted resource

As it becomes more challenging and inscrutable to get into selective colleges, parents face challenging questions of their own: How much should they push their children towards certain extracurriculars? How much does it really matter for college admissions? How can they encourage activities without becoming helicopter parents or pressuring kids about their resumes?

Extracurricular activities should follow what a kid is genuinely interested in, which parents can help their children explore. “Do the work of figuring out what your interests are by simply following your curiosity with some initiative,” says Rachel York, an admissions counselor at IvyWise and an application reader for Northeastern University. “Parents can have some of those conversations and help to brainstorm opportunities.”

Kaur, who often sees anxious and depressed kids and teens in her practice, has clear advice for families. “Parents should allow their children to explore interests without putting too much pressure on them to overcommit,” she says. “I want children and teens to be able to go to their parents and say that they’re feeling stressed and fatigued and no longer interested in an activity, so that the adults around them can intervene and help them.”

What does that kind of supportive environment look like? “Check in with them often and create an open dialogue,” advises Kaur. Make sure to ask them questions: Are they enjoying the activity? Do they feel excited about it? What do they like about it? Think about the questions you’d ask a friend about their job. If a job or an extracurricular makes a loved one feel stressed, anxious, or bored, then it’s likely not the right fit. “Back your children up and see what they would like to do,” suggests Smart. “They’re still young and need room to think for themselves.”

Grow toward leadership

When kids are young, extracurriculars are all about learning what they enjoy. Once they’ve figured out some of their interests, it’s natural to want to pursue them more deeply, whether that’s through a traveling sports team or a leadership position in a club or a personal research project. Encouraging students to follow and hone their natural interests helps them develop a sense of confidence about their values and preferences, which sets them up for more dedicated efforts and commitments beyond high school.

“The leadership piece is what an admissions officer does look for,” says Courtney Agyeman, a college and career advisor at Foundation Academy Charter School in Trenton, New Jersey, who has also worked as an admissions officer at Rider University. “That shows leadership, dedication, and time management, which are transferable to what you’ll be doing on a college campus.”

Being a leader doesn’t have to mean starring in the school play or becoming team captain. Again, it’s all about pursuing a child’s interests. “If you’re interested in a club, how are you interested in it? What about you is adding value to that space?” asks Philippe. Taking your interest further could mean pursuing an independent project with an advisor or bringing in guest speakers, rather than running for treasurer. “You want to have an independent, critical-thinking child who is about to navigate self-sufficiency,” they say. “It’s all in the minute day-to-day of how students find meaning in their extracurricular activities.”

Agyeman stresses that responsibilities and jobs count as extracurriculars, too. After all, taking care of a relative after school or supporting their family financially expresses commitment, a work ethic, and a student’s strong value system. “To go home and watch Netflix all day doesn’t show discipline, but if you’re going home and taking care of your siblings or watching your parents’ store, that is discipline,” says Agyeman.

She often works with first-generation college students who run payroll or the supply chain for a parent’s small business, and she encourages them to frame their extracurricular commitments in a professional context on their college applications. “They’re up against competition with kids from really affluent areas, so they need to show that they’re equally disciplined, focused, and driven,” Agyeman says. “All you can do is take advantage of everything that’s in front of you.”

Remember to take a break

Kids today are experiencing a mental health crisis — on top of all the overwhelming biological changes that come with puberty. That means that it’s vital for kids to learn how to take care of their mental health, which includes taking breaks and getting enough sleep.

“When kids aren’t structured and have breaks in their schedule, it allows them to explore their interests,” says Kaur. “Relaxation breaks, being around family without devices or structure, hanging out with friends — we know these things lead to positive mental health outcomes.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean giving up on piano lessons because a child finds practice annoying. But if a kid is burned out and stressed, they probably have too much on their plate. And if a kid really dislikes an activity, it can be an important time for them to learn how to listen to their own preferences. “Go with your gut,” says Smart. “If you feel yourself saying, this isn’t what you want, trust yourself.”

Model the behavior yourself

Extracurriculars aren’t just for getting into college — and they’re not just for kids. How we spend our time outside of school and work helps us learn about ourselves, develop our values, and enjoy our lives, as children and beyond.

If you want your kid to develop and devote themselves to their interests, then you should be doing that yourself, too. Are you in an adult recreational sports league with friends? Do you make time to practice the piano? Do you regularly show up at city council meetings or volunteer in your neighborhood or community? If you model what it looks like to care about and commit to your extracurriculars, whatever they may be, it’ll encourage your kid to live by the same values. (And it’ll probably be fun for you, too.)

When Kaur works with college students, she often sees them panic at the end of a set path. “When they spent high school planning to get to college, it leads to this sense of confusion and emptiness,” she says. “They’ve put in so much energy to get to this place that they lose sight of the big picture.” A good way to avoid that vertigo is to have clear interests and values, which we develop in our free time — in other words, extracurriculars. “If you feel sure of who you are, then you’ll be able to persevere even when you don’t have boxes to check off,” she says.

Kids are perceptive, and they can see when adults find meaning and purpose in their own interests — and when they feel overcommitted or drag their feet. That’s a big part of why Kaur encourages families to practice taking breaks and having downtime together. “The hope is that they go on to maintain the process and have a healthier, happier adult life, where they aren’t so tied to their achievements and accomplishments but to who they are as people,” she says. That’s worth practicing at any age.

The only child stigma, debunked

2024-08-12T12:12:16-04:00

This story first appeared in The Highlight, Vox’s digital magazine unpacking the big ideas changing our present and shaping our future. Become a Vox Member to read these stories first.

Jillian Woinarowicz, 35, is used to people asking her questions about being an only child. As a kid growing up in Olympia, Washington, in the 1990s, telling a new friend or classmate that she didn’t have siblings always prompted questions: Was she bored all the time? Did it mean that her family was rich? Did she feel lonely?

“I felt like I was a novelty,” she says now. “I was the only only child that a lot of people knew.”

Now, as her peers consider having children of their own, they still turn to her as a novelty, although the tone of the questions have changed. “I have so many people come up to me and say, ‘I think we’re gonna only have one kid, do you hate your life?’” says Woinarowicz, who is pregnant with what will be her only child. “They look to me for reassurance, like, ‘Are you sure you’re okay? Is my kid going to be okay?’”

Fewer Americans are having kids; the US birth rate fell 23 percent from 2007 to 2022, while the percentage of childless adults aged 55 to 64 — past their reproductive years — hit 19.6 percent in 2018. The country is on track to have more people over 65 than under 18 for the first time in history by 2034, prompting alarm from economists and politicians. The reasons for the drop in fertility are manifold: climate doom, financial precarity and inflation, and a lack of support for families and working mothers.

But while the birth rate has been dropping ever since the 1980s, the rate of having one child has stayed nearly the same: In 2022, 20 percent of US women age 44 or younger (which the US Census considers the end of reproductive age) had only one child in their lifetime, compared to 18 percent in 1982. Americans are largely choosing between having no kids or two or more.

Notably, when Americans contemplate having children, they envision bigger families. A 2023 Gallup poll asked Americans how many children were ideal: 44 percent said two, 29 percent said three, and 12 percent said four. Only 3 percent of Americans said one child was the best number for a family.

Many Americans with siblings may consider being (or having) an only child as undesirable, disadvantageous, even unnatural. But according to scientific studies and many only children themselves, that’s not true. Only children don’t grow up to be more isolated or spoiled or socially awkward.

The debates over natalism and antinatalism can sound apocalyptic: Some people fear the end of society and eventual extinction of the human race, while others argue that it’s immoral to propagate the species given our ongoing ecological destruction. Add in the costs, and many people are feeling understandable angst as they contemplate whether to have a kid — and how many.

Let’s be honest: None of us are going to decide the fate of the world on our own. These are personal decisions. But there is an obvious compromise. You don’t have to choose between abstaining from parenthood entirely or having a horde of children. You could just have one kid. They’ll be fine.

How being an only child became a stereotype

Having siblings has been more common throughout human history; children without them have always been both “only” and “other,” the literal odd kid out at the schoolyard. We all know the stereotypes.

“There’s a widespread belief in the U.S. that only children are lonely, selfish, and maladjusted,” says Toni Falbo, a social psychologist at the University of Texas who has studied only children since the 1970s.

Historically, people had bigger families for practical reasons: with high child mortality, the more kids you had, the more likely your family line would survive. Besides, in many agrarian communities, more kids meant more help living off the land.

In the late 19th century, the advantages of having multiple children started to fade, but the prejudice against only children remained. In 1907, G. Stanley Hall, the first president of the American Psychological Association and founder of child psychology who wrote the first large-scale study of only children, declared that “being an only child is a disease in itself;” in 1922, psychologist A.A. Brill wrote that “it would naturally be best for the individual as well as the race that there should be no only children.”

A decade later, the Great Depression prompted a spike in only children as people had fewer children out of economic necessity. Yet that only contributed to the stigma: Having only one child was a sign that a family couldn’t afford to have more.

In the baby boom years after World War II, larger families became more common again, as the total fertility rate increased from 2.3 children per woman in 1940 to more than 3.7 in 1957. Throughout the 1950s, Gallup polls found that over 70 percent of Americans thought the ideal family included three or more kids. Since then, average family size has dropped, in large part due to widespread access to contraception.

Growing up in the Washington, DC suburbs in the 1950s, Falbo, an only child herself, didn’t have friends who were only children, and when she started her doctoral research in the 1970s, she decided to study the stereotypes she had grown up with. Over the decades, she has repeatedly found that evidence does not support them.

“The assumption is that being an only child warps people for the rest of their lives, but the research suggests that they’re just like everybody else, not especially likely to be crazy or unhappy,” says Falbo. In 1986, she published a comprehensive meta-analysis of 115 studies of only children since the 1920s, finding that “across all developmental outcomes, only children were found to be indistinguishable from firstborns and people from small families.”

More recent studies have found that kindergartners with siblings have better social skills, but that by adolescence, only children experience as much friendship as their peers. Before entering the school system, only children (or kids at least five years older than their siblings) may not have as much experience around other kids, but they quickly catch up.

“Whether you have siblings or not is not a critical variable,” says Falbo. It just doesn’t matter that much.

Yet the prejudices persist — and only children encounter them all their life.

When Mary Peck was growing up on Long Island in the 1960s and 1970s, classmates at her Catholic school teased her for not having siblings. “People would say things like, ‘Were you so bad that they didn’t want any more kids?’” says Peck, who remembers praying every night for a little sister. “I hated being an only child.”

Fifty years later, she still thinks she would have been better off with siblings. Peck is neurodivergent, and describes her parents as strict and controlling. “Sometimes I think that maybe it’s better that I was an only, because if there was another child, they would have had to go through the same thing, and I don’t want that,” she says. ‘But I wish I had had a sibling to protect me.”

At 61, she still feels belittled for being an only child as an adult, although the remarks feel more insidious. At a parent-teacher conference for her younger son, one of his teachers described another child in the class as having “only-child syndrome.” At a family party, when she remarked about a sweet kid to her brother-in-law, he replied, “Yeah, he’s nice for an only child.” When her nephew was dating an only child, his mom hoped they wouldn’t end up together.

“I was at a wedding recently, and when the bride’s sister gave her maid-of-honor speech, she said, ‘A sister is worth a thousand friends,’” says Peck. “I felt like I wanted to throw up.”

She has three kids herself, and although it was challenging in terms of finances and time, she never considered only having one. “If you have one child, you can give them all your financial resources and attention, but I still think that if you balance it out, you’re better off giving them a sibling,” she says. “I would rather have a sister than 50 Barbie dolls.”

Today, parents are expected to spend more money and more time on their children than ever before. Is it better for a child to have all possible attention and resources, or to have a sibling to split it with? If you only have one child, are you depriving them? Variations of the question pop up on message boards like r/OnlyChild and Facebook groups like “One and Done” and “The Only-Child Group.” And, of course, conflicted parents-to-be ask their personal experts: adult only children.

I’m an only child myself, and over the past couple years, as I’ve spent the weekends of my early 30s at a parade of weddings and baby showers, I’ve learned to anticipate the question. It usually happens while I’m waiting in line for a cocktail or the bathroom.

A female acquaintance comes up to me, with a tell-tale glint of desperation in her eye. She has a toddler, or maybe she’s pregnant, and while she and her partner always planned to have multiple kids, it’s all turning out to be way harder than she expected. She knows I’m an only child, and — insert sheepish grin here — I seem well-adjusted. If she only has one kid, can they still grow up to be a decent, happy person?

It’s an innocuous hypothetical that implies a more incredulous, insidious question: Yes, I present well, but beneath the bridesmaid’s dress, what are the lifelong scars I carry from my only childhood?

When I share this with Jennifer Ma, an only child in Westchester, New York, she laughs and commiserates. “So many people ask me about being an only child, because if they have siblings, they always think being an only is a bad thing,” she says.

Ma enjoyed growing up as an only child, but after her son was born five years ago, she thought seriously about having a second child, largely because she’s never experienced being part of a family that includes siblings. She and her husband recently decided to stick with one child, both because of her positive experiences and the cost of raising kids in America.

“Motherhood has been wonderful, but also really hard, and I don’t have the mental and physical resources to have another child,” she says. “Besides, I don’t know that I’d be who I am today if my parents hadn’t been able to give me what they did.”

Siblings as American infrastructure

Economic downturns make it more daunting to support a growing family, which brings down the birth rate. That happened in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, and during the oil crises of the 1970s. For millennials, economic challenges have twice pushed down the birth rate, leading many to delay or reconsider having children: after the 2008 recession and during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The flimsy US social safety net can simultaneously make it difficult to raise kids (no universal child care) and makes parents dependent on children when they get older (poorly funded elder care). That can make having kids seem paradoxically less appealing while being more necessary. It also gives siblings a vital role. As kids, they can help take care of each other; as adults, they can offer child care as aunts and uncles, and share the burden of caring for aging parents.

“I have a lot of family I can lean on, but it’s definitely different than having another person who has that parent relationship with them,” says Woinarowicz, who worries about what it’ll be like to care for her aging parents as an only child. “This system isn’t built to assist old people, and when it comes down to families, it’s a lot for one person.”

When Ma was 27, her mother died; her father died two years later. She navigated caring for both of them, grieving, and sorting through their belongings without a sibling, supported by her partner and friends. “It was really hard, but I don’t think a sibling would necessarily have helped,” she says. “I’m okay now, because I’ve made my own family.”

Of course, siblings don’t necessarily share the burden equally, either: Elder care often falls disproportionately on one sibling, usually a daughter, often one who lives nearby. When Woinarowicz thinks about caring for her aging parents, she remembers what it was like for her mom, whose estranged brother was not involved. “Just because you have a sibling doesn’t mean you’re going to be super close for the rest of your life,” she says. “There’s no guarantee.”

Only children don’t have siblings, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have support. Often, that means chosen family: lifelong friends, neighbors, partners. “As adults, only children are not more likely to be lonely — that’s a myth,” says Falbo, citing her own research. “You can have close friends, or cousins, or stay in close contact with old friends from many years that become like family.”

Woinarowicz sees her lack of siblings as an opportunity to create her own deep friendships. “I get pity from people, that their sister is their best friend and it makes them sad that I don’t have that,” she says. “But I cherish my friendships above anything else.”

That’s certainly been my experience. From a young age, I’ve been explicit with close friends — including several lifelong friends who are also only children — about how I really do view them as family. We may change and grow apart, but our friendship will endure: I’ll be there for them for life, and I expect the same from them.

Besides, being an only child often brings a different rewarding relationship: Falbo has found that only children are often closer to their parents. “We’ve been friends for almost 36 years, my whole life,” says Woinarowicz, who jokes with her husband about how he’s a fourth wheel in her family friend group.

It’s a closeness that she values enough to re-create: She’s eight months pregnant, and she looks forward to being part of another only-child family.

The only-child advantage

An only child’s relationship with their parents isn’t better or worse than closeness with siblings; it’s just different. I don’t take offense when people love the way that they grew up, but I do take offense when they imagine an only childhood as a hardship.

I’m sure that if I had a sibling, I wouldn’t be able to imagine life without them. But as it is, I can’t imagine who I’d be without the experiences afforded to me as an only child: seeing the world on a shoestring budget from a backpack as a little kid, holding my own in conversations with adults from a young age, asking my parents how we would celebrate “our wedding anniversary” every year. (Usually, they’d have champagne and I’d pop a bottle of Martinelli’s sparkling cider.)

Having a sibling can be a blessing or a challenge, or both; the same is true for having divorced parents or living with extended family or having a single parent. We’ve grown more accepting of different family structures — in 2010, 61 percent of American adults felt that a child needs a home with a mother and a father to grow up happily, and in 2023, 78 percent of Americans found a single parent raising a child on their own acceptable. But we still value family relationships over chosen family, and see only children as more likely to be “selfish, lonely, and maladjusted,” as Falbo describes it, although she stresses that “the things that lead to loneliness are very different than whether you had a sibling.”

The answer to the loneliness epidemic isn’t for everyone to have a bigger nuclear family; it’s to create more meaningful social connection, whether through biological family or otherwise.

But lately, it can feel as if people are more polarized than ever between having many children or having none. One side believes the plummeting birth rate is a harbinger of societal collapse, and the only reasonable response is to do their part by having many children. The other side looks around at the ongoing climate catastrophe and decides that it would be immoral to bring another child into this world.

This is a false choice. “Having one child is a reasonable alternative,” says Falbo, who is an only child, the mother of an only child, the grandmother of an only child, and the preeminent researcher of only children for the past 50 years. Plenty of people end up having only kids, and so plenty of people grow up as only kids. Most of us turn out just fine, just like everybody else.

Whether to have children, and how many, should ultimately be a personal decision, not one about saving the planet or the population. There isn’t one right answer.

But there isn’t a wrong one either.

What you can learn from regret

2024-02-09T13:35:48-05:00

When Peter and Sjanna Leighton were in their early 20s, their marriage fell apart. Money was tight, and they each feared they were disappointing the other; neither one knew how to communicate their vulnerabilities and hurt.

So one day, almost a year after their vows, Peter packed his bags and moved out of their home in San Antonio, Texas. He got an apartment on his own and focused on building his career in the restaurant business.

“From the outside world, it may have looked like I’d recovered from our marriage failing,” says Peter, who became chronically depressed. “But the memories of how powerful our togetherness could have been, and what could have happened if we had continued developing — all of that churned in me.”

Peter and Sjanna both quietly carried their regret over giving up on their relationship through other marriages, children, and divorce. Then in 2007, 33 years later, Sjanna searched Peter’s name online and found his photography website. “The first photo that came up was a picture of him that he’d taken in our bathroom when we were married, and the second picture was me on our honeymoon, which he had titled ‘The Muse,’” says Sjanna. She realized that he lived in Austin, not far from her, and after a few weeks, she built up the courage to send him an email. They met up for coffee. When they met up a second time a few weeks later, she asked him, “What happened with us, Peter?” He replied, “I don’t know, but you were the love of my life.” Within a month of reconnecting, they were dating again.

Today, at 75 and 72 years old, Peter and Sjanna have been happily remarried for 16 years. “When we got back together, we did it with our regrets and our perceived mistakes,” says Peter. “Because of that, when there have been storms, we’ve been able to weather them.”

Few people have a second chance the way Peter and Sjanna did, but most of us live with regrets. We may not own up to them (maybe not even to ourselves), but we all have past actions we wish we could change — bullying a middle school classmate, not telling a loved one how much they meant to us, choosing a safe job rather than taking a creative risk — yet we rarely reckon with this universal feeling or recognize how it can benefit us. Since we can’t change the past, regret can seem useless and self-indulgent. But the emotion can clarify a disconnect between who we are and who we want to be. And it can show us how to change.

What causes regret

“There are three pieces to regret,” says Amy Summerville, a research scientist who has led studies on the emotion. “One, it feels bad; two, it’s based on a thought about how things could have been better; three, the thought is focused on your own actions.” In other words, if you feel bad after acing an interview and not getting the job, that’s not regret; if you feel bad because you stayed up late playing video games and slept through the interview, that could be.

According to Summerville, the most common regrets come from career and romance. As people age, entering their 60s and 70s, family and health start to come up as regrets, too, but romantic regret remains consistent through life stages.

She has also found that regrets of inaction are more common than regrets of action. In other words, we tend to regret the things we didn’t do rather than the things we did. “Human memory adaptively functions to remind us of open things on our to-do list, rather than things we’ve crossed off,” says Summerville, “which might mean that we have a better memory for unmet goals and they persist longer.”

Another factor: When we think about the path we didn’t take, we only imagine the dreamy positives, overlooking the mundane details and inevitable disappointments. It’s harder to regret choices we actually made since they led to so many other specifics. “With action regrets, you can find a silver lining, but with inaction regrets, you can’t do that,” says Daniel Pink, author of The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward. It’s easy to regret not running away with that glamorous stranger at 22 since you don’t see the fights and heartbreak. It’s trickier to regret an unhappy marriage if it also led to wonderful kids.

Placing regret in context

If you’re reckoning with regret, first, be kind to yourself — and realistic. It’s easy to imagine acting differently if we could do it all over with what we know now, but we didn’t yet have that experience. “If you’re middle-aged, with kids and a mortgage, it’s easy to say, ‘Why didn’t I take a year off and go live in Europe after college?’” says Summerville. “But if you really think about yourself after graduation, with student loans and family pressure to get a career, you remember how you did have responsibilities and stressors then.”

It’s important to contextualize the emotion within your setting, too, especially if you live in a community that highly values personal choice and responsibility. “When we talk about how ‘people’ feel regret, we’re largely talking about how white Americans and Western Europeans experience it,” says Summerville. More collectivist cultures can turn down the inner spotlight on our personal choices: An arranged marriage or raising kids within the family compound can take away some of the pressure around finding your individual path. Some religions also provide established rituals for making sense of regret, like Catholic confession or Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. But in the US, people are taught that life is what we make it as individuals — so if something goes wrong, it’s a catastrophe and it’s our fault.

Come clean about regret

The first step toward coming to terms with your regrets is owning up to them, which can be tough. “In the US, we’ve over-indexed on positivity,” says Pink, who has led surveys that documented thousands of regrets within the US and across the world. “We tend to think that the path to a life well-lived is to be positive all the time and never negative, to look forward and never look back.” When he started talking to others about regret in midlife, Pink says he felt sheepish, expecting them to disengage from the conversation. He found the opposite: Everyone else had regrets, too, although they often felt like they weren’t supposed to voice them.

When Sjanna Leighton got back together with Peter in her 50s, it eased some of her sadness about the end of their marriage. But as they fell in love, rediscovering the joys of their relationship, she also felt acute regret: What if they had been vulnerable with each other in their 20s and stuck it out? What would their shared life have looked like through their 30s and 40s, as partners and parents?

“When we got back together, I felt safe and acknowledged, like he accepted me for who I was, which was an extraordinary feeling,” she says. “It also made me really sad. I wished we’d stayed together, that we had understood each other better.”

Let that regret inform your life

At first, Sjanna found that regret painful. But as she and Peter have sustained a happy second marriage to each other, she’s realized how the emotion informs her current relationship, which is full of gratitude, compassion, and wonder. “We’d both had difficult marriages and had kids, and know how precious it is to have someone that loves you for who you are,” she says. Sometimes she still thinks about the lifelong relationship that could have been, but when she sees couples her age bickering or bored with each other, she feels grateful that she and Peter never take each other for granted. “We’ve had some things happen that are difficult, but at the end of the day, there’s nowhere we’d rather be than beside each other,” says Sjanna.

If we let it, regret can clarify how to live: How is our life misaligned with our values? How do we want to act differently in the time we have left? “It can help us become clearer thinkers, better problem solvers, and better at finding meaning in life,” says Pink. “Some of us ignore regret; others wallow, but what we should be doing is confronting our regrets, using them as data and information.”

For example, say you’re 60 years old and regret that you stayed in a lackluster job rather than starting your own business. First, instead of feeling contempt for your younger self, treat yourself with kindness and curiosity. Place your choices in context: What were the reasons you stayed in this job? What were the pressures and unknowns you faced at the time? Remember, this choice is only one small part of who you are; think about some of the choices you made that make you feel proud.

Next, analyze. What can you learn about yourself from this regret? For the 60-year-old, a lesson might be that with the security and clarity of age, you value boldness and risk-taking more than you used to. You can work with that. Maybe you start a creative side hustle, or mentor young people, or take on a leadership role in a group at the library.

“You’re trying to look backward in order to move forward,” says Pink. “You can’t undo what you did, but you can use that piercing negative feeling as a signal about what you value, and a north star for guiding the rest of your life.”

Remember to give yourself grace

Reckoning with regret often feels painful and scary. If you admit to wishing you had acted differently, then you’re admitting your imperfections. You’re not someone who lives with “no regrets,” a glib success who never fails. But when you release yourself from the false binary of being a success or a failure, you’re free to live in a more thoughtful, informed way, one shaped by an understanding of your strengths and values. It’s never too late to learn from your regrets and use them to shape who you want to be today: If you wish you had taken English classes seriously in college, ask your friends about their favorite books and put together your own syllabus from their recommendations. If you regret the nights you spent working late while your kids were young, talk to them about how you’d like to build a closer relationship with them (and maybe their kids) now. Owning your regret is vulnerable, but it’s the best way to avoid accumulating more regrets in the future.

Sjanna and Peter still have arguments and tense periods in their marriage. But unlike in their 20s, they know how to work through it — and that their relationship is worth it. “Part of the regret we both carry with us is that we weren’t ready,” says Peter. “Now, we are.”

You should have more friends of all ages

2023-11-15T13:58:21-05:00

In his first few months at Drexel University, Devin Welsh made some lifelong friends, as many first-year college students do. Unlike many collegiate friendships, his just happened to include a nearly five-decade age gap.

It all began when Welsh, an aspiring writer, decided to attend a workshop at Writers Room, Drexel’s university-community literary arts program. Shy and new to Philadelphia, he kept to himself. When he returned a month later, a woman his grandmother’s age approached him. “She was very nonchalant, and she said, ‘I remember you. You’re gonna read this month, right?’” says Welsh, now 25. He looked around to see who she was talking to before realizing it was him. “I felt seen, in a way that was supportive,” Welsh says. “She remembered me and was interested in what I had to contribute, and in a new city with new people, that was a wonderful feeling.”

In the seven years since, Welsh and Victoria Huggins Peurifoy, 71, developed a friendship through working together on projects at Writers Room. Now, they often work together in service of their Philadelphia writing community, but they also are regular friends: They call each other on the phone, joke with each other, and keep in touch.

Welsh and Peurifoy both find that the age difference enhances their friendship. Welsh talks with Peurifoy about changing ideas, like around gender identity, and brings an energy to their collaborations; Peurifoy brings a sense of perspective and a deep history in their shared community. Yet while they may be in different stages of their lives, Welsh and Peurifoy both emphasize that the most important aspects of their friendship are the same as for any meaningful connection: mutual respect, care, and an enjoyment in spending time together.

Making friends with those outside of your age range — people 10 or 20 years older or younger than you — can be challenging. But those relationships can widen your world, providing perspective and community beyond your current experiences. “When younger people have access to friendships with older adults, it shifts their experience of what it means to grow old,” says Eunice Lin Nichols, co-CEO of CoGenerate, an organization that brings together people from different generations. That takeaway is true no matter your age: Friendships with people of different ages offer us a longer view and a reminder of all the varied experiences beyond our day-to-day.

Meet through shared interests

A shared interest and commitment brought Peurifoy and Welsh together. “It was important to find a community space where there was another thing that we were working toward,” says Welsh. “Then, through the nature of sharing stories, you start to learn more about a person.”

When you’re looking to develop a friendship with someone beyond your age range (or your life experiences more broadly), joining a local group is a great way to do it. That could mean a book club at the library, a community garden, or a pickleball tournament. If you’re drawing a blank on possible interests, volunteering at an organization, like a food pantry or a local election campaign, is a great path. “Look for opportunities that are touted as kid- or family-friendly, or open to older adults,” says Nichols. A tip: If you’re looking to meet older adults, she recommends taking an hour during lunch to volunteer, since many of them go during the day.

Ask questions about their life experiences

Once you’ve met someone in a different life stage, how do you go from acquaintance to friend? Much as you would with someone your own age: through shared experiences, like Welsh and Peurifoy’s writing group, and by asking them thoughtful questions about their life. Don’t focus on the differences (in this case, age). Focus instead on what you have in common and what they care about. “I try to look at you as another human being, without putting on all the tags and titles,” says Peurifoy, who has friends in their 20s as well as in midlife. “I’m willing and open to share with people because maybe you can learn from my experience.”

Demonstrating curiosity about your friend’s life experiences is important for the younger person in the friendship, but it’s important for the older friend to ask questions, too. Don’t fall back on “When I was your age …” or only giving advice. “Calling out the difference all the time reinforces the gap between you and can have a judgment of how things were better back then,” says Nichols. “Use your own stories to inform the relationship in your own head, but be present to what they’re feeling and thinking in the moment.”

Practice grace about your differences

Changing conventions can be hard for older adults to adjust to, which can lead to some tricky conversations in cross-generational friendships. In workshops at Writers Room, participants often go around the room to introduce themselves, including their pronouns, which some older adults don’t understand. “That can be frustrating as a young person, but what I love about Writers Room is that we’re able to talk about it,” says Welsh. “We talk about why it’s important to honor pronouns now, and why for somebody, that could be the difference that makes them feel comfortable in a space.”

Peurifoy sees learning and teaching as part of an intergenerational relationship, as long as each person approaches the situation with respect. “Young people sometimes have an entitlement philosophy,” she says. “Your attitude and your way of thinking means I’m supposed to accept and automatically change because of what you said,” rather than moving through a conversation that acknowledges both perspectives and experiences.

“You can acknowledge that certain things have changed while honoring that someone has lived a certain way for decades,” says Welsh. “Trust that there’s value in that, even if it’s different from your experiences.” Approaching generational shifts with grace creates an environment where all members can make mistakes and learn, no matter their age or background — in other words, a supportive friendship.

Acknowledge that you both have expertise

People sometimes see cross-generational relationships as one-way advice, but a friendship isn’t a mentorship.

Peurifoy often gives advice to her younger friends, but she asks them for it, too. She graduated from college this June, and as a 70-something student, Peurifoy often turned to younger classmates and friends for help. “All the math courses drove me crazy, so two students from Drexel helped me with my algebra and statistics,” she says. She regularly learns from them outside of school, too, like new dances or slang.

“Each of you can benefit from what the other one knows,” says Peurifoy. “To receive and hold on to the wisdom that’s imparted to you without prejudice is critical.” After all, giving advice is a form of sharing your own experiences. If a friend offers you advice based on their life, listen. You don’t have to treat it as a lesson; instead, you can frame it as a way that they’re opening up to you about who they are.

For Welsh, some of the most valuable learnings have come from hearing personal stories from Peurifoy — not as lessons for how to live, but as reminders of how long and varied life can be. “Hearing that somebody’s life wasn’t a straight line takes the pressure off of feeling like I can’t make any mistakes,” he says. “I don’t know the exact path that my life will take, and it’s really comforting to see that somebody I look up to is in the same boat.”

Communicate about what feels comfortable to you both

After decades of experience working with people across generations, Nichols knows to use different methods of communication depending on who she’s coordinating with: phone calls for older people, emails for fellow members of Gen X, and text messages with younger volunteers. “It took me a while to ask the question, ‘What’s the best way to reach you?’” she says. “The important thing is to ask about what works for the person you’re in a relationship with, and then to go out of your way to meet them where they’re at.”

When you’re in doubt about the best way to reach a new friend, just ask. The same goes for other questions of etiquette or logistics. Welsh still calls Peurifoy “Ms. Victoria” and other elders by the same convention because that feels more comfortable for him. “The more I get to know them, the more I stop seeing them as just an elder, but I always want to remain respectful,” he says.

Show up for each other

Peurifoy sees commitment as the most important step in an intergenerational friendship. She’s kept in touch with one younger friend for 15 years because they regularly reach out to each other. “We have a long-lasting relationship because she’ll call me,” says Peurifoy. “Be genuine, patient, understanding, loving — and most of all, be committed to the relationship.”

That commitment is one of the best parts of intergenerational friendship. Different life stages offer and require different abilities: In your 20s, you may be looking for career advice and are able to help parents connect with a distant teenager; a new parent may be looking for a support system that can become part of their extended family; a recent retiree may have plenty of time but seek more day-to-day connection.

“Each generation benefits from being in an intergenerational community,” says Renee Moseley, associate director at Bridge Meadows, which provides affordable apartments to seniors, foster youth, and their families in Portland, Oregon. “They can become your extended family.”

Open up to a new type of friendship

Once you’ve built an intergenerational friendship, stay open to how it will affect you. When Nichols was in her mid-20s, she worked at a nonprofit that recruited older adults to volunteer in schools. “It wasn’t just about getting the work done,” she says. “The work was the setting for an intergenerational experience to blossom.”

When Nichols got pregnant, a group of elders from the program threw her a baby shower, knitting baby booties and having a party for her. “I’m the daughter of immigrants from Taiwan, and I had no reason to belong here with this group of older African American women, except that we had worked together to make this school and neighborhood better,” she says. “That celebration meant the world to me.” A few years later, several of the volunteers from the program passed away; Nichols spoke at their funerals. “I’ve lived my life differently because of those relationships,” she says. “It gave me a different perspective on what it means to grow old and to live with purpose.”

How to (actually) talk to kids

2023-08-16T16:30:47-04:00

Somehow, despite our best efforts, it still happens to even the most self-assured adult. You’re at a birthday party or a family dinner or a picnic in the park, and suddenly, you find yourself face to face with a kid. You introduce yourselves, there’s a slight pause, and then, even though you know better, you hear the boring question coming out of your mouth: “So how’s school?”

Why are adults so bad at talking to kids, considering each and every one of us used to be one? “We forget what it’s like to be a child,” says Tina Payne Bryson, a psychotherapist and co-author of The Whole-Brain Child. “It’s hard sometimes to relate to kids because the rhythm of our days is so different.” Our brains and habits have changed, and as adults, it can be tough to remember what it’s like to be a 10-year-old.

But that’s the key: Talking to and connecting with 10-year-olds now doesn’t require remembering what you were like at 10. Instead, it’s all about approaching them as people: individuals who have their own interests, insights, and personalities. If you’re curious, warm, and earnest, you can make a new friend — and leave your awkward adult persona behind.

Find a point of connection

Much like in an initial conversation with an adult stranger, it can be hard to know where to begin. But once you offer up an open-ended topic, a kid will often run with it. Icebreakers with a kid can be situational. If you’re at a barbecue, ask them what their favorite condiment is. Or they can be general: Did you see a funny animal video recently? “You just want to get the kid talking,” says Ben R., an 11-year-old who lives in Highland Ranch, Colorado. “You want to get to know them.” Ben recommends starting with a question about something that you enjoy. If you like video games, ask what games they like to play; if you’re a big reader, ask about their favorite recent book.

The framing is important. “Adults reach for whatever they can, and ask a yes or no question,” says Robyn Silverman, host of the podcast How to Talk to Kids About Anything. If a kid is wearing a baseball cap, asking whether they like baseball is not a good question — just like if you were wearing a baseball cap, that question wouldn’t encourage you to keep talking. Don’t despair: You can just tweak the format of a question to improve it. “Instead of ‘How’s school?’, you could ask, ‘If you were principal for the day, what’s one thing you’d absolutely change?’” suggests Silverman. “A more interesting question will elicit a response more than ‘fine.’”

That first conversational volley is all about finding a point of connection. It could be a shared interest, such as the card game Codenames, or a low-stakes disagreement, like whether dipping french fries in a milkshake is delicious or gross. “The great thing about asking questions is to find out what you have in common,” says Ben. “You’ll feel more relaxed then and can focus on connecting through that.”

Ask good follow-up questions

The next step in a good conversation with a kid? Pay attention. This is where many adults slip up. Instead of actually listening to what a kid has to say and asking a relevant follow-up question, they jump in with a long story about themselves — or, worse, offer up a weird non sequitur. Recently, Ben was waiting in line for a waterslide when the adult behind him asked what grade he was in. After he answered, the stranger, who had not previously met the fifth-grader, replied by saying that he grew up so fast. “I thought to myself, is this how adults are? They just ask simple questions, half-pay attention to the conversation, and get distracted by something else?” Ben says. “I felt like he could have just realized that I could talk the same way everybody else could, but he made it really awkward for the rest of the conversation.”

Asking a good follow-up question is all about active listening, which requires humility. A kid is a person with their own interests and expertise, and you can learn from them, just like you learn from a conversation with another adult. “Kids are egocentric in nature, and they love to talk about what they love,” says Morgan Eldridge, a clinical psychologist who recommends framing a child as the expert on what they care about. “If you don’t know anything about Pokémon cards, ask them to tell you about it.”

More key aspects of active listening are body language and tone. If you’re talking to a younger kid, physically get down on their level so that you’re not looming over them. For kids and adults alike, face them, put away your phone, make eye contact, and smile. No need to speak in a different voice, though. “There are multiple occasions where adults have talked to me with a childish tone,” says Ben. “We’re more sophisticated than they think.”

When you’re fostering a comfortable conversational environment for a kid, you should also think about safety. There’s an inherent power imbalance between an adult and a kid, especially when you don’t know each other well, and as the adult, you’re responsible for making sure that your relationship and conversation stay appropriate. “Kids need to feel safe, seen, soothed, and secure,” says Bryson. “When you smile and have relaxed posture, it sends signals of safety and connection.”

Let their enthusiasm lead

Once the conversation is moving, step back. “When talking to kids, adults make the mistake that they need to talk a lot,” says Silverman. “But people [not just children!] actually love it when you listen.” Instead, ask questions and let the kid direct the flow; they’ll naturally lead the conversation toward what interests them most.

In many cases, this means going in a speculative, silly direction, which can be tricky for grown-ups. “Adults are more logical and solution-driven,” says Bryson. “We’ve forgotten what it’s like to play.” To rediscover your playful side, you can always ask an open-ended question, or even a goofy one: If you were going to open a restaurant that only serves three dishes, what would they be? What celebrity has the coolest style of all time? Would you rather have to fight 50 mosquito-sized alligators or one alligator-sized mosquito?

No matter what, don’t dismiss their enthusiasm. If a kid loves basketball but you don’t care about sports, ask them to tell you about their favorite player of all time. If they just learned a ton about bugs in a science unit, don’t try to show off how much you know — encourage them to share instead. “There’s a power imbalance, and it seems to give adults permission to belittle,” says Silverman.

If you do make a faux pas, like talking over them or getting distracted, own up to it, apologize, and redirect. You can always say, “I just spaced out, I’m sorry. What were you saying about summer camp?” Just pick the conversation back up afterward.

Be yourself (even if that means being shy)

Kids have different temperaments and personalities, just like adults do. They don’t expect everyone to be outgoing and loud. In fact, not every kid will want you to be. “Just like different friends appeal to different people, different kinds of adults will appeal to different kids,” says Bryson. “The boisterous adult doesn’t appeal to some kids, and the quiet adult doesn’t appeal to others.” Just come as you are, since kids can tell whether you’re being authentic or not. “It’s really about showing up as yourself in the moment,” Bryson says.

If you are on the quieter side, don’t worry. Kids know what it’s like to feel anxious in a conversation, too. “Sometimes you just get nervous, and that’s okay,” says Fiona A., an 8-year-old who lives in Salinas, California. “Or sometimes you need a little bit of alone time. Just be you.”

Ben suggests a trick that he uses when he feels awkward or unsure about what to talk about: When you get stuck and start to feel self-conscious, ask a question. “Even if you don’t pay attention, it diverts the conversation away from yourself,” he says. “You learn more about them, and also you don’t have to talk as much.”

Sometimes, you’ll notice that a kid seems anxious to be talking to an adult. In that case, make sure you’re projecting a warm, friendly, safe environment. Being vulnerable can help them feel more comfortable, too. “A lot of adults are authority figures, and sharing something embarrassing can make us more accessible,” says Bryson. When she’s talking to a quiet kid, she often shares a story about when the class rat bit her in first grade at the school Christmas party; her listeners are always on the edge of their seats, ready to share their own best animal story afterward. You can be vulnerable about feeling awkward, too: If you share that you often feel shy at parties, then it normalizes the kid feeling shy.

And if they’d rather be quiet, it’s also fine to share a companionable silence. “If we ask a question or two and they don’t expand, it just means they don’t want to be asked a question right now,” says Bryson. If they’re not uncomfortable with quiet, then you shouldn’t be, either.

Refer back to your shared interests

Once you’ve had a friendly conversation with a kid and found some common ground, you can start to develop an ongoing relationship with them. Just like with a new adult friend, it’s important to remember details about them and refer back to them in future conversations. Did they tell you about joining the soccer team? Ask how the season is going. Did you bond over your love of superhero movies? Ask them what they thought of the sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. If you know in advance that you’re going to see a kid who you’ve already spent time with, you could send them something that you can then talk about in person. Bryson recently hosted a friend and their 13-year-old son; in anticipation of his visit, she sent him some funny dog videos on Instagram. That offers an easy way to break the ice and connect in person again.

No matter the age gap, making conversation and becoming friends always happens much the same way: capitalizing on shared interests, asking good questions, and paying attention. And once you’re friends, conversation is easy. “After I get to know an adult, it’s easy to talk to her,” says Fiona. “It’s more complex to build friendship with an adult, but once you do, it’s like they’re a kid just like you.”

Charley Locke is a freelance journalist. She often covers young people and elders for publications including the New York Times for Kids, the New York Times Magazine, and the Atlantic.