10 questions to ask a teenager to start an important conversation

We asked experts in teen mental health how to talk about everything from the environment to screen time with adolescents

Communication is one of the biggest issues when you've got a teenager. Conversations can be fraught, loaded - they often feel as if they're about to go ballistic - or worst of all, they're just nonexistent. Your teen seems to be a closed book - they don't want to talk and you don't seem to be able to coax them out of their shell.

And yet there are effective ways to open up a conversation with your teenager - though you need to be very sensitive, and self-aware, and genuinely interested in creating a dialogue rather than just a chance to ram home what you think about an issue.