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We’re a teen residential treatment facility in Arizona and Idaho, offering support for teens and resources to help parents navigate their child’s challenges.
It’s tough when your teen starts giving you one-word answers or stays in their room all day. Learning to communicate well helps teens say what they mean, build confidence, and connect with friends.
In this guide, you’ll find
- Fun games that help with public speaking and debates
- Role-playing ideas to practice real-life conversations
- Creative ways to learn about body language and feelings
Why your teen might be quiet
Many teens find it hard to talk to adults or speak in groups. They might be dealing with social anxiety, a fear of being judged, or simply a lack of practice.
Building social skills for teenagers is a lot like learning a new language. It takes time and the right environment to feel comfortable.
When a teen doesn’t have the right tools to express their feelings, it often leads to slamming doors or silent treatments at home. By practicing these activities, you can help them turn that frustration into clear communication.
How Avery’s House helps families reconnect
At Avery’s House, we use evidence-based care to help teens build social muscles. We believe that communication is a skill that can be learned, just like playing an instrument or a sport.
We focus on
- Family work: Teaching parents and teens how to talk to each other with respect.
- Active listening: Learning to hear what others say without interrupting.
- Confidence building: Helping teens feel brave enough to share their own ideas.
Communication games to try at home
You don’t need a therapy session to work on communication. These activities, grouped into three main categories) are designed to be fun and low pressure.
Speaking with confidence
1. Public speaking workshops
These are opportunities for teens to practice talking in front of others. The workshops help reduce anxiety and build confidence.
- Encourage your teen to join a local or online group that offers teen public speaking practice.
- Have your teen practice short talks (a few minutes) at home with family. Focus on clear speaking and eye contact.
- After practice, share specific things you liked and one clear, kind suggestion for next time. This encourages progress without overwhelming.
2. Debate clubs
Debates teach teens to think critically, express ideas clearly, and listen attentively.
They also build assertive communication skills and help teens understand different viewpoints.
- Check if your teen’s school has a debate team or find local community clubs.
- Pick simple topics and take turns arguing different sides at home. This helps teens organize thoughts and respond quickly.
- Practice active listening (listening carefully and understanding a point before replying).
3. Storytelling
Sharing stories helps teens use words to create vivid pictures and keep listeners interested. This makes them more engaging communicators.
- Take turns telling stories about funny or important family events. Focus on using descriptive words.
- Start a story with one sentence. Then, have your teen add the next part and go back and forth.
- Encourage your teen to describe their day vividly. Have them elaborate on what they saw, heard, and felt.
4. Poetry reading
Reading poems aloud helps teens build language, emotional expression, and speaking skills.
- Find poems your teen might enjoy. Take turns reading lines or sections, focusing on speaking clearly.
- Talk about the feelings in the poem and help your teen use their voice to show those emotions when reading. This connects voice to meaning.
- Read the poem several times, paying attention to the rhythm and flow. This helps teens understand vocal pacing.
5. Choral speaking
Choral speaking involves a group speaking in unison.
It helps teens learn clear speaking, voice control, and teamwork in communication.
- Pick something short, like a poem or song lyric, and read it out loud at the same time as your teen. Try to match speed and volume.
- Choose lines with words that are hard to say. Practice saying them together slowly and clearly.
- Record your family reading together. Listening back helps you hear how you sound and find ways to speak more clearly or together.
Role-playing for real life
Role-playing is a safe way to practice real-life conversations and challenging situations. These activities help teens get ready for everyday conversations and feel more confident during tough ones.
6. Demonstration role-play
Demonstration allows your teen to learn effective communication by watching.
- Have a parent or counselor act out a conversation while your teen watches.
- Guide your teen to notice things like calm words, body language, listening, and kind responses.
- Talk with your teen about what features worked well and why they were good communication choices.
7. Dyad/triad role-play
This involves your teen and one or two other people role-playing together. It involves practicing real-life situations, like asking for help or solving small arguments.
- Have your teen practice a basic conversation with you, like asking for permission or describing their day.
- Have your teen practice politely but firmly saying “no.” This builds assertiveness.
- Have your teen practice resolving a minor issue or disagreement. This helps them learn to handle conflict.
- After practicing, ask your teen what felt easy and hard. Offer feedback on what went well and ideas for getting better.
8. Hot seat role-play
In this activity, one participant takes on the role of someone else, perhaps someone they find hard to understand. Others ask them questions, and they must answer in character. This activity helps teens see things from another person’s perspective.
- Choose a person the “hot seat” participant wants to understand better.
- Choose a situation or relationship to act out.
- Ask the person in the hot seat questions. They should try to understand the character’s thoughts, feelings, or reasons in the pretend situation.
- The person playing the role answers the questions as if they were the person they are pretending to be.
- After the questions, talk about what was learned. Discuss how seeing situations from another’s side might help in real life.
9. Simulation exercises
These are pretend situations similar to those your teen might face. Examples are practicing for a job interview and ordering food in a busy restaurant.
- Create a space that resembles the real situation. For example, set up chairs in a restaurant-like setting.
- Give your teen something specific to do in the pretend talk. Maybe they need to gather certain facts, ask a specific question, or complete a task.
- Ask family or friends to act as the people your teen would talk to in a real situation.
- Go through the whole experience from start to finish. This builds confidence for real situations.
Emotional intelligence and nonverbal communication activities
These help teens understand their own feelings and those of others. They also teach teens about communicating without words—with body language. Understanding emotional signals can improve relationships and increase self-awareness.
10. Expressive art
Art is a way to show feelings without words. It helps teens share emotions they find hard to talk about and identify complex feelings.
- Offer paper, pens, paints, clay, or other things your teen likes to use for art.
- Suggest they draw how they feel about something or create a picture showing an emotion like happy or sad.
- If your teen wants to share, ask open-ended questions about their art, like “What does this part make you think of?”
11. Emotion ball game
Using a ball with feeling words written on it makes it easier to talk about feelings and build emotional vocabulary. This fun game promotes self-awareness and sharing feelings.
- Write feeling words (happy, sad, calm, worried, excited) all over a softball. Use simple words your teen knows.
- Throw the ball back and forth. When someone catches it, they look at the word closest to their hand and share a time when they felt that way.
- Pay attention when your teen shares, and share honestly when it’s your turn. This shows them it’s okay to share their feelings.
12. Posture and body language
Our bodies send messages even when we don’t talk. These activities help teens practice body language awareness.
- While watching TV shows or movies, guess how the characters feel. Look at their faces and bodies. Talk about the clues you noticed together.
- Mention how standing in different ways can affect how you feel. For example, standing tall can make you feel more confident.
- Look in a mirror together. Practice making faces that show different feelings. This helps teens connect how their face looks to how they feel.
Communication games for middle and high school students
These games are a fun, low-pressure way for teens to learn active listening and how to use “I” statements.
13. Guess the object (with blindfold)
In this game, one person describes something. The other person tries to guess what it is. This helps teens practice describing things clearly and listening carefully.
- Choose an everyday object that is easy to describe but not too simple.
- One player puts on a blindfold so they cannot see the object.
- The other player describes the object using only words. They should focus on details such as size, shape, texture, and what it is used for.
- The player with the blindfold listens carefully. They try to guess the object based on the description.
14. Sending messages with emojis
This activity uses emojis to share ideas or feelings without words. It helps teens think about nonverbal cues and how symbols can share meaning quickly.
- Send a simple message like “I’m happy today” or “What’s for dinner?” using only emojis.
- Ask the recipient to figure out the message.
- Talk about how easy or hard it was to understand.
15. Sit back-to-back drawing
In this game, two people sit back-to-back. They try to draw the same picture by only talking to each other. This game shows how important it is to give clear directions and listen well.
- One person draws a simple picture, using basic shapes and lines. They keep it hidden from the other person.
- The person with the drawing tells the person sitting behind them what to draw using only words. They cannot use their hands or show the picture.
- The person listening tries to draw the picture.
- Look at both pictures for similarities and differences. Talk about what made it easy or hard to talk and listen well.
16. Call-and-response ball toss
This simple game involves tossing a ball while quickly answering a question or saying a word. Players must think fast and speak quickly.
- Have everyone stand in a circle.
- One person throws a ball to someone else. They say a word (like “dog”) or ask a simple question (like “Favorite color?”).
- The person who catches the ball quickly gives a related word (“cat”) or answers the question (“blue”).
- Keep throwing the ball around the circle.
Frequently asked questions
What if my teen doesn’t want to play? Don’t force it. Try a quick call-and-response game while you’re driving in the car or doing the dishes.
When is it more than just a communication problem? If your teen shuts out everyone, even their friends, they may need professional help for anxiety or depression.
When games aren’t enough: We’re here to help
If your teen’s communication has completely broken down, or if every conversation turns into a major fight, it may be time for a professional guide.
Avery’s House offers a safe place for teens to heal and families to learn how to talk to each other again.
Getting started is easy
Healing together: Our programs in Arizona and Idaho focus on helping the whole family recover.
Free consultation: Contact us online or call us 24/7 at (855) 506-1906 to talk about your teen.
Insurance: We work with most major insurance plans to make care affordable. Let us verify your insurance for you.
Sources
1. Torres, M. L. G. M., Sampaio, A L L., & Caracas, H. C. P. M. (2023). Changes in the communicative skills of young people as a result of a communication training. Journal of the Society for Brazilian Speech-Language and Hearing Sciences / Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Fonoaudiologia, 35(5), e20220041. https://doi.org/10.1590/2317-1782/20232022041
2. Masduki, M., Zakaria, N., & Ismail, N. N. (2018). The Significant Effects of Communication Activities in the Co-Curricular Towards Reducing Shyness Amongst Elementary School Children. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 1049(1), 012058. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1049/1/012058
3. Jackson, V. A., & Back, A. L. (2011). Teaching Communication Skills Using Role-Play: An Experience-Based Guide for Educators. Journal of Palliative Medicine, 14(6), 775–780. https://doi.org/10.1089/jpm.2010.0493
4. Nazri, E. N., Ahmad, N., Ahmad, N. K., & Bakar, A. Y. A. (2022). The Role of Group Play Therapy in Improving Adolescents’ Social Interaction. Creative Education, 13(10), 3364-3373. https://doi.org/10.4236/ce.2022.1310215