Your grandchild is sitting across from you at the kitchen table, and for about four seconds, you can see the wheels turning. The way a kid looks when they’re deciding whether to tell you the thing they haven’t told anyone else yet.
The grandparents who get to hear that thing aren’t doing anything complicated. They’re using a handful of phrases that do the same job every time: they make the conversation safe before the kid has to decide whether to risk it.
If you use these, there’s a good chance they feel safer confiding in you than you even realize.
1. “What’s on your mind?”
Every other question they hear has a right answer built into it: how was school, what’d you get on the test, are you being good for your mom? They already know what they’re supposed to say.
“What’s on your mind?” has no right answer. It’s open in a way that lets them bring whatever they’re carrying. It could be a fight with a friend. A song they can’t stop listening to. A worry they haven’t said out loud yet.
The phrase works because it doesn’t point them toward a topic. It points them toward themselves.
Most adults ask kids questions that are about performance. Grades, behavior, activities. Those are fine questions, but they have built-in expectations. “What’s on your mind?” skips all of that and asks about the person.
A grandchild who hears it regularly starts to understand that you’re interested in what’s happening inside them, not what’s happening on their report card.
And the timing matters. At the kitchen table. In the car. During a walk that doesn’t have a destination. The phrase works best when there’s no agenda around it.
2. “That sounds like it really got to you”
Your granddaughter tells you about something that happened at school, and instead of jumping to advice or reassurance, you say this. Seven words. No fixing. No redirecting.
What it does is name the impact without judging the reaction. You’re not saying she’s right or wrong. You’re saying the feeling was real, and you noticed it.
Psychologist Pamela Brown, writing about why children stop confiding, notes that kids are more likely to open up to adults who listen without judgment.
The moment a grandchild senses evaluation, the conversation narrows. They start editing. They give the version they think you want to hear instead of the one that’s true.
“That sounds like it really got to you” is the opposite of evaluation. It’s recognition. And for a kid deciding whether to tell you more, recognition is the thing that keeps the door open.
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3. “You’re allowed to be upset about that”
Sometimes your grandchild will tell you something and then immediately try to talk themselves out of the feeling. “It’s not a big deal.” “I’m probably overreacting.” “It’s dumb.”
That’s not a kid who doesn’t have the words. That’s a kid who isn’t sure they have permission to use them.
Therapist Kailey Spina Horan, writing about validating children’s emotions, describes validation as separate from agreement. You don’t have to think the situation is dire. You don’t have to agree that the teacher was unfair or the friend was wrong. You’re telling them the feeling itself is allowed.
That distinction matters more than most adults realize. A grandchild who hears “you’re allowed to be upset” learns that emotions aren’t problems they need to apologize for. They stop bracing for correction and start saying the whole thing.
4. “Something like that happened to me once”
Three sentences, maybe four, about a time you were embarrassed, confused, left out, or wrong. Skip the twenty-minute version from 1978 and the lecture. Say the thing and stop.
What the grandchild hears is that the feeling isn’t new. They’re not the first person to sit with it. The distance between your experience and theirs isn’t a gap. It’s a bridge, but only if you keep it short enough to cross.
The grandparents who get this right share a moment and then hand the floor back. “Anyway, what happened next?” The story was never the point. The point was letting the grandchild know they’re not strange for feeling what they’re feeling.
The ones who get it wrong turn the story into a comparison. Their version was harder, longer, more dramatic. The grandchild goes quiet, because it stopped being about them three sentences ago.
5. “What do you think you’re going to do?”
A grandchild comes to you with a problem, and the instinct is to solve it. Suggest a solution. Call the parent. Offer a plan. Most adults default to fixing, because fixing is how they show they care.
This phrase does something different. It treats the grandchild as someone who might already have an idea.
That shift is bigger than it sounds. A kid who’s been told what to do all day, by teachers and coaches and parents, comes to your house carrying other people’s instructions. Being asked what they think they’re going to do hands the situation back to them.
Sometimes they don’t know. That’s fine. “I have no idea” is still closer to the truth than the answer they would have given if you’d jumped in with a solution.
And from there, you can think through it together, which is a different thing entirely from being told what to do.
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6. “You can always tell me”
This works because it’s usually said before the moment arrives.
Not during a crisis. Not after they’ve already confided the hard thing. Before. On a day when nothing is wrong. In the car on the way to get burgers and shakes. At the end of a phone call about nothing in particular.
The grandchild files it. They may not respond to it in the moment. They may not even acknowledge it. But later, when the thing happens, when the secret gets too heavy, or the worry gets too big, they’ll remember who said it.
What makes this different is that it doesn’t require a conversation already in progress. It’s a standing offer. And standing offers only work if they’ve been made out loud, because a grandchild can’t confide in someone they aren’t sure wants to hear it.
Research from Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child, in a summary of resilience findings, identifies the single most common factor for children who overcome serious hardship: at least one stable, committed relationship with a supportive adult. A grandparent who has said the words out loud is exactly that.
You might think they already know you’re a safe space. That the relationship makes it obvious. It isn’t obvious to them. Kids test the water before they jump, and this phrase is how you tell them the water is warm.
