COEUR d'ALENE - Keeping the lines of communication open while maintaining healthy relationships with her kids is very important to Christiana Blaski.

Blaski and her 13-year-old son, Timothy, attended the "Surviving Adolescence" workshop in the Kroc Center on Saturday. Blaski, of Coeur d'Alene, said the workshop was an eye-opener, and parents should listen rather than lecture their kids.

"The more parents listen to their kids, they might learn something," she said.

She has two adult daughters she raised as a single mom. Blaski said they would describe her as a mom who is good at making them feel guilty and talking a lot, but they still have great relationships. Part of attending the seminar involved working on those communication strategies and making sure that she and her son can also have a great relationship where he feels comfortable talking to her.

"You have to be everything," she said. "I do a lot, but again, it's being able to listen and communicate, and that's my fear. I do not want my child not to be able to come to me and not to feel safe."

About 30 other parents were present for the afternoon session, Keith Orchard's "Listening so Teens Will Talk." Maintaining the healthy flow of parent-child communication was at the core of Orchard's presentation, which included tactics for listening, avoiding arguments and steering clear of sarcasm and shutting down a distraught teenager.

"This takes practice," said Orchard, regional trainer for child welfare in North Idaho and father of two. Orchard talked about ways to be safe and nurturing while having conversations with teenagers, including a communication strategy he calls "reflective listening."

"Just tell them what they told you, and see where it goes," Orchard said.

The "Surviving Adolescence" workshop, presented by the Christian Community Coalition (CCC), included seminars about teen social media/Internet usage, peer pressure, communication and building faith and character. Organization of the workshop began in March. Joe Bohart, president of the CCC, said the CCC chose those topics for the workshop because they are contemporary issues that parents face.

"All those things just scored very high," he said. "Off the chart in the extent to which parents were laboring with these issues, issues that 15 years ago didn't exist."

Orchard said he commends the parents who attended the sessions for choosing to broaden their parenting knowledge and adding a few more tools to their toolboxes.

"Even if you only pick one or two good things, slowly you build up a toolbox and your skills and you become just a little bit better," he said. "And the dividends for that can be immense in terms of your relationship with your child and the health of your child, and what's more important than that?"