How to Maintain a Loving Mother-Daughter Relationship in Her Teenage Years

Maintaining a loving mother-daughter relationship in her teenage years is very difficult. She has peer influence to try drugs, alcohol, and sex. She also feels pressured by her school, church, and parents. Now she even has to worry about being violently assaulted. In addition, she is also dealing with identity and hormonal changes. At times she can feel lonely, isolated, confused, irritable, angry, and even depressed. It’s a time when your relationship can be severed if you’re mostly critical and judgmental.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Patience Perseverance Commitment Time Love

1. When things are difficult place a rubber band on your wrist. Snap it before reacting to your teenage daughter. It will give you a moment to regroup and to react more rationally.
2. Allow your teenager to express anger in a healthy way, without shouting and allow yourself to do the same. Express anger in a normal voice and in “I” terms (e.g., “I am angry because.”) rather than accusatory “you” terms.
3. Don’t have unreasonable expectations. Many teenagers are going to school, participating in athletics, and working part time. Be a bit lenient with home chores. Leave their rooms alone. Just ask them to close the door.
4. Invite your teenage daughter’s friends and boyfriends over to your house. Get to know them well. Know their names and phone numbers. Invite even the boyfriend who you believe is not good for her. Have him over for dinner frequently. You don’t have to like him. She will let go of him if you don’t berate her daily and if you don’t forbid him to come to your home. Use discretion; however, if he has a drug addiction.
5. Do tell her that she is wonderful and beautiful frequently and give her a few hugs when she is feeling down. Discover her talents and gifts and encourage her to develop them
6. Make her birthdays special. Try to bake a birthday cake. Give her a small gift and a beautiful birthday card. On the card express your love and name all the wonderful qualities that you see and appreciate in her. Make this a yearly ritual. She will treasure it for the rest of her life.
7. Don’t go out of town and leave her home alone during her high school years. She may be pressured by friends to have parties that can get destructive.
8. Encourage your daughter to be assertive so she can speak up for herself when she is not treated respectfully
9. Encourage your daughter to get a good education and if possible to go to college. Show an interest in her homework, assisting if you can when she needs help.
10. Tell her often how important she is to you and how you value her. Say, “You are very special to me and always will be. I love you with my whole heart. I enjoy it very much when we talk and when you tell me what is going on in your life. You are a great joy to me.” Tell her often how proud you are of her many achievements and take time to attend all of the activities in which she is involved.
11. Take one night a week and do something fun with her that she enjoys. (For example, I took a cake decorating class with one of my daughters.)
12. Teach her to value herself. Explain to her that self-talk is very important and that what she says to herself will influence her self image. Instruct her to stand in front of a mirror and say to herself, “You are very special and I love you! I can feel good or proud about …(and list things like school activities, grades, jobs, helping others, etc.). ” I did this myself when I was young and said, “You know you are better than average, so love and respect yourself and expect the same treatment from others.” It is very important to affirm our goodness even though we are imperfect. This is not self-centeredness, but a way of building self-esteem. Without a good self-esteem she may not set boundaries in a relationship and may allow others to mistreat her.
13. Teach her to set boundaries. This means to set limits about what she will allow another person to say or do to her in a relationship. She needs to say, “No!” when someone is verbally, emotionally, or physically abusive. If the person does not stop, then she needs to leave the relationship.
14. 15. Teach her to accept and like her body. Again, she should stand in front of a mirror and say, “I love my body, I love my hair, I love my face.” Do this daily. This is important because television is so brutal right now to women. They are selling the idea that only stick-thin women can be happy. This is not true and we need to teach our daughters otherwise.
15. Be a good model for her in everything that you expect her to do.
16. Stay connected and never abandon her. I believe that a mother’s love is the most important love in a girl’s life. When I went through difficult times, I remembered these words that my mother uttered, “I love you, you are very special to me.” Those words gave me strength and belief in myself when I felt alone, lonely, and abandoned. The night before she died at the age of 90, she called me and said, “I love you so much. You have been a wonderful daughter to me and you have given me much joy.” I will treasure those loving word until the last day of my life and I pray to God that I will have the opportunity to utter those same loving words to each of my daughters the night before I die.
17. Love your daughter with a soulful love for the rest of your life. Thereby you will make her life happier and make this a better world. It is wonderful when other people tell me how much my daughters have touched their lives and how grateful they are to have met them. The love that you give them will be passed on to others forever.