How did you stay close with your tween/teen daughters
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Anonymous
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I have two girls, 6 + 8. Right now they tell me everything and are super close to me....they are both very confident and have lots of friends but I feel like things are 100% honest and supportive.
However, I remember basically being afraid to tell my own mom things (bad grade, kid was bullying me, etc.) starting around 8 so that's why I'm thinking of it now. Things are only going to get harder for them ages 10-18. By 12 I was barely confiding in my parents about anything. I just don't want that for my girls. Part of that was really high expectations and cultural differences (we're Asian-American) but part of it was definitely how my parents responded when I did have an issue (I cannot pinpoint what they did wrong but it was inadequate). So for those of you who have good relationships with your tween/teen daughters what did you do? Or those of you who remember having good honest relationships with your own parents, what did your parents do? |
Anonymous
| Following. |
Anonymous
| First off, do not freak out if over react when they tell you things that bother you. Stay cool. As they age don't force advice on thrm. Listen more than you talk. Lead by example. Do things with them and their friends. Get to know their friends. Take them on one on one dinners. Ask them to cook with you. Go bike riding or golfing. Things like that allow you to chat in a non stressful situation. You still need to discipline, nit be s best friend, but be there to talk when they want. Sneak peak their texting. Subject them to random phone checks of their activity. Let go of some control and let them learn from their mistakes. Accept you won't know everything. |
Anonymous
I agree with most of this. I have a junior ds and 8th grade dd. I’m close to both. Re: discipline. I don’t think that means punishing. For us it’s about natural consequences and teaching better decision making skills. My parents were all about punishing and being strict. My sister and I were awesome at hiding things from them. We prefer to talk through bad choices the kids make and have them fix the situation and learn from it. Usually they do better after that. No need to punish just to exert authority. |
Anonymous
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1. We picked a school whose first message to kids is that your parents come first because they care about you the most - we partner with them to educate you. And they walk that walk.
2. I talk to her about everything. Sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, good stuff and bad. When something sucks, I acknowledge it sucks. When she complains about something I listen and don’t tell her how to feel (even when I really want to). I don’t let her cycle - once she has had her say about a problem I ask her how she wants to solve it. I also tell her when I have made mistakes or why I made certain decisions and what I think I could have done better and that despite all of my shortcomings I ended up ok. I also try new things and fail in front of her. I fall over in yoga class. I laugh when I get the wrong make up shade. I shrug my shoulders and make sandwiches when my dinner recipe is awful. I hope to let her see that mistakes are ok. So many teenage girls think they can never make a mistake. 3. I say no a lot. She knows where I stand on important issues. She knows I will call parents to check on party plans. She knows that there will be no alcohol or drugs tolerate by her guests in our house. She knows that I expect to see effort and that if I see it she won’t be penalized for a low grade. She seems to appreciate this and has come to me a couple of times with concerns about classmates beginning to experiment with drug use. And she has a delightful group of friends who seem to be very comfortable eating me out of house and home and making my Netflix subscription worthwhile. They are adorable and I will miss them terribly when they leave for college. 4. We watch a tv show together and have been doing this since middle school. I pick a show and we watch all the seasons of it and then she picks. This has been a surprising bonding experience. I just told my husband tonight that she never stops talking to me. I will miss her desperately when she leaves for college which will be soon. She says she will miss us a lot too, but no offense she will also not miss us too. |
Anonymous
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I've got 16 and 14 y.o. DDs.
At 8 and 6, they were very similar, but a few years ago, they started to differentiate from each other. For example, before, both liked basketball. One went way into the athletic/basketball/other sports direction, and the other backed off completely and immersed herself into art and dance. As one got interested in makeup, the other rebelled against it and then the first got really interested in makeup. One is neat, the other a complete slob. One is a chatty philosophical kid, the other is a quiet, busy do-er. It is so wild to see how they have become so different, and I believe it is a way to not compete with each other. Because if both are in basketball, one will be better (and with us, it was our younger). And if both dress up fancy, they will be compared. When there is a fight between them, one uses words because she's so good at it, and the other one gets tired of losing that fight so gets physical. So that one doesn't develop her conflict resolution skills--she is either physical (not allowed) or avoids. So they are trying to avoid direct competition--this is unspoken, this is just my theory as to why they are developing the way they are. So one thing we had to do is let the one who wanted to drop 10 years of basketball, just do that. It was easy for me, but hard for my DH who loved watching her play. I had to have more than one side conversation with him, that it wasn't about him and his expectations and his enjoyment, it's about her development. And that is such a big thing, OP...that especially as teens, you realize that you cannot control them. You cannot just sign them up for a tennis class; they won't go. You think they should take Spanish, but they tell you they will take French. So, it's about appreciating who they are becoming, and they are not becoming a mini-me. And for moms, this can be surprising, especially if they happen to look or act like you. My older one really started to give me difficulty when she was 13. Sass, smart mouth, backtalk, defiant, not cleaning up, etc. So many things, omg. Our relationship was getting worse and worse. At one point, I was mad at her often, every day. Mostly about the mess, in particular, she'd trash my bathroom. I was demanding that she come clean it ("I WILLLLLl!") and she was never doing it. I realized that if I just gave up, I would be happier, and if she grows up to be Pig-Pen, fine. And after I gave up, and every day or so just calmly said, "try to clean up the bathroom when you are done," at some point she started doing it. It was my breakthrough eye-opener. Her room is still a mess, and she really is a slob, but I just decided, with the exception of her room which goes uncleaned, I will be the maid. In three years she'll be gone and it won't be my issue, and in the meantime we have a much better relationship. And I'm not going to have high blood pressure over it. It's self-care to drop these little things that aren't serious in the end! To that end, while in the throughs of my hard time with her, DCUM recommended a book, "yes, your teen is crazy!" which was the best advice ever. First, it was easy to read, and second, it changed ME, not her. And gave me permission to not get mad--to not make a stand about--the messiness, or backtalk. I learned that teen brains are NOT like toddlers; negative consequences don't work the same way on them. I had thought I had to stand my ground as the matriarch, but in reality my reaction was giving her brain a dopamine hit. The moment you go to "no drama," you stop giving them dopamine hits for bad behavior, and over time, the bad behavior goes away. So I stay calm. She will try things out on me, looking for that reaction. The day before yesterday, she shut me down about her upcoming PSAT, saying she didn't need to get a good night sleep as it doesn't matter. And sat there watching a show on her computer. I let her be. Then yesterday after being annoying left and right, she said, "I don't think I even want to go to college," and I almost took the bait, but then calmly said, "That's ok. Just know you'll have to get a job and an apartment. Oh, and also, you are in a college-prep school, so we could revisit that." (not said with any snark--said super-sincere.) Then this morning, I'm driving her to the bus stop and she said, "Mom, I'm sorry I've been rude to you. I'm just so nervous about taking the PSAT today!" So there it was. But if I had taken the bait I would have never known that. Finally, I just want to say, that if I only had one DD and it was my younger one, I would think I was the most amazing parent and all these other people struggling with teens are just doing it wrong. Having my older one has humbled me. |
Anonymous
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^^^and just to clarify, we are very close. Really close.
And although like PP I miss her when she goes to college, I will also breathe a huge sigh of relief. Because she is hard to parent! But turning into a great young person. |
Anonymous
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DD is 15. I make sure we have light moments. I sometimes treat her upsets with humor, like the time she was upset because she wanted to back out of going to a friend's birthday sleepover and I was forcing her to go since she'd already committed, so on the train ride over there, I made her listen to this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Agfhgn1_yKE
I think about what reaction she wants from me when she tells me thing. So yes, sometimes I stifle myself.. I developed what we call The Circle of Trust, and when she steps into it, nothing she tells me in that moment will get her in trouble. Sometimes I am demanding answers to hard questions, but sometimes she wants to tell me something and doesn't want me to focus on the fact that her friend cursed or she ate crap food or something, but on the main point of her story. I really, REALLY hear her. She went through a phase of thinking garlic bread was The Shit. It was weird, but one morning I made her eggs and garlic bread and fruit for breakfast in bed. It made her SO happy. Listen more than you talk. Ask open-ended questions. I find a great way to find out about DD is to ask her about her friends. "What's up with Noah?" "Are Kyle and Annie still dating?" |
Anonymous
I agree with both of these PPs. I’m lucky that my daughter makes good decisions and chooses good friends. That’s just her personality, and it removes a lot of the work for me. If she makes a mistake, I emphasize that we learn more about life with slip ups and failures. The safety net of acceptance and teamwork is always there. |
Anonymous
| Listen way more than you talk. |
Anonymous
x10000 |
Anonymous
| I like PPs Circle of Trust. |
Anonymous
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Shopping. Your credit card used with no judgement is literally the only thing you’ll have going for you for a while.
We did all the ‘right’ things and DD feels comfortable telling us things and living her life - but everything we did or thought from age 12–8 was ‘stupid’. We could have been the president and First Lady or the Gates family but we’re ‘stupid’ and ‘don’t know anything’. Oh wait - stock up on wine? |
Anonymous
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Parent of a HS senior and 10 year old.
Realize that your DD's won't tell you everything as they get older. The problem is for them to tell you the big stuff- you can't react. Take a common teen problem- your child goes to a party with drugs/alcohol. You can take two approaches 1.) tell your kid how to navigate situations like this/ but not be judgmental 2.) forbid them from ever going to parties at that person's house again. I've opted for approach number 2. My DD knows if she ever attended a party where they did drugs/alcohol and I found out- she'd never be allowed back to that house. Will she ever attend a party where someone is doing drugs/alcohol in HS? Probably. Will she tell me? No. In this situation, you have two bad choices as a parent. You can either have your child tell you everything and not react (which implies a certain level of acceptance) or tell them no and risk them going behind your back. My philosophy is option #2- which I realized has its own risks. However, I feel like option #1 is a slippery slope. Option #2 works only if you have an overall good relationship with your child (isn't rebellious), know your children's friends etc. My DD would be the kid who would make up an excuse to leave early etc. So TLDR- Have a great relationship with your child, stand firm on the BIG stuff but realize they won't tell you everything. |
Anonymous
Wait - I forgot vacations. Teenager willingly goes on vacations with us and actually interacts nicely with us on vacations. When we get back home it’s back to more of the same stinko attitude. DD is the kind of kid most parents want- great student, has good/nice friends, is liked at school and participated in some activities. Being a stinker sometimes just seems to be part of the natural separation process. |