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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Every 4 or 5 months I feel like my DD and I aren't connected as much as we need to.  I'll take her out for a drink (boba, Starbucks, whatever) and we'll talk.  "What's up with Erin?" "What happened to that boy who was annoying you in math?"  "Are you and Cole still friends?"  These types of questions get her talking.[/quote]

Ugh. That sounds terrible. My mom still asks me this kind of nosy stuff at almost 40 and it makes me not want to share anything. [/quote]

Luckily my daughter and I are close enough that she would tell me if she felt like I was being intrusive rather than interested in her friends.  [/quote]

DP, but I had a mom whose attempts at conversation/bonding were very similar to yours, and at the risk of being too blunt, while you my think your teen would feel comfortable telling you such a thing I highly doubt it's actually the case. Most well-raised teens would know that there is simply no polite way to say such a thing without risking offending the parent (and it certainly sounds like you care enough and are a sufficiently conscientious parent to have taught your child decent manners). The power dynamics in any parent/child relationship are such that it's an incredibly risky idea to actually speak up and try to convey something like that. Would she really? Are you sure? Because my mother remained convinced that we had a "very close" relationship despite the fact that I had a literal countdown until the day I could reasonably cut off contact with her -- which I did as soon as I could except for very occasional small talk on essential holidays in order to keep peace within the family for the sake of my contact with my younger siblings. [/quote]

I'm really sorry you wanted to get away from your mom so badly.  I felt the same way about my mom.  I think the difference here is, I am much less judgmental with my DD than my mother was with me.  My mother punished me for every little thing I did wrong.  If I was five minutes late meeting her, I was grounded for five weeks.  When my DD is five minutes late, she's running up and saying "Sorry I was late - the bus took forever/I was stopped by my math teacher" and I just hug her and say "I'm so happy to see you!"  I threaten to do terrible and embarrassing things to her, like send a singing telegram to her school on her birthday.  We actually just had a talk a week ago about how she DOES want me to talk to her teachers but wants me to be less aggressive when I do it, and we talked about examples of that.  So she IS comfortable criticizing me, and I DO accept feedback.  [/quote]

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