Mother Daughter Communication: How to Relate to Your Teenage Daughter

The key to harmonious mother daughter communication is to remember your own teen years. Your daughter(s), like you, went through many changes as they grow up physically, mentally and emotionally.

The key to creating balance through the teen years is to revisit our own lives as teenagers. We were finding ourselves. Coming into our own. We were making our own rules - whether we were aware we were or not. We were trying to establish control over our lives.

As teenagers, let’s face it ladies, we all had moments - or years- when we were self-absorbed and seeing only one side of all issues: ours. When the adults in our lives were nuisances to be avoided. We were becoming more aware of negatives in the world around us - from peer cliques and peer pressure to teacher/coach favoritism, to the double-standard many of our parents lived by - the “do as I say not as I do” mantra, to the reality that whirled peas were more attainable than world peace.

No matter your daughter's(s') age, establishing a clear line of mother daughter communication provides a wonderful opportunity to lessen frustration for all and to teach your beautiful girl(s) how to create positive, mutually beneficial relationships at home, in school, in business; in life.

Communicating Wants and Needs

The basis of mother daughter communication - and all communication - is the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, signals, writing, or behavior. Often, particularly with teenagers, tonal quality and behavior when communicating can cause those they are communicating with to become defensive and/or to shut down or tune out. Even we can tend to do this as parents - not really hearing what is being said because of how it's being said to us or simply because we've not shifted our full attention to the communicator. And, from the teenage perspective, when we as parents continually repeat ourselves over and over again, we are simply nagging at or ragging on them.

Something else to keep in mind: if we as moms are not fully disclosing our expectations (our rules) to our daughters - and they are withholding their expectations of us from us as well - there is essential no true communication.

Finding Balance.

Moms, don’t owe their daughters rides to school or malls or friend's houses at the snap of a finger. Mom's are not obligated to fulfill their daughters' material wants of the latest "must have" craze created by clever marketing targeting them. What we do owe our daughters is the basic necessities of life: food, water, clothing, shelter, basic life skills, nurturing and love...and respect. Good mother daughter communication enables us to provide our daughters with the basics, while educating them on social manners and interpersonal skills, the Golden Rule, their bodies and their rights as women, financial basics, and so much more - and have fun doing so. As a bonus gift, if you subscribe now to developing and maintaining successful mother daughter communication, you will also find you will develop positive, fruitful and life-long friendships with them. We do this by helping them to understand the benefits of a balanced exchange - constructive versus destructive rules - and bringing these rules to the surface of each exchange.

Examples of destructive rules in
daily mother daughter communication might include:

Teenager: I should be the center of your world, always.

Parent: I’m older than you so I know what’s best for you.

Parent: I’ll give you whatever you want if you love and respect me.

Balance comes with awareness. If we make a conscious effort to be aware of what rules we as parents bring to an exchange, then we can teach our children to do the same - each of us expressing what we want or expect from the other. Hidden rules are assumed communication, not true communication - and, many of us have heard the phrase: To “assume” makes an “ass” out of “u” and “me”. We have a responsibility to one another to be real and truthful. Therefore it is essential in all successful relationships that communication is constant, open and honest. The best place to start is to create an environment that gives our daughters time and permission to express how they feel about their exchanges with us; to allow them to fully contribute to all conversations. Their feelings and feedback helps us as parents become more aware of our own hidden rules. This also works the other way: we are able to bring our daughters’ hidden rules out into the open and discuss them together as well. The goal is to acknowledge these rules - all of them - and to determine their fairness to both (or all) of you. We must be honest and open and enable free exchange of thoughts and perceptions in a safe environment. By bringing these rules out in the open, we can then, together, create fair exchanges.

Why is this so important? Because failing to allow such open mother daughter communication - as with any other relationship, personal or professional - enables hidden rules to control our relationships and our lives; they create conflict rather than harmony. Therefore, working with your daughter to examine her rules, understand them and revise them (if necessary) - and to do the same with your own rules - enables honesty and sets a positive stage for you, leading to more harmonious living under one roof and empowering all involved. Additionally, this practice helps bring a better understanding of one another which can, in turn, open new doors to one another and depth to your relationship.

Reality Check

As mothers we also must be straight-forward with ourselves. We can’t deny the rules we impose. Remember, we set the examples. We are our daughters’ role models. Since we as parents are naturally in a position of power, positive exchanges will only work from the top down - parent to teen, mother to daughter. If we aren’t walking our talk; if we aren't being open and honest about our own intentions, how can we sanely expect to get cooperation from our kids? To be dishonest or deviant (hidden agendas) on our part, would only serve to frustrate and make our daughters feel powerless. It would be detrimental to a successful mother daughter communication and lifelong relationship. Openness and honesty leads to awareness and gratitude and the process of positive communication and exchange becomes natural.

It is important to model a healthy reality for our daughters. To set ego and pride aside and admit our mistakes, our hidden rules, our wants and desires. And, it is important that we share these with our kids so that they better understand our requests and actions, as well as the demands of the world around us. As teenagers, our daughters are one step from adulthood. It is part of our job as mothers to equip them for this world. By hiding the bills, the social pressures, the job woes, our desires for present and future, our desires for them, etc., we are doing them a grave disservice. This is life. They need to know about life. They need to understand it. They need to be empowered to deal with it. They need to be well informed so that they can make the very best decisions for themselves. We owe this to them. Not the material possessions and pretense; the reality and the tools to positively thrive in and despite it.

Fair Exchange

The best things we can do as moms is to empower our daughters. Mother daughter communication that resembles dictatorship only results in anarchy. Mother daughter communication that builds tears down walls and build up self esteem results in positive and mutually-beneficial, lifelong relationships.

What we all need to remember and impress upon our girls is that there is a cost for each of our wants. Change itself costs. Fair exchange helps determine whether the want is worth the cost. By working through both our wants and theirs, we are able to examine together the pros and cons for the rules we’ve each established on our own for the outcomes we desire, then we are able to adjust, as needed, to enable both/all parties to benefit from the exchange. The benefits of this process include: mutual respect, trust, positive self esteem, sharing of work load, no control issues, restored and/or improved relationships.

You don’t need to wait - and it’s best advised you don’t - until your daughter becomes a teenage to establish an environment of fair exchanges. By enabling her to solve problems by letting her find mutually beneficial solutions to her wants, you empower her for life. When she is encouraged to take responsibility for her wants and needs, she becomes stronger.

Keep rules flexible on both sides to enable adaptation to each of your respective worlds. But be consistent. Never set a rule that can't be followed through on. Make sure everyone understands each rule clearly Ion both sides of the rule). Rules are not obligations but rather mutual agreements toward attaining goals.

One Positive Relationship At A Time

The world runs on blame. We have the opportunity to diffuse and eliminate blame in our homes and increase communication as well as communication skills that will benefit our children many times over. Have some common (shared) goals: a clean home when friends visit; a fun time shared by all; etc. Strong mother daughter communication inspires imagination, creative expression and thought. It also empowers our young girls to be power by contributing to the positive outcomes they seek.

Make A Difference

What you create at home goes out into the world and populates. Good mother daughter communication creates trust, honesty and camaraderie. How do we improve our world? One positive relationship at a time. One moment at a time. One wonderful daughter at a time.