You have a thriving career--one that gives you financial independence, a sense of identity, acknowledges your contribution and rewards it with promotions and bonuses. You are a go-getter and consistently motivate and push your team to achieve goals. Yet the going gets tough when it comes to managing your 16-year-old daughter. Does this sound like you?
Urban mothers, whether working or stay at home mums, are getting increasingly ambitious for their daughters. In a way, the mother’s want the best for their growing daughters in times that are vastly different from their own and brutally competitive. However, often the driving in of positive ambition to your teen can be perceived as "pushy" by your daughter. This in turn can have negative outcomes to both the child and the mother-daughter relationship. Here are some pointers that may help you support your daughter in a positive way:
1. Try not to see your teen daughter as an extension of your own success.
You may be the driving force of your corporate team at work but children need a very different sort of handling. This is especially so because of two reasons – she is your child who will be a part of your life for all times, unlike a colleague or employee, and because you both are bound by blood and have already invested so much into a special biological relationship that already exists.
This may mean that your teen may be nothing like you. She may be easy going and yet able to score good grades or compete in school/college athletics. As per Dr. Maggie Atkinson, “The youngsters cite ambitious parents, as well as schools, as the source of the overwhelming pressure to achieve good marks and exam grades.” (Source: Mail Online U.K, Article Name: ‘Half of school pupils suffer from stress because of ambitious parents (... and schools)’; report by: Kate Loveys; Date: 7th January 2011; URL: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1344868/Half-school-pupils-suffer-exam-stress-ambitious-parents-schools-overwhelming-pressure.html). Remember, she is another human growing to be an adult and does not necessarily hold the same perspective on life as you do. She does not share the experiences you have had in your life. She has her own experiences through which she has built her own opinions. It would be foolhardy to believe that just because she is your teen daughter, she can be motivated by the same things that move you and will go on to achieve the things you consider important or in your way. She may excel at different things and you must motivate her accordingly.
2. Try not to burden your child with the realization of your own unrealized aspirations. If you made the decision to be a stay at home mother when your daughter was born many years ago, then it was a decision not knowingly influenced by your daughter at the time. She had not asked you to stay back for her at the time. You made that decision whether out of unavailability of facilities to put her in while you worked or due to the belief that infants are best looked after by their parents. It is unwise to now burden your teen daughter with guilt for having taken that decision so many years ago. It is equally important that you do not make repeated evaluative remarks about what you think she may or may not achieve. A home is a place to nurture our family not a place where our capabilities be undermined.
3. Be aware that both you and your daughter are learning about yourselves through this phase together. It would ease the relationship if you were forgiving of both yourself and your teen daughter. Remember that this is a phase both of you will go through just once and only for a few years when change for the better will set in automatically. Try to use this time as an opportunity to learn about your own feelings, hopes, responses, aspirations and those of hers. You are both growing together.
4. Set clear goals for things that matter together. This essentially means two things:
A. Goals need to be set for life-impacting aspects. You and your daughter must find the time and the right attitude to discuss things that will affect her adult life in a significant way along with ideas on how to achieve them. This means you both should be clear on education and major issues surrounding health such as drinking, eating habits, sex and substance abuse, etc.
B. It also means that you should not be sweating the small stuff with your teen daughter. When you worry and mishandle little and everyday situations with your teen, she will take it as a threat to her independence. You may come across as being both interfering and critical of her which could encourage her to withdraw into a shell. That would be both undesirable and dangerous.
5. Break the boundary walls before they start to form. You must be aware that at the end of the day, each one of us, regardless of our age or phase of life, is looking for love and approval though our expressions of this simple desire may be very different in each phase. Being the woman with more experience and maturity, apart from the undeniable role of being a mother and guide, it is your call to open the channels of love, communication and support at any such times when a deadlock is reached. The mother-daughter relationship is an original one bound by blood and thus very resilient. A study conducted by Pennsylvania State University’s Karen Fingerman, Ph.D shows that 80-90 percent of women think they have a good relationship with their mothers by midlife though they hoped it would be better. (Source: Psychology Today; Article name: Mother Daughter Bond; Report by: By Susan Campbell, published on May 01, 2001 - last reviewed on May 04, 2010; URL: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200105/the-mother-daughter-bond)