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You should start by allowing your daughter more privacy than she had as a child.
will come at the cost of your time, gas budget, and likely your sleep, but you will learn more about what is going on in your daughter’s personal life in the time it takes to drop off her friends and get back to your home than you will in three weeks of asking about how things are going.
Girls often aim their most severe meanness at their mothers—especially if they have had a particularly close relationship in the past—but dads can be targets too.
The one where you remind your daughter that no self-respecting person will enjoy her company when she treats people the way she just treated you.
“There are few situations in life which are more difficult to cope with than an adolescent son or daughter during the attempt to liberate themselves.”
Accept that girls part with childhood gradually and embrace opportunities to do things for her, with her, and to stand by to admire her when she’s doing more and more for herself.
“Is she popular or just powerful? Do kids like her, or are they scared of her?” Give your daughter a good reason to take popularity off of its pedestal.
it’s better for your daughter to be safe than for her friends to think you’re cool.
make it clear to her that you will never give her a reason to regret asking for your help.
Girls who enjoy happy, supportive friendships in real life use their digital communications to build those friendships, and girls who are having trouble getting along in person also have trouble getting along online.
“Am I doing this because I truly worry that she might do terrible things online, or am I doing this simply because I can?”
Tell her that she should act regardless
“You must work with the assumption that every teenager secretly worries that she’s crazy.”
Complaining to you allows your daughter to bring the best of herself to school.
sharing one’s true feelings at home makes it a lot easier to be charming out in public.
When your daughter complains, listen quietly and remind yourself that you are providing her with a way to unload the stress of her day.
Externalization is a technical term describing how teenagers sometimes manage their feelings by getting their parents to have their feelings instead. In other words, they toss you an emotional hot potato.
Our overreactions only seem to confirm that it really is that bad and usually make the situation worse.
Feeling the sting of a mistake keeps us from making the same mistake again.
When it comes to dealing with emotional distress, research tells us that girls discuss while boys distract.
girls scan social media when they worry they’ve done something gossip worthy. Instead of taking stock of their anxiety and what they can learn from it, they eagerly search for evidence that they are being discussed. Girls also turn to digital technology when excited, using it to announce good news or hard-won accomplishments.
Consider limiting or banning digital activity (for you and your daughter) while out and about together, at meals, and in the hour or so before bedtime—prime
Look for opportunities to separate your daughter from technology for extended stretches of time. Demanding jobs, summer camps, and family trips can require—or inspire—long breaks from digital technology. Teenagers can be more willing to go along with no-tech trips if they are allowed to catch up with the digital world at preplanned times. While away from home, some families develop a rule that everyone is allowed to check his or her phone and computer for a half hour each morning and evening but otherwise agree to go off the grid.
When your daughter questions your authority, take her seriously and offer an explanation, a compromise, or your agreement.
When teens are trapped with parents who would rather flaunt their power than negotiate on even minor points, it doesn’t always end so well. These parents don’t just damage their relationships with their daughters, they can also provoke girls into proving that they will not be controlled.
Frame conversations about dangerous behavior in terms of the bottom-line risks your daughter might face, not what will happen if she gets busted.
“Just be fair, firm, and friendly.”
We want teenagers to learn from their mistakes, and we want them to have a way back to a clear conscience so that they don’t, unconsciously, seek out further punishment to bring the scales into balance.
never get into a power struggle with a teenager in an area where she holds all the power. When it comes to their schoolwork, teenagers have almost total control and you have none. If your daughter chooses to take responsibility for her schoolwork, chances are that it will go well. If she chooses not to, she cannot be overridden by parental force. Unless your daughter has a diagnosis that prevents her from doing well in school, such as a learning or attention-deficit disorder, by adolescence she is in the driver’s seat when it comes to how she handles her academics. As the driver, she may
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“People make choices, choices have consequences.”
use a tone that conveyed that they were feeling hopeful, not hostile,
When teenagers are in conflict with themselves, they often seek out conflict with their parents.
“We know that you’re disappointed about your marks. And you know that you’re not taking charge of your schoolwork. We’re happy to offer any support you’d like or help you connect to resources at school, but we trust that you’ll figure out what you need to do differently to get the grades you want.”
When a boy fails a test, doesn’t get the lead in the play, or faces some other hitch in his plans, he’s likely to attribute his difficulties to external or temporary factors.
Girls, on the other hand, are more likely to explain failures in terms of internal, permanent factors: she’s broken and can’t be fixed.
We celebrate effort over outcome.
“I’m so glad that you’re not leading the pack—it’s easier to grow when you’re surrounded by peers who can stretch and inspire you.”
pornography now shapes what many teens believe constitutes “normal” courting and sexual behavior. It’s not new for teens to seek or to be exposed to pornography, though statistically boys, more than girls, consume pornographic content. What’s new is the wide availability of highly explicit sexual material. And I mean
“I’ve heard that some boys think it’s okay to text a girl, sometimes over and over again, to ask her to send nude photos or do sexual things. This goes without saying, but just to say it, that’s totally inappropriate behavior on the guy’s part. They shouldn’t do it at all, and they certainly shouldn’t keep doing it once a girl says no.”
‘That’s not something I want to do.’ You should never have to say it more than once, and you shouldn’t be made to feel bad for saying it.”
“You’ll figure out what feels right for you as you go, but know that just because you’ve done something once doesn’t mean you have to do it again. Anyone who deserves to be with you will respect that.”
“It’s important for you to know what you want and to pay attention to what your partner wants. And if you’re not in agreement, whoever wants to do less decides for both of you. No pressure, no questions asked.”
Your daughter can certainly turn down invitations to spend time with suitors, but you may need to coach her to be polite. Encouraging her to say (or, more likely, text) something such as, “I really appreciate being asked but I’m not looking to move past our friendship right now” gives girls a good place to start.
teens really want grown-ups to act like grown-ups around their love lives, even if they complain about the rules we make.
Girls stop listening to us when we lecture. If you find yourself talking at your daughter or pressing any point at length, know that she has likely put on her veil and you are almost certainly wasting your breath. The wisdom and accuracy of your advice are inconsequential. It’s almost impossible for any human being to endure a lecture without feeling defensive in response, and the longer the lecture goes on, the more defensive we become.
girls feel good about their bodies when their parents focus on positive ways to maintain a healthy weight, as opposed to encouraging dieting. Specifically, the girls in the study who reported high levels of body satisfaction had parents who exercised, encouraged their daughters to be fit, and emphasized healthy eating. So make physical activity a part of your life as a family and focus on the sustaining foods you should eat, not on counting calories or restricting certain foods.
digital technology should never find its way into anyone’s bed, and everyone in the family should step away from his or her devices at least a half hour before trying to go to sleep.
When we get adequate sleep, we feel better physically and emotionally, work faster, remember more, have better focus, feel less stressed, and are far less likely to get sick.
make sure that your daughter knows that her safety comes before any of your disciplinary policies. Regardless of the rules you make about drinking at home or elsewhere, really mean it when you tell her that you know that good teens can find themselves in bad situations and that you will never make her sorry she asked for your help.
When you ask straight questions, they almost always give straight answers.
