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All relationships come with ambivalence. Knowing someone well means that we enjoy the best of what he or she has to offer and must reconcile ourselves to being frustrated and disappointed at times, too.
We already know that you shouldn’t try to correct your daughter’s behavior by shaming her, and research on disciplinary practices finds that yelling at teenagers actually exacerbates problem behavior instead of fixing it.
Giving a teenager a way to make reparations is the opposite of shaming her. If shame says, “You are bad,” repair says, “You messed up, but you can make it right.” 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.
Adults should be mindful that girls who are depressed or anxious (or both) may have little energy to oppose us because they are suffering quietly and caving in on themselves.
It’s healthy for teenage girls to find a way to buck authority—even as they meet or exceed adult standards—and we should worry about girls who never oppose adults.
When parents disagree about how to raise their daughters it’s common for one parent to adopt a highly permissive stance while the other tries to cancel his or her partner out by becoming excessively rigid.
The craving for autonomy—for independence and self-determination—kicks in hard during adolescence. This is a good thing and a sign of normal, healthy development.
It takes time to grow up, and making mistakes comes with the process. We couldn’t whitewash adolescence and even if we could, we wouldn’t want to because the vibrancy of adolescence serves some developmental purposes.
When teenagers are in conflict with themselves, they often seek out conflict with their parents.
Psychologists Michelle Fine of the City University of New York and Sara McClelland of the University of Michigan are among the smart feminist thinkers who have pointed out that when adults talk with girls about romantic relationships, we almost always focus on risk.
