May 2011

Ages & Stages

"I Hate You, Mom"

Surviving Your Daughter's Adolescence

By Emory Luce Baldwin, LCMFT

Melissa takes a deep breath and greets her 13-year-old daughter, Annie who is coming into the kitchen for breakfast. “Good morning!” she says brightly, adding what she hopes is an encouraging compliment, “I’ve never seen you match that sweater with that shirt before—it’s very colorful!”

Instantly, Annie reacts with outrage, “Why are you always criticizing me? I like the way this looks, and I don’t care what you think!”

“But,” Melissa responds, “I only said …”

“I know what you said, I’m not stupid,” Annie snaps back. “Face it, I have my own style and you’re just going to have to deal with it!” With a sneer, she grabs a yogurt and fires one last parting shot as she storms out the door: “I’m not a baby anymore that you can dress up in your cute little matching outfits!”

What Happened to My Sweet Daughter?

Melissa leans against the counter, feeling the toast she just ate congeal into a lump in her stomach. “Whatever happened to my sweet daughter? We used to be so close. Now, every little thing turns into a fight, and nothing I do seems to make it better!”

What a surprise it is when, almost overnight, the friendly camaraderie between a daughter and her mother flips to fierce opposition. No wonder many mothers of teenage girls feel the way Melissa does. Before adolescence, the relationship between mother and daughter often feels warm and affectionate for both. Many young girls identify with their mothers and are happy to depend upon them. Girls may even idealize their mothers and aspire to grow up to be like them.

In adolescence, however, a girl may regard her mother’s familiar helpfulness and caring as unbearable intrusiveness, judgment and control. This can be a trying time for mothers, when everything they say and do is opposed and criticized. A mother says, “How cold it is outside,” and her daughter says, “No! It is really warm.” A mother asks, “Did you remember everything?” and her daughter complains, “You treat me like a baby!” Nothing the mother says or does meets with her daughter’s approval.

Although this conflict feels intense and unrelenting, there is good news. Research has found that mother-daughter conflict rarely puts the relationship at risk, and it can actually lead to greater understanding and closeness, especially for the daughter. Perhaps the strength of the conflict between mothers and daughters is also a good measure of the strength of their relationship.

A Struggle for Acknowledgement

A teenage girl wants a relationship with her mother; she just wants it to be different. Most teenage girls want to be connected with their mothers and would be devastated to lose them. Yet, daughters also want a new relationship that acknowledges their independence. When a girl argues with her mother, she is using her as a sounding board for her thoughts, ideas, feelings and her new and still incomplete sense of who she is. Her disagreements might demonstrate how she is different from her mother, and they can force her mother to acknowledge the differences as well.

This struggle for acknowledgement is the essence of the conflict, as an adolescent daughter fights for her mother’s recognition of a self that she is still in the process of creating.

Don’t take her anger and criticism personally. The fight that the mother thinks she is having with her daughter is rarely the same fight that the daughter experiences. What sounds like anger, disrespect and opposition to the mother, for instance, might be for the daughter a spirited expression of opinions and feelings.

See the conflict as an opportunity to model and teach self-respect. A mother can acknowledge her daughter’s feelings and position while upholding limits of appropriate expression. She can say, “Those words crossed the line for me, so therefore I’m not willing to help you out right now. In a couple of days, you can ask me again, and I hope it will go better then.” By modeling self-respect while being respectful of her daughter, the mother teaches her child how to stand up for her own self-respect.

Although the years of mother-daughter conflict can be trying, they do pass eventually and the relationship can gradually grow warm and close again. With patience and understanding, a mother can watch her daughter’s sense of self grow and develop. During adolescence, your daughter needs your recognition and acknowledgement that she is different from you. Eventually, she will be able to understand that some part of you is forever a part of her, and this is a connection she can treasure.

Maintaining your relationship, even through battle fatigue:

• Let your daughter do most of the talking (about 80 percent) and let her have the last word, especially if she has “lost” the battle.
• Take her criticism in stride—it’s more about her discomfort with herself than it is about you.
• Do not insult or humiliate her, even if you think she is being overly sensitive.
• Do not give in to feeling pressured by time, by wanting to prove yourself right or by your child’s apparent unhappiness. Remove yourself from the heat of the moment, and take a break to collect yourself and your thoughts.
• If your daughter seems angry all the time, is withdrawing from activities, seems unable to enjoy herself and/or you suspect drug or alcohol abuse—you must act to protect your child’s health and safety. A consultation with a professional can help you decide what steps to take.
  

Emory Luce Baldwin is a family therapist and certified parent educator with the Parent Encouragement Program (PEP). To view PEP’s class schedule, visit PEPparent.org.