Roni Cohen-Sandler - Trust Me, Mom: A Less Stressful Approach to Parenting Teenage Daughters

Somehow my daughter seems to be slipping away. I know shes growing up, but Im still her mother. I dont want to wake up one day and think, What happened to her? or Who is she? And yet Im not sure what I can do. There dont seem to be any road maps for bringing up girls today. I always wonder about what is going on in my daughters life, but I dont seem to get any real answers. I just want to know that my daughter will be okay. I want to know that shell make the right decisions when Im not around. When I get nervous about all this and try to talk to her, she just gets angry, but I cant help it. I find that parenting is so much harder now that shes a teenager. Maybe this comes more naturally to other mothers, because nobody else seems to be as confused as I am. On especially awful days, I think, Youre completely lost; you have no idea what youre doing.

Mary, thirty-four

My daughter is only ten, but shes acting like a teenager. I guess I expected these sorts of problems when she was in middle school or high school, but Im not ready for this now. In fact, Im already at the end of my rope, and shes not even driving yet! My two older children were never like this. Sure, some of their friends werent my favorites, but they were never consumed with all this social stuff like my youngest is. Shes talking about issues that her siblings didnt mention until they were in their midteens. Even her language seems way too advanced for her age. Other than stopping the clock for a while, there doesnt really seem to be anything else I can do. Maybe I could use some help. My head is spinning!

Francesca, fifty

I had no idea that being a mother could be this hard! I guess I thought that if my daughter and I were always close, if I taught her the right values and spent lots of time with her, that we would basically see eye to eye as she grew up. But she and I couldnt be less alike. In fact, sometimes I wonder where shes come from. Among other things, Ive always stressed how important it is for her to be an individual, to think for herself. But shes completely swayed by whats in and, especially by what her friends do and say. We also have very different ideas about whats appropriate for girls her age. It really amazes meand scares meto think of how focused she is on boys, how eager she is to please them. How could this have happened? And how are we going to get through the next few years?

Gerri, forty-five

N early every time my telephone rings, its the mother of a teenage girl who is confused, upset, or absolutely frantic about the state of her daughters social lifeher friends, her attitude, her boyfriend, her secrecy, her nightlife. Without exception, mothers are concerned about what exactly their adolescent daughters are doing, who theyre doing it with and, especially, if they are safe. Whether your daughter is approaching or well into the teenage years, you too may question the quality of her friendships, worry about substances and sex, and have reservations about her romantic choices. Maybe you panic whenever you see a red flag that may signal trouble, making you wonder if you are completely crazy at times. If so, be assured that you are in good company. These days, no mother seems immune.

Perhaps because we have considered ourselves a more aware and progressive generation of mothers, we expected that our daughters would somehow make smarter decisions in their lives and bypass the typical teenage troubles. Unfortunately this turned out to be a fallacy. Mothers today share a nearly universal perception: Even girls who were once rational, reasonable, and levelheaded suddenly seem to be making stupid, frightening, or potentially dangerous choices.

These girls are not all troubled; these are difficult times. Since the publication of my first book, Im Not Mad I Just Hate You!, which dealt with conflict in the mother-daughter relationship, women have increasingly told me that their teenagers social lives have become their number one concern. In fact, countless mothers have confided that they never could have imagined, much less predicted, their daughters behavior. For example, some girls were caught using alcohol or drugs, sneaking out of their homes, and lying about their whereabouts. Others were found to have sent text messages full of vulgar words or sextedthat is, sent suggestive or sexually explicit photos electronically. A few have been taken to emergency rooms or picked up by police or suspended from school.