Moving Past the Resistance In Parenting Teen Girls

Resist: to exert force in opposition

When it comes to your girls, I bet you have learned by now that both forcing and opposing doesn’t go over so well when it comes to having peace and enjoyment in the household.

When it comes to parenting there can be a lot to resist:

• her procrastination, forgetfulness, disorganization
• her lack of motivation or lack of independence
• her attitude, rolling eyes, slamming doors, back talk
• her testing your rules
• her push back and disapproval of you and your values
• the tornado of dirt and debris she leaves in her wake
• her poor choices with her social life or academic life

I could go on, but you get the point. How do you feel when you resist her and her ways? Not so good, right? Maybe you feel resentful, taken advantage of, angry, exhausted. You can see by how you feel that resisting is not the way to go if you want to feel good in your body and good about her. Have you noticed that when you put your attention and your energy toward what you don’t want (see above list) you tend to get more of the same. You notice one thing you don’t like that she does and it gets really easy to see all the other things about her that get on your nerves. You make comments about what you see: “Why can’t you pick up your stuff?”; “Why do you always wait til the last minute?”; “Stop speaking to me with that rude tone.” Then the negative behaviors escalate. You feel worse. What you resist persists.

There is another way:

• Take a few deep breaths.
• Get grounded in your body.
• Get calm.
• Remind yourself that you love her (even when you don’t like her).
• Ask for what you want in a calm, loving tone.
• Put your attention on something else and move on about your day.