Decide to Stay Connected with Your Child
My daughter is 11 and I can feel it coming already—she is pushing me away. It seems her friends are so important to her. I am worried about losing the close relationship we have.
Discussion
We live in a culture that seems to tear the family apart. Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia, goes so far as to say our children are immersed in a “toxic culture,” an environment more interested in selling something to our kids than in their healthy development. It is a culture that is more focused on work, money, spending, and competition than in the well-being of our children. My friend Marta Mellinger, founder of The Canoe Group and mother of two children, shares her angst when her daughter was ten years old and what she did about it:
Ever since I became a parent, I’ve been told that the “work” of the teenager is to establish his or her independence. I’m of a generation that embraced the motto “Do Your Own Thing,” and there’s an attitude about parenting teenagers that goes along with that. I’ve heard it said that as my kids become middle schoolers, it’s going to be “hell.” People say the girls will push me away and, that by the time they reach high school, I won’t see them much, if at all. We’ll have fights; I won’t know them or their friends. The picture is of a path leading away from me, their father, and family life.
As my own ten-year-old daughter approaches adolescence, will I let her “do her own thing”? Will I accept that this “moving away” is part of these “hell years” and allow her to emotionally distance herself from me and the family as TV and movies tell her to, as much of our society tells both of us she should? Or do I take the risk to commit to sustaining our connection even when she doesn’t seem to want it?
Right about now I have a choice to make. As she moves on to 11, 12 and 13, will I continue to reach out? Will I ask for her sharing by sharing myself? Will I sustain our “hokey” family rituals, enthusiastically plan family vacations she wants to skip?
“Yes,” I now say with more assurance. That’s my job as her parent—to sustain the fragile flame of connection, even when the winds of our world are trying to blow it out. Now, at least, I have science affirming what I’ve always intuitively known—in the larger scheme of things, it’s our love that counts.
The study, “Protecting Adolescents from Harm,” can be found in JAMA, Journal of the American Medical Association, 278 (10):823-32, 1997.Sep 10. Our last blog shares the details of this study.
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If I knew then what I know now, I would have . . .
Trusted the cultural messages less and my intuition more … connection is key.
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With admiration for all you do,
Dr. Kathy
Kathy Masarie, MD
Pediatrician, Parent, and Life Coach
Author of Raising Our Daughters and Raising Our Sons
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