I was asked to give three snippets of parenting advice for a 60 second video on dads and daughters this week. Initially this sounded easy but when I started to record the clip I realised distilling advice I’ve been given by experts on this subject into a trio of tips was more complicated than I’d thought because the dad/daughter relationship is particularly crucial in the teenage years for adolescent girls.
Psychologist Steve Biddulph, author of 10 Things Girls Need Most, told me that the No 1 factor that determines the level of confidence a woman carries into adult life is the relationship she has had with her father growing up, which made me ponder my relationship with my own dad (but that’s a whole different column!).
For many dads, step dads or male care givers it’s a learning curve of change and my husband’s interactions with our two eldest daughters evolved incredibly fast after they hit their teens. Apart from making him watch Fleabag ( a quest to modernise thinking) and all of Netflix’s Sex Education I also asked him to talk to our girls about their periods. This would ensure he knew what was going on and connect him to what they were experiencing as they grew up. I won’t lie, it was awkward at times witnessing him chatting about this when the subject arose but I do think it kept him engaged in their world. As a Generation X dad I knew he’d witnessed a different, probably less helpful, kind of conversation in his own childhood with three sisters. We also have a son and I wanted him to witness this dad/daughter connection too.
At the time I was lucky enough to be writing a column on parenting so I was also able to ask the experts for some guidance on the dad/daughter journey. This may prove helpful for you now as the summer sprawls on and parents are spending more time with their off spring. The three tips I settled on for my dad advice video for the US parenting Platform The Common Parent are these:
Learn to actively listen to your daughter: so don’t step in with anecdotes of what happened when you encountered a similar situation, don’t talk over her (Gen X men often interrupt women) and don’t belittle her fears (no matter how little they logically are to you as an adult). Just listen.
Don’t be a policeman or plumber; so don’t try to fix things for her, let her fail, let her attempt to fix things her self, show her that you trust her to sort it out.
Don’t mention her appearance: this is for mums too. Pay no attention to it and put value in other things, recognise her passions and her strengths whilst not putting pressure on her to succeed or achieve. When it comes to body image we all need to be mindful of our language around a teenagers’ appearance and really should give it no value (good or bad) at all. Hard but helpful if you can.
Those three feel the most important tips to me but you can also make sure that you know the difference between a vulva and a vagina, that you don’t show your shock about her ever changing body, that you never comment on what she does or doesn’t eat, that you are emotionally present for her, that you try not to raise your voice to her in temper or discipline, that you don’t ‘go for the halo’ - as I call it -and win brownie points by relaxing rules previously agreed with your female parenting partner.
And finally treat mum well. Your daughters’ first role model on how men treat women is how you treat her mum, your mum, your sister, your colleagues, your female friends, your daughter’s a sponge as her brain changes through her teenage years so it’s important she absorbs a positive template for male/female relationships.
I hope this is helpful as a general over view of normal family life. Ask any questions in the comments and I can put them to the experts.
“Mum what’s wrong with you? 101 things only the mothers of teenage girls know’ by Lorraine Candy buy here