AskHal

My problem is my daughter, 16, who I don't understand at all. Her behaviour a year ago was extreme: smoking, staying out all night (even climbing out of the window) & refusing to let me know where she was or who she was with, secrecy, extreme disrespect and rudeness and so on. Things have improved a bit, but I'm still very concerned that she's out late at night, mostly with people I don't know and especially older lads. She's on the pill and carries condoms in her purse, so I suppose I should be thankful that she's being responsible in a way, but this isn't the example I've set for the past 15 years and I don't know how to communicate with her. I'd really like us to have a better relationship but don't know where to begin.

Well, it's always great to hear from the UK! I guess it's comforting, in a way, to know that we Americans don't hold the copyright on challenges with teenagers.

First of all, God bless you and all single mums out there struggling mightily to make their own way in this world, and create a better world for their children. I just recently spent 3 nights as a single dad (my wife went out of town for work), and it was, as always, a learning experience. What always strikes me the most is the fatigue! It’s not really as much physical as it is mental fatigue, trying to match up schedules and figure out how best to get it all done.

And that’s what I hear in your question: mental fatigue. You’re right, you’ve been through some rocky territory with your two sons and it seems that you feel pretty good about where everyone stands on the other side. Good for you. Take pride in yourself for “working hard to stay consistent” and having a vision for seeing through the difficult “launching” period. But now you’re gearing up for another launching off, and it seems as if this last one, your only little girl, may be the toughest flight training yet.

What may be comforting to know is how common it is to struggle with the last one. For any family, the last child’s launching process into adulthood is often the most difficult because of the finality it represents. After this, when all three are flying on their own, things will never be the same. Daily routines will be transformed to visiting rituals; “family” will take on different meanings as spouses replace Mum as the most significant other; even the “home” will never again be.

And that last bit is usually the most shocking, especially to the parents. I don’t know if you even noticed it in your question, but after you mentioned your eldest moving closer to his dad’s, you still found it important to mention that “he still comes home on the weekends.” Whenever I hear that, my first question is what home. Most 22-year-olds are in a weird place of transition, often searching for a “home”. Your son has three to choose from. Now neither you nor he may see it that way, thinking your home will always be home, but he, or his wife, someday will think otherwise.

And that’s the case with all three. They are all three in different stages of moving from one home to another. It just so happens that when the third begins to fly, a fourth joins in this new quest—you. Everything changes for you at that point. And you may be counting down the days you’re so excited, or you may be dreading it with everything you have, wondering what your identity will be when “single mum of three teenagers” doesn’t seem to fit.

But now, you’re wondering what this has to do with your daughter’s behavior right now? Everything. You seem fatigued trying to figure her out, stating that you don’t understand her at all. And she is working very hard to defy your efforts to do so. What you’re engaged in with her is a classic battle over space and place. She knows she developing feathers under her arms and she wants to start using them. You know she’s not ready, which means you’re not ready, for her to start this launching process. There is so much anxiety in this relationship that you’re left trying to rein her in when it’s your job during these years to help her learn to fly on her own!

That’s the critical misunderstanding we make with our teenagers—we let our anxiety over their growing up lead us to thinking it’s our job to constantly rein them in, enforcing the self-restraint they don't have in order to mature. Then it becomes their job to pry themselves away from us, with newfound battles for privacy, time away, money, etc. And the harder they have to pry, the more they end up going to extremes that are actually self-destructive. The irony of it all is that whenever they go self-destructive in an effort to prove their independence, they usually end up more dependent than before! (pregnancy, drug addiction, legal troubles, unemployment, etc.)

So, the natural anxiety of the launching process, especially with the last one, leads you both into reactive patterns that actually create the very outcomes you were hoping to avoid. You end up first with a daughter who wants none of your influence, and she ends up making a bad choice that forces her under your control. That’s where this is headed.

But it doesn’t have to.

You have already stated the magic words that can lead you out of this destructive pattern: “I'd really like us to have a better relationship but don't know where to begin.” You didn’t talk about your need for your daughter to just start obeying. You didn’t “woe is me,” seeking pity to abdicate your responsibilities going forward. You spoke about yourself, and your sincere desire to have a better relationship with your daughter. And what’s most wonderful about that is it means you realize that while your daughter’s on her way out of your home in search of her own, the mother-daughter relationship can become more precious, more valuable, and more influential than ever before.

The first step for you sounds like a sincere apology. Sounds like life is challenging you to apologize for your efforts to control, hold back, or even smother your daughter, all under the guise of a mother’s protection. She doesn’t need your protection as much as she needs your encouragement to truly begin to fly--not in dangerous ways like staying out way too late with boys way too old for her, but in truly freeing ways like employment and her own money. Don’t try to restrict her privacy, encourage her to value her privacy by giving up your need to know why, or how she feels and acts. Don’t try to restrict her freedom, search for new areas of her life that she can to take responsibility for (homework, university applications, job searches).

Nothing like this changes overnight, but you can. You can communicate that you will no longer let your fearful anxiety drive your interactions with her. You can let her know that you know that she has a life of her own. That means you can't "make" her come in at curfew, you can only expose and enforce the consequences of that choice. But then you can blow her away by admitting you need some help; ask her to think about how best you can help her as she begins this launching process.

And then, most of all, you begin your own launching process. Rather than face your daughter’s launching as the beginning of the end of your motherhood identity, embrace it as your new journey as well. So many times kids will stay stuck at home out of an unconscious protection of dear old mom. I know it sounds too fantastic, but I’m guessing that somewhere inside your daughter is a worry for Mum’s future as strong as your worry for hers. You can go a long way to calming that worry of hers by first learning to calm this worry of yours. And then go apologize. The relationship you crave with your daughter is waiting for you.

Take care,

Hal