07/14/2020
Having a daughter has been one of the most joy filled experiences in my life. There is no doubt that a mother-daughter bond is special, but as a Mom, there is great responsibility that comes from the relationship with your daughter.
If you have more than one child, you know that each child has needs that are expressed and met in different ways, and beyond that, needs from a mother and father are also different. I always hear emphasis on the father-daughter relationship, which I believe is such a critical relationship for a young girl, but I donโt as often hear about the importance of a mother-daughter relationship.
โญ๏ธโญ๏ธโญ๏ธ 8 Things a Girl Needs From Her Mom โญ๏ธโญ๏ธโญ๏ธ
๐ต1. She needs you to believe in her.
Being one of your daughterโs biggest fanโs is a great way to instill confidence. Especially when our daughters are young, it is important for them to feel like they can conquer the world. If your daughter doesnโt feel like you believe in her, itโs likely she wonโt believe in herself.
The earlier you can instill belief in your daughter and make her know without a doubt that you have confidence in her, the sooner she will learn to believe in herself.
๐ต2. She needs you to model self-awareness and self-care.
Modeling good self-awareness and self-care is important because it will teach your daughter to be healthier mentally and emotionally. A way to model self-awareness is to acknowledge your emotions. Itโs likely your daughter already picks up on your emotions, especially the negative ones.
Verbalizing your emotions and the reasons for them can be very helpful. You can say โIโm really stressed today because I have A and B to get done and havenโt finished either yetโ or โIโm feeling sad today becauseโฆ.โ Your daughter needs to know how to express her emotions in a healthy way and identify why she is feeling the way she does.
๐ต3. She needs you to show her how to respect herself and be confident.
You may not notice but your daughter watches you a lot and will pick up on how you act, how you treat others, and how you treat yourself.
Your daughter needs to see what it looks like for a woman to value herself, respect herself, and be confident. If you do these things, she will notice!
๐ต4 She needs you to validate that her worth comes from within; not performance, appearance, or successes.
Growing up nowadays is brutal. Girls are mean and social media opens a whole new world of false appearances, expectations, bullying, and standards that will never be met. Your daughter needs to know that you are proud of her, think sheโs beautiful, and that your love is truly unconditional.
Just as us moms have; our daughters will make plenty of mistakes throughout their childhood. Itโs important to extend grace to our daughters and teach them no matter how many or how big of mistakes they make they are still worthy of love and forgiveness.
๐ต5. She needs you to spend time with her.
Time is so valuable. Take your daughter on mother-daughter dates. Pursue her heart. Ask her questions. Listen and let her know you hear her. Spend time teaching her life skills like cooking, sewing, cleaning, laundry, etcโฆ these things can turn in to quality time rather than chores and can be a great outlet for deeper bonding.
Build traditions with your daughter that are both specific to you and her, and also with your family. Traditions are great ways create memories and celebrate things you value (like your daughter!!).
๐ต6. She needs you to give her space to make mistakes and learn for herself.
This may be one of the most challenging ones. I donโt know any mother that likes to watch their child walk down a dangerous road with obvious mistakes or heart ache ahead. But the reality is that we canโt control our daughterโs lives and we canโt prevent them from making mistakes, nor should we.
Our daughterโs need to learn to make good choices and live a responsible life, but they wonโt learn that without messing up.
The best thing we can do is be there to support them through all the ups and downs. Our daughters need to know they wonโt be perfect, that they will make mistakes for the rest of their lives, and that they can overcome those mistakes, learn from them, and be better because of them.
๐ต7. She needs you to speak truth about yourself and teach her to do the same.
Negative self-talk can be so destructive to young girls. As a counselor for teenagers, I see far too many girls that allow negative self-talk to define them and impact harmful decisions they make.
Whenever your daughter says something negative about herself, make her say three positive things about herself. This helps transition her thinking and helps you to reinforce the importance of positive self-talk.
As moms, we need to model positive self-talk and not put ourselves down, especially in front of our daughters.
If we say things like โI look fat in thisโ or โI feel uglyโ or โnobody likes meโ we are teaching our daughters that this is okay and itโs not!! Whenever my daughter says something positive about herself, I try to praise it by agreeing and acknowledging the power of saying positive things about herself.
๐ต8. She needs you to give her permission to disagree and say โNoโ
This is different than allowing them to disobey or be disrespectful. If we are teaching our daughters to care about themselves they need to learn to say โNoโ and know that their โNoโ matters and should be respected. You can see my post about letting kids say โNoโ here.
Our daughterโs need to learn to say no as a means to stand up for themselves, set boundaries, and develop skills for self-protection.
If she doesnโt feel like her no is ever respected by her parents, she wonโt have confidence to say no outside of the home. Daughterโs need to develop their independence and the worst thing we can do is not give them that freedom. Your daughter needs to learn to take responsibility for her self-protection.
To Conclude ๐ต๐ต๐ต๐ต๐ต๐ต๐ต
Raising daughters is a privilege and great responsibility. As Momโs we have such a great opportunity to influence our daughters in positive ways and teach them to be confident, respect themselves, set boundaries, and be healthy. We need to exemplify these things, and show our daughters grace as they learn.
The time you invest in your daughterโs life wonโt be wasted. Even on the hard days it is worth continuing to pursue her heart and love her well.
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Source: https://hopeinaffliction.com
