If you have raised a happy teenage girl…

[MoaningMel]

How do you think you managed it?

My DD is 9 and I’m so worried about the world she is entering: self-harm, eating disorders, gender issues, school pressure, social media, friends etc etc

How do you equip them to weather these challenges?

@Girliefriendlikespuppies

I have a 15yo dd who has an eating disorder and I really don't think there's anything I've done to cause it. Sometimes you can do your absolute best to encourage and support your kids but they'll still develop mental health issues.

I find this thread a bit upsetting tbh.

That’s sad about your DD, but you do realise that this thread hasn’t been created as an attempt to criticise you but to pass on general advice?

@Girliefriendlikespuppies

I have a 15yo dd who has an eating disorder and I really don't think there's anything I've done to cause it. Sometimes you can do your absolute best to encourage and support your kids but they'll still develop mental health issues.

I find this thread a bit upsetting tbh.

I'm sorry and do you know I was thinking about mums like you when I wrote my post and I felt a bit sick with myself. Of course you did nothing to cause it. One of my dds had terrible anxiety and we and the school suspected an ED, she is a lot better now but she's the one I worry about. I hope your dd improves soon

I strongly believe that a lot of it is down to personality.

My 16yo is very happy and has sailed through the teen years thus far. Excelling at school and in her PT job. Tons of lovely friends. Hobbies that she loves. Bags of confidence, excellent mental health etc. And frankly a joy to be around.

I think a lot of it is luck tbh. She is certainly loved and valued, but so are some of her less stable friends. I have always treated her with respect, I don't do the whole I'm the parent so I'm in charge thing. We have a very close relationship, which definitely helps, but again, I think it's partly just luck that we happen to get on. I do think it helps that I'm pretty easy going and don't fuss about minutiae. I recognise that she is growing up, I give her a reasonable amount of freedom while ensuring that she is safe, I don't impose pointless rules for no good reason. She sees me as reasonable and supportive, whereas some of her friends perceive their parents as controlling and interfering. It's easy for me not to interfere though, because she's very sensible and I trust her.

I think it's important that we talk a lot - I listen a lot because I am genuinely interested, I love hearing about her friends, her teachers, her job and just her opinions. She is great company and she knows that I enjoy spending time with her. She also knows that I won't judge stuff, that I won't be dismissive about stuff and that I'm here to help if she needs it.

I think her hobbies have helped her a lot - drama which has helped to build her confidence and dance which boosts her because of the exercise. Having friends outside of school is also good.

I don't think social media is a major problem. It's more a symptom of problems than a cause imo. I did hold off on letting her have access to stuff too soon, but I also let her persuade me to let Instagram when I couldn't really find fault with her argument. I will take her opinions on board with these things, never do the "no, because I said so" thing. So she feels that her opinions count and that she has a say in the decisions that affect her, while understanding that there may be things that we say no to in order to keep her safe.

I don't think there are any magic formulas. Some kids just have an easier time than others. I think a lot of it boils down to confidence and self-esteem, which is developed when they are much younger, but I think a lot of it is down to innate temperament as well.

@baldafrique

Agree completely that girls will learn from how their father treats them and how their father treats their mother....huge influences on later relationships

I said this in my post and I don't think it has been emphasised enough on this thread. It is not all about the mother. For girls, their first experience of a relationship with a man is with their father- it is literally life defining.

Whilst sport is ace for the sporty, it's torture for those who don't enjoy it or are crap at it.

Fortunately, there is reading, art, music, baking, pilates, x-boxing with friends - a whole pile of other things that can make them happy but doesn't involve running around with a ball or getting wet.

@Girliefriendlikespuppies

I have a 15yo dd who has an eating disorder and I really don't think there's anything I've done to cause it. Sometimes you can do your absolute best to encourage and support your kids but they'll still develop mental health issues.

I find this thread a bit upsetting tbh.

But it's not about you. It's about people sharing information about how they personally have dealt with the teenage years with their daughters.

Girliefriend I think a lot of parents think they are doing well but their teens don't agree.

As a parent of a 15 year old with an eating disorder I'd say it doesn't matter what you do if it's going to happen it'll happen. I work in mental health and see patients like my daughter every day and never once imagined it would happen to any of my children but unfortunately it did. One thing I have learnt from my job is sometimes it's doesn't matter how good or bad your childhood is mental health issues don't discriminate and can happen to anyone. The saddest part for me is the statistics around eating disorders, the figures in children are rising rapidly and they are becoming younger and younger. My daughter is athletic and a member of various clubs, had top grades in her recent exams and has many friends yet she still succumbed to it.

I’d totally agree about sports and SM. Also I’d try to start them off from the tween years with some achievable but grown up wins- to give them a sense of control where the outcome can be predicted. Can be as simple as asking them to make something by following a recipe.

@Girliefriendlikespuppies

I have a 15yo dd who has an eating disorder and I really don't think there's anything I've done to cause it. Sometimes you can do your absolute best to encourage and support your kids but they'll still develop mental health issues.

I find this thread a bit upsetting tbh.

I have two girls 20 and 18. One has had all sorts of MH issues, self harmed, had eating disorders, required a raft of meds to just help her survive.

Her sister has not had any of these issues.

I agree that we can only control so much of how our children turn out. Some of them are going to struggle no matter how well we parent them.

It's still worth doing our best as parents, and I'm sure you have done. Just sometimes it doesn't make the necessary difference.

Sympathy to you - it sounds very tough.

Great to hear from people who have come out of the other side, sport is going to move up my list of priorities.

What sports did your girls manage to keep up?

We are only doing swimming and running, both solitary. I'm struggling to get her to do anything else. She hated football, dance and gym and school hasn't started netball and hockey yet. All her activities are solitary which is a concern.

Any ideas of what else we could try?

DD is 17. An only child.
She’s joining the Navy next year.
She has never caused any ‘issues’. An almost perfect child/teen really.
How? Luck.
However, I also suspect that my DMIL (ex headmistress) who DD spent a lot of time with (still does) has been a huge positive role model.
We also have our Church family, actually DD goes more than us and is very involved with the youth group at Church and helps out at a foodbank too.
I think having some social responsibilities (for want of another expression) really helps (some) kids.
I

Haven't got time to read all of these right now but watching intently and I shall be back later to take notes!!
I'm due my first child (DD1) next month, and I'm absolutely petrified of the world she might be facing when she is a teenager. I want her to be self-assured, confident, comfortable. Everything I haven't always been.
Thank you so much for asking this question. I'm sure I will learn a lot!!

@noshiforever

What sports did your girls manage to keep up?

We are only doing swimming and running, both solitary. I'm struggling to get her to do anything else. She hated football, dance and gym and school hasn't started netball and hockey yet. All her activities are solitary which is a concern.

Any ideas of what else we could try?

Mine got into watersports, which we did as a family as well as the sessions for youngsters at the local sailing club. Great for physical as well as mental resilience, I think. But fun messing about in boats (and on boards) without having to be competitive.

I have a happy teen DD. She's 13, will be 14 in a couple of months.

I do think that a lot of it is luck.

But here are my thoughts, for what it's worth. I'm a happy positive person myself, and a feminist. I have a strong relationship with DH (her dad) so she sees us treat each other with love and respect. I tell her I love her a lot. She knows I'm "on her side" and will do anything for her - I don't mean spoiling her with material things, but supporting her emotionally. Things like giving her lifts whenever she wants, having her friends over, being there for her when she wants to talk. If she's having friendship issues I try to listen and support rather than interfere. She plays a lot of team sport (mainly netball) - I wouldn't have thought of that particularly, but as so many others have mentioned it perhaps it is relevant. She gets a decent amount of sleep - I think this is really important for teens. We value academic achievement and I think it's more important for her to be doing her homework than helping with the washing up. Unlike others on this thread, I'm not particularly strict with social media. Perhaps I've just been lucky with that one.

@Girliefriendlikespuppies

I have a 15yo dd who has an eating disorder and I really don't think there's anything I've done to cause it. Sometimes you can do your absolute best to encourage and support your kids but they'll still develop mental health issues.

I find this thread a bit upsetting tbh.

I was going to make a similar point.

There's no magic formula, you can do all the right things and your dc still develop a problem of some sort. Don't beat yourself up.

Both my dc have anxiety in one form or another but we deal with it together. I'm confident that the stability and support in their lives has enabled them to manage it in the best way possible for them. They both have great groups of friends, are achieving well at school and don't have any anti social behaviour type of problems.

@Girliefriendlikespuppies - I'm sure you can say the same. It's not about the cards you're dealt it's how well you play them.

@Girliefriendlikespuppies I'm sorry, this must be a hard thread to read. I tried to make it really clear in my post that I don't think it's a simple case of good parenting = happy teen. It isn't. I know teens who are struggling from enormously kind and supportive and mindful families, and teens who are thriving despite more difficult backgrounds.
But I think the intention of the original OP was to ask people for advice about what people think works. I found it helpful to stop and consider the things that are going well for my daughter/our family and the things that are not going so well.
Please don't take any of the comments on this thread to heart as criticism of you. You have enough to cope with.

@PastMyBestBeforeDate I do wonder about that too! I know the picture my parents would have painted of our life during my teens was quite different to the one I would have (obviously both valid). And my mum thought I 'told her everything' because I made a conscious choice to give her that impression so that when I chose to hide something she wouldn't know about it. (Not that there was anything so terrible, I just wanted to create that space for myself.)

@noshiforever

What sports did your girls manage to keep up?

We are only doing swimming and running, both solitary. I'm struggling to get her to do anything else. She hated football, dance and gym and school hasn't started netball and hockey yet. All her activities are solitary which is a concern.

Any ideas of what else we could try?

Riding has been the main one here. Dd2 and DD3 spend as much time as they can at the stables. Dd1 was never that interested and she is the one who has MH issues. No idea if there is a link or if it simply personality.

A lot of it is just personality.

However, one thing I’ve always done is spent time on whatever game or social media is popular with kids at that time. If I don’t know how it works then I don’t want my kids using it and even if I was to ban things from their phones they’ll still see/use it with friends or at school. It’s been boring as sin at times, but it’s been a massive help.

I was also always strict with phones at night. At bedtime phones charge in the hall. Even mine. I firmly believe that one of the problems with kids today is that there’s no escape. If there are niggles in their social group at school then they don’t get away from that at night anymore. They didn’t always like that rule, but the three teens now (I have six - three at Uni and three younger) say they really agree with it. In fact the least confident of the three was still using the “urgh my mum is a pain, I have to leave my phone to charge. Dragon. Night” thing to escape late night Snapchat/tiktoks until she went to Uni!

I was super strict but also very fair and realistic. We also had a “fuck up amnesty” where if one of the kids came to us having broken a rule or fucked up then they could do so without fear of massively getting in trouble. Usually it was small things, and there was sometimes an element of amusement from the kids that they’d sneaked something past us, but it came into its own once when one of them did something dangerous and risky that we could prevent happening again. It also meant they could talk to us about anything.

I think showing them realistic relationships and what is acceptable helped. For my girls especially. Their Dad is a prick and whilst I never ever openly slated him with me starting it I never defended him and when he let them down they knew that I was annoyed on their behalf.
With DH they’ve learned that marriages aren’t perfect. Couples argue and disagree sometimes, but it’s respectful and there’s a way of doing it. That everyone in a house chips in and, to their teen disgust, adults who love each other hug and kiss sometimes.

A lot is luck because other people, especially their peer group, have such a massive impact.

Horse riding here too. Dd2 gave up a lot earlier than the others and is the most anxious.

@Girliefriendlikespuppies similar.
I had a happy teen until about the age of 17/18 when an ED hit. I would completely echo all the stuff people have advised, and think we did many of those things (quite naturally).
So to add to the list, and answer OP's question I would give this advice: don't be complacent. Your happy, well adjusted, high achieving daughter might still fall victim to something that will make her v unhappy indeed. We missed DD's ED for several years because it's gestation coincided with her leaving for university. Seems almost incredible that we could have done, but we did. And I think complacency was a big factor. We assumed we'd done all the right things and raised this perfectly happy in her own skin daughter. But we hadn't. Perhaps catching it sooner would have made no difference; we'll never know
She's 23 now and coming out of it slowly, having gotten through uni and is 'succeeding' in life. I'd just like her to be happier.
Sorry to be a downer. But I think I've added to the canon of advice, which is what was wanted

Talk, go for walks together, watch TV together sometimes, get to know their friends. Be open and kind.

Encourage them to participate in life out of social media and not live their lives through others on social media.

My teen girls currently think social media is their life. They have restrictions on it, especially as I have had to involve the police on one occasion. From which a lesson was not learnt at all and so the restrictions remain in place.

I am still in the thick of it with them and can see it getting worse before better.

I do encourage them to have a weekly sporting club which they do.

I also insist on non school days they get fresh air and exercise for about a minimum of an hour unless the weather is dire. They are hyper manic otherwise. Asd related.

Encourage them to do their best at school no matter what their grades are. The important thing is they try at the level they are at.

Take each day as it comes and try not to overthink.