Being a mother to a daughter when you have a difficult relationship with your own mother... how to do it??

[Emeraldgirl2]

I won't ramble on about my own mother but essentially she is (undiagnosed) a hysterical/narcissistic type, hugely judgmental and critical, strict to the point of cruelty, boundary-less in terms of her own emotions (rage, fury, impatience, her way or no way) and utterly unable to accept any emotions from her own children that were not just good behaviour (as if behaviour is an emotion!!) and bland, not-bothering-her cheeriness.

I am always anxious around her, always desperate to please (much much better after years of counselling but I still struggle at times) and she made it clear enough from birth onwards that there were terrible consequences for upsetting her.

I live in fear of ever doing any of this to my own daughter!!!

DD is almost 2 and is a very very high-maintenance toddler, she has absolutely epic meltdowns which I know for a fact my own mum just couldn't cope with/wouldn't tolerate, she once poured a bowl of cereal over my head when I was a toddler because she was tired of me getting upset at breakfast time so I know whereof I speak!! My approach with DD, therefore, is to give her ALL the understanding and emotional support she needs, her meltdowns are not (yet, at least) anything to do with 'naughtiness', they are just because she is tired, frustrated, a toddler with huge emotions she can't always handle. So I cuddle her, tell her it's all OK, that it's OK to be angry/upset/frustrated etc etc - who knows if it's helping but what I want is for her to feel, for now, that I am a sponge who can absorb her scary feelings so she doesn't need to be so overwhelmed by them, so that as she gets older and older she is capable of coping with negative feelings on her own.

But I still worry and worry that I am getting it all horribly wrong because obviously I do need to be firm at times - for example yday she was refusing to have her nap (terrible overtiredness so I knew it wasn't an option to agree) and I had to be quite firm, I wouldn't get her out of the cot though I did stay in the room with her, I told her very firmly that it was time for sleep and then, when she woke up later, I lavished her with praise for being so good and going to sleep in her cot.

I have been worrying, pathologically, ever since, that if I do this repeatedly she will somehow get the message that I only 'like' her when she is good and does what I want her to do.

I know it's meant to be a good idea to praise good behaviour (and ignore 'bad') but how do you get the balance right when you have no role model for it??? I never ever ever want my DD to feel as if mummy only likes her when she does what I want.

Admittedly my own problems with my mum go much deeper than just this worry - I was always made to feel, for example, that my mum's happiness was dependent on me and that I was responsible for it, which is too high a burden for a child to carry, she was probably clinically depressed I guess but that wasn't for me to cope with as a child.

Still, can anyone advise how to do this - manage those times when your child doesn't want to do something that you know they need to do, which lets face iit happen again and again and again - without slowly but surely giving them the impression they are only there to do what you want.

Sorry for rambling post ,I'm in a bit of a pickle this morning.

*The thing that makes me feel anxious about it is because, for example, my mum is always gleefully announcing how she 'never' had to get cross with her children (ha!) and never had to battle with us to do anything, 'you just did it!' in a sort of self-congratulatory way that SHE somehow managed to have really 'good' children (being 'good being the only thing that mattered to her) without really even having to try. So when my own DD is being strong-willed about something (not wanting a coat on, say) I do sometimes think, on some silly gut level, that I must be handling it all wrong because otherwise DD would just do everything happily and calmly and never make a fuss. That is the extent to whicih my mum's view of the world has got to me - I know, logically, that the only reason her children did everything neatly and quietly and tidily was because we were all scared of her, but I still have these sneaking worries that I am making a rod for my own back by not laying down the law a bit more with DD.

Don't know if that makes any sense?

The trouble is that my mum is very very good indeed at whitewashing history*

Yes it makes perfect sense, you could be writing about my mother. She's very good at whitewashing too. She apparently never had to tell me off. As if ... . I certainly don't remember it that way. I also think her parenting was appalling in many respects.

I have 2 children and I was worried about inheriting my mother's parenting habits. I think it definitely helped me to have recognised what I disliked about the way I was parented and to think about it.

I found my mother started making more comments about my parenting when my children were about 18 months, especially with dc2 who sounds very much like your DD. Strong willed and (public) tantrum prone so gave my mother plenty of opportunities to lecture me on how well she had us do everything by just asking unlike me who was a mess and couldn't get my child to 'obey' (her words). Because I had had dc1 who was very placid at the same age and I wasn't doing anything different, I realised my mother was probably talking nonsense and carried on without listening to her advice. But if dc2 had been my first child, I think I would have been very worried, like you seem to be now.

I also went on a parenting course. I got some tips but I don't think I learnt a huge amount in many ways, but it helped validate what I did as not completely wrong and I got to ask specific questions about what worried me. I found it very reassuring .

BubbleGirl: Jesus, I thought it was just me. That was my normal as well: fear as the ground state of childrearing. Like you, I needed treatment, mostly drugs and CBT.

DM didn't whitewash or justify though. It was what happened, and she apologised on her deathbed because judgement was coming.

I had an extremely difficult time with my mother and she was quite abusive, mostly emotional but also physical.

I had my daughter in my late teens after moving out and getting pregnant by the first good looking man that showed up. Needless to say, the relationship lasted ten minutes but bringing up my daughter has laid many old demons to rest. I let her have noisy parties, choose her own clothes, talked frankly about sex and drugs, and above all made certain that she knows I will always be there, no matter if she makes a mistake (and she has a couple of times). I wanted her to feel safe, and though there were many shaky moments when I wondered if I was doing ok, she is 18 now and has turned out great, kind and sensitive, and we have an excellent relationship.

It will be ok, because you have the power to make it ok.

Ps. I kept my mother at arms length after going nc for five years. My dad died and stuff improved after that, but I could not have had her closely involved.

On the nap thing... Instead of fighting with her then praising her for being a good girl and how happy you are that she took a nap, maybe you could 'doesn't it feel great now you have more energy, since you had some sleep? Now we can have more fun! It's horrible being tired and grumpy, isn't it. ' so rather than telling her that you are happy with her because she took a nap, you are showing her why she benefits from a nap and sympathising with how upset she was before. So the nap taking or not becomes her responsibility, and you are a kind of neutral bystander, happy to help her nap but not too wound up about whether it happens or not.

I woukd def recommend unconditional parenting. It totally opened my eyes to how much parents, including mine, used the good girl you make me happy / bad girl you make me angry or sad or disappointed thing to control their Childs behaviour. Kohn, IIRC, suggests standing back from that and being much more neutral about your child's behaviour. Not passive, but making it about how they feel about their behaviour and not about how you feel about their behaviour.

And naps at two is tricky. Personally, I wouldn't force a screaming two year old to sleep alone in a cot. I'd stick DS in the buggy and walk him to sleep most afternoons at that age, or cuddle down in bed with him and a book until he drifted off. So for me, my job was to give him opportunities to nap it it was his choice to take them or not.

I agree with the other posters btw, you sound very aware and keen to learn how to avoid repeating your mums behaviour, and that is a massive difference already.

justwondering, wow that is good advice, the book is already on its way to me via amazon so I am going to have a good read and hope to pick up some tips - instinctively that scenario you suggest re the nap makes great sense to me and in an ideal world i would SO much rather DD was slowly learning the way to behave/do things because SHE knows it is better rather than some sort of power struggle. It sounds hard to do all the time but I guess you can only do your best and hope for a majority of the time?

Naps aren't usually that difficult actually - at least not yet - I dread the gradual dropping of the nap as I work while she sleeps so it will be tough but she will be starting pre school in Sept so we will muddle through until then!

Thanks everyone again for posting, I am so so glad others feel the same as me and thanks hugely for the words of support, I just can't bear the thought of DD ever feeling about me the way I do about my own mother so any way I can take steps away from that style of parenting is all steps in the right direction.

My ds gave up his second nap at 1 and now doesn't nap at all now it's such a tricky age.