Mum-Daughter Communication | Why She Shuts Down & How To Reconnect - Teen Whisperer

You know that moment when you try to say something helpful or anything actually to your daughter, and she immediately tells you that you're being controlling, or that you don't care, or that you just don't get it, you just don't understand, and you're left there thinking, but I'm trying to help you, or I haven't even said a word, and round and round and round you go. Because the more you try to explain yourself, the more she shuts you down, and eventually you're left thinking, I literally can't say anything to her anymore.

But what if, what if she's trying to tell you something? That's what I want to talk to you about today. So hi yeah, and welcome back to this podcast, The Teen Whisperer, the podcast for mums of girls, whether tweens, teens, or young adults, to understand what the frigity frig is going on behind the behaviour. I'm Rachel Shreadley, your host for this, and a fellow mum who's been there where you're standing right now. So, this podcast we connect all the dots because behaviour is never just about one thing, and you'll hear me say that again and again and again.

So every week we're gonna slow things down together. We'll look at what you're seeing, what you're thinking about what you're seeing, what you're then making your thinking mean, how that's then making you feel, and what you're doing as a result of how you're feeling. Then and only then are we gonna zoom out and ask a different question. What's happening for her? So, what's going on for her? Because when we stop asking what's wrong with her and start asking, asking, asking what's happening for her, everything changes and it begins to make a little more sense, and you'll get it.

So, my hope is that every time you listen to one of my podcasts, you'll leave feeling a little more seen, a little more understood, and a lot less alone. And I seem to got my murds in a waddle today. Anyway, so let's connect the dots. So I hear this line so many times from the mums I speak to. I can't say anything without my head being bitten off. Everything I say is controlling. She tells me I don't understand. And honestly, I get it. As I say, I've been there. Because you're not standing there trying to make her life difficult, you're trying to help.

You're trying to understand what's going on for her. You're trying to stop her making choices that you can already see may not end well. Because yeah, we've all been there, haven't we? We've all been teen girls at some point in our lives. You're trying to protect her, and sometimes you're probably thinking, but I have been your age, I do understand. So when she tells you that you don't understand, it's really hard not to defend yourself because we take it personally as mums. But one of my biggest bits of advice, words to tell you, don't take her behaviour personally.

She's not kicking off at you, she's kicking off at the situation she finds herself in. You just happen to be standing in front of her. You also want her to know you care. You want her to know that you're listening, you want her to know that you're on her side, and yet somehow the conversation ends with both of you feeling like the other person just doesn't get it. And this is where I want you to pause just for a moment. Because sometimes, without realizing it, as mums, we go straight into fix it mode because we don't like seeing our daughters upset, we don't like to see them struggle, so we try to help read that as fixed.

She tells you something is wrong, you immediately start thinking about what you can say, what you can suggest, what she should do, what might make it better. But whilst you're doing that, she's trying to get you to understand what it feels like to be her. You're trying to solve the problem. She's trying to tell you about what's going on, the problem, and those are two completely different conversations going on at the same time. So take something really simple. Maybe she doesn't want to go somewhere, and you can see that she's been spending way too much time in her room.

She's cancelling things, she's not seeing her friends as much, she's feeling alienated, she's isolated in her room, and you're worried. So you might say something like, Come on, you'll enjoy it when you get there. Or you keep cancelling everything. Or you need to get yourself out of your room. And she just says, You just don't understand. And your immediate reaction is, Yes, I do. But do you? Not in a judgmental way, not because you're a bad mum, but because you only know what you see. You don't necessarily know what's happened at school, college, work, university for her that day.

You don't know what conversation she had in a day that's replaying on a loop, constant loop, round and round in her head. You don't know whether she slept last night. You don't know whether she's eaten properly during the day. You don't know if she's living it in fight or flight, whether she's living kind of that panic zone where she's only breathing from the tops of her lungs. You don't know whether she's had been on her screen all day and she's not had enough downtime. You don't know if something has happened with a friend that could be inverted, commas or not.

You don't know whether she's worried about something that's coming up for her that she hasn't told you about. You don't know whether she's reached the end of her capacity. There can be so many dots behind that behaviour that you see, and that's why I keep saying behavior is never just about one thing, as we keep being told again and again, because it's not. We can't always see the whole picture. We see the bit that's happening right in front of us, we see the end, we don't see what's happened before, and then we make a story around it.

So she's avoiding things, she's shutting me out, she's shutting her friends out, she's being difficult, she's being becoming antisocial, she's just not listening to me. And then we start making that something bigger. She's getting worse. I'm losing her. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. This is going to be a problem. How's she going to cope in the future? Dot dot dot dot dot. And once we've made it mean something, of course we're going to react to it because that is natural. We're worried, we're frustrated, we're scared, and from that place we push harder, we ask more questions because we want to know.

We want to help her.

We give more advice, we try to get her to see what we can see, and she feels even more misunderstood. So she pushes back and again and again and again, and you go on that eternal loop, one of you pushing against the other, it ending in massive meltdowns, ending in massive kickoffs, screaming, shouting, slamming, barricading you out or inside your house, her slamming her door, locking her door, you feeling absolutely shite, her feeling shite, and you're both either side of a locked door. So let's explore what's actually happening here.

Because it's not just about her, it's about the little loop that you can get caught into. What you see affects what you think. What you think affects what you make it mean, which then affects how you feel. And how you feel affects what you do next. But none of this means you're doing anything wrong. It means you care. You want to help. You're her mum. You want to protect her. You brought her into the world, and even if you didn't, you still have that innate intense feelings connected to your girl.

You want to know what to do, and uncertainty is so friggin' hard when it's your daughter we're talking about here. Because if you could just understand what was going on, or this is what you're thinking, perhaps you'd know what to do. But here's the thing: you don't actually have to know what's going on, you don't have to work out the exact reason she's behaving the way she is, you don't have to diagnose it, and you definitely do not have to fix it. You just need to become curious enough to stop and think, what else could be going on here?

Is this about me or is this about her? That's it. Not what's wrong with her, not why is she doing this to me? Just what else could be going on here? Because that one little question creates a little bit of space. Space between what you're seeing and what you're making it mean, and it gives you somewhere to go. So the next time she says, you just don't understand, instead of immediately saying, Yes, I do, try, you're right. I don't understand yet. That little word is so important. Help me understand.

What do you need? And then listen. Listen properly. Not whilst on the screen, not whilst thinking of how to help her, just listen.

And here's the important bit. Understanding does not mean agreeing. You can understand why she feels something and still have a boundary. You can understand her point of view and still say no. You can understand that she's struggling and still expect certain things from her. Understanding simply means you're willing to get curious before deciding what you think you already know. And sometimes that's all she needs from you. Not another solution, not another lecture, not another explanation of why you're right.

Just the feeling that for a minute you're actually trying to see the world from where she's standing. And that is gold dust. And possibly the bit we've been missing. Because when she says you don't understand, she's not meaning you don't care. She's actually saying, please stop telling me what you think is happening, and let me show you what it feels like from here. Just to say, you do not have to get this right. You don't have to understand everything she is feeling. And you definitely don't have to agree with everything she wants.

You just have to get curious. Because behaviour is never just about one thing, and neither is your girl. And if you're listening to this episode thinking, right, I can see the dots, Rach. But honestly, I need somewhere to actually work this stuff out. I cannot do it on my own. This is exactly why I created WTF. It actually means what's the feeling. But as you know, as mums of girls, there are lots of those other WTF moments, aren't there? Because this isn't become about becoming the perfect mum who always knows what to say.

That is a myth. It's about becoming the mum who can pause. It's a place where you can talk about the stuff that's actually going on for you, be around other mums who get it, because that is brilliant. To connect the dots, look beyond the behaviour at the bigger picture, and start making sense of what might actually be underneath it without feeling like you need to know all the answers or jump to a conclusion. Any conclusion. It's a place where you can call, pause, and say, Ah, now I get it. It's a place where you feel more confident in what you're seeing, less alone when you don't know what to do, and more connected to your daughter because you're learning to understand what's underneath the behaviour.

This is what we do inside WTF. We figure it out together. There's live course, online community, regular mums and daughter walks if you're local, and activities to do with your daughter. Because sometimes you don't need another parenting programme. You just need other mums who get it.

You also need a place to breathe, to figure things out, to feel understood, and to remember that you're not the only one thinking W2F is going on with my daughter. If that sounds like something you need, come and join us. The link is in the show notes. And remember, behaviour is never just about one thing. Take care, bye bye.

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