HOW TO MOTHER A SUCCESSFUL DAUGHTER

How To Mother A Successful Daughter

A Practical Guide for Empowering Girls From Birth to Eighteen.

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The popular media has revealed the alarming lack of resilience, optimism, and self-efficacy in most young girls, especially when they reach adolescence. Mothers are looking for the right tools to help their daughters develop attitudes and behaviors that will allow them to thrive. In How to Mother a Successful Daughter, Nicky Marone, international speaker, former educator, and author of How to Father a Successful Daughter, teaches women, whether corporate executives or homemakers, how to mentor their daughters and become positive role models. The girls, then, will become better prepared for the future, having learned the emotional and intellectual skills necessary to be economically and emotionally self-sufficient.

As a result of her research and workshops. Marone has developed a unique program that shows how to deal with many different real- life situations, including suggestions for mother/daughter projects and ways to combat sexist cultural messages in the media, at school, and at home. Mothers learn strategies for teaching girls "mastery oriented" skills for avoiding the internalization of failure, tolerating confusion and ambiguity, and developing alternative plans to reach a goal. How to Mother a Successful Daughter is filled with hands-on useable tips with age-appropriate advice for preschool, school-age, and teenage girls. This is an invaluable resource for parents who want their daughters to have the emotional and intellectual skills necessary to be self-sufficient, competent- and happy-adults.

Browsing Through How To Mother A Successful Daughter

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXCERPTS:

Your Daughter, the Amazon Warrior

FROM PAGE 5...First, the good news. Girls actually have a developmental advantage over boys:

they talk earlier, count earlier, read earlier, and get better grades in school. Prior to age

twelve, many girls are bold, even brazen, willing to challenge boys in a variety of

situations and not give a hang what the boys think. As one mother put it, "My daughter

Megan is a fourth grader. She goes around acting like an Amazon on a mission from

God. Honestly, sometimes I wish she'd tone it down a little."

Even if your daughter is not an Amazon-in-training, if she is under age twelve you

probably recognize some of the above qualities in her. Only the degree may be different.

In other words, most girls exhibit a certain style of behavior that is conducive to health

risk-taking and high achievement. Professional educators know enough about this style to

have given it a name--master-oriented behavior--a complex and interdependent set of skills

that you will read about throughout this book. Mastery-oriented behavior is the persistent

effort over time--not destiny, heredity, or luck--that produces desired outcomes. ...Also

known as self-efficacy or achievement-oriented behavior, it consists of specific attitudes,

behavior patterns, and responses. It is the critical factor in staying resilient in the face of

difficulty and confusion and is the behavior style exhibited by all successful adults.

...Accordingly, the purpose of this book is threefold: 1) to raise your awareness of

the connections between mastery behavior and achievement; 2) to train you in the

responses of master-oriented behavior; and 3) to show you how to reinforce types of

mastery behavior your daughter already exhibits and to teach her the ones she needs to

learn. Your ultimate goal is to maintain and increase the resiliency your daughter exhibits

in early childhood.

Is there a difference between mastery and self-esteem?

FROM PAGE 45...Over the last decade the discussion of self-esteem has become almost mantra like

in the literature on children, especially female children, and in some ways this concept is so

overused that it has become practically meaningless. It has come under increasing attack

by scholars, teachers, mental health practitioners, and educational psychologists.

...Self-esteem, according to Dr. Nathaniel Brandon in "Six Pillars of Self-Esteem," is

defined as "the feeling of being worthy, deserving, entitled to assert our needs and wants

and to enjoy the fruits of our efforts" and "confidence in our ability to think and cope with

the challenges of life." The difference between mastery and self-esteem is that self-esteem

is based on feelings and mastery is based on performance. A problem arises when the

definition of self-esteem, as used and understood by most people, blurs the distinction with

mastery--in other words, it blurs the distinction between the way one feels about oneself

and one's actual ability to perform in challenging situations.

FROM PAGE 46... On the one hand, we want our children to feel good about themselves in all

circumstances. This will help them to stay resilient and persistent during the periods when

they are not doing well and are at their most vulnerable. On the other hand, we don't

want to produce a generation of children who feel good about themselves but who have

no skills, can't perform according to high standards, give up easily and are only engaging

in bravado.

...The emphasis on self-esteem as a "feeling" causes confusion in some people, who

conclude that they should feel good all the time. Feeling good all the time is contrary to

the experience of life. The truth is, sometimes we feel good and sometimes we don't.

Feelings are unstable and capricious...which will become especially pertinent during

puberty when your daughter's feelings will not only change with lightning speed and a

mercurial whimsy, but will occasionally be quite negative. (More about handling emotions

during puberty below).

FROM PAGE 47...The real task of establishing self-esteem in a child must be based on something

much more profound, substantial and reliable (than mere feelings.) True self-esteem is the

realization and appreciation of one's intrinsic self-worth, regardless of how one may be

feeling or performing at any particular point in time. Therefore, to build true self-esteem

in our daughters we must help them learn that they have worth, dignity, value and merit

regardless of their level of performance, their appearance, their grades, their intelligence,

their personality, their popularity, or any other category we come up with. True self-

esteem must lie beyond the categories and measurements of a changing society. It is a

deeper, perhaps even a spiritual, issue. Because true self-esteem is an inner certainty of

self-worth and not subject to capricious emotion, fleeting thoughts, changing social values,

or unreliable success, it is a more authentic, more substantial asset upon which to draw.

ADD HERE THE STUFF ABOUT BEING A FRIEND TO YOUR DAUGHTER (ALMOST LIKE A LIST)

Learn about the contexts in which girls learn "helplessness"

and what to do about it...

FROM PAGE 48...Girls actually learn helplessness. It is not "normal for girls" or a "natural" part of

femininity. Here are some of the contexts in which it happens...

1. Personal: Personal experiences with confusion, setbacks, and failure can lead girls to

draw inaccurate conclusions about themselves if they are not taught to maintain the

coping attitudes and responses of mastery behavior.

2. Cultural: Collective cultural beliefs about the "nature" of females and femininity

determine how girls are raised. Also, a violent society that, to some extent, regards

females as prey, contributes to fear and learned helplessness.

3. Familial: Actions parents take or do not take will have consequences for either

mastery or helplessness.

Understanding Teenage Girls: The Peril of Puberty

FROM PAGE 216...Acquiring a feminine persona is a far more complicated matter than just coping with the new hormones coursing through one's body. With puberty, your daughter is preparing to enter, in a serious way, what Dr. Margaret Eisenhart calls the culture of romance. To understand the culture of romance, as well as the myths embedded in it, let's take a quick look at its historical roots.

...The model of modern romance actually began around the twelfth century with the notion of courtly love. This model required a knight to court the object of his affection by displaying tokens of his passion: songs; love poetry; carrying out her wishes by running errands, taking care of unpleasant chores, and rescuing her from dangerous situations; and bestowing gifts, both frivolous trinkets and expensive baubles. In turn, the lady was expected to play it coy for awhile in order to challenge her knight. Later she would encourage him by allowing him to become physically closer--holding hands, hugging, kissing, and eventually petting and intercourse. While increasing physical intimacy can be seen as the natural course of events, the implication that the male "buys" the favors of the female complicates the picture substantially.

In today's marketplace, your daughter will discover that she possesses sexual currency in the form of her physical attributes, sexiness, and femininity. She will be subjected to a deeply embedded myth within the culture of romance that this currency can buy her happiness. The myth goes something like this: An attractive female, without exerting much effort or working too hard, can acquire wealth, status, intimacy, and safety simply by attracting the attention and favor of a man, particularly the "right" man. If he is a wealthy or powerful man, like Prince Charming, she can be freed from the drudgery of working, of cooking and cleaning, and in a more generic way, of having to cope with the difficulties inherent in life.

Although this model has undergone modification over the centuries and has waxed and waned in popularity, for the most part, it remains intact. If you doubt this, I ask you to consider the following:

FROM PAGE 220...When women (from the Women & Girls Roundtables) shared their experiences in relationships with men and emphasized how important it was for the girls to stay economically self-sufficient, the girls reacted with such extreme resistance that the women were shocked.

"We have never had a cross word in our group until the subjects of romance, marriage, children, work and divorce came up," one woman reported. "The girls hung on our every word, as if pearls of wisdom were dropping from our mouths, until we got to the subject of marrying a financially secure husband, having babies, and living happily after."

"In our group there was no problem with the girls' level of aspiration," said another woman. "They wanted to be surgeons, architects, and attorneys. They believed they would reach their career goals before age thirty, then they would marry a great guy, have children and stay at home to raise them. When we tried to encourage them to consider staying employed "just in case" they became sort of hostile. When we brought up the divorce rate in this country, they went ballistic on us. They said,'You guys are just bitter because you have been divorced. Just because you made mistakes and poor choices doesn't mean we will!'"

FROM PAGE 221...Today many women long to stay home and raise their children, but for the majority that is simply not a dependable scenario upon which to base life choices. The truth is, staying home to raise one's children is a privilege, not a choice.

...To be honest, some of the mothers in my workshops who stay home and raise their children seem to a be a little shortsighted on this issue. Those who are fortunate enough to be taken care of by a loving spouse sometimes seem to forget that not all mothers are able to enjoy this status, that their daughters' futures may not be as certain as theirs, and that their status could change in a heartbeat. On occasion a mother will wonder aloud if I think stay-at-home motherhood is a viable option for girls. My answer is an ultimately practical one: It doesn't matter what I think. What matters is that many girls are mesmerized by the myth of romance, believe a man will take care of them, willingly limit their options, surrender their self-reliance, and thus become economically disadvantaged.

...We must train our girls to prepare themselves well and protect their economic self-sufficiency first and foremost. Then, if they are lucky enough to have the option to stay home with their children, they can exercise personal choice in the matter.

SELF-ESTEEM, EMOTIONS AND MASTERY BEHAVIOR

FROM PAGE 230...Learning to cope with fluctuating emotions will a challenge your daughter will face during puberty. While emotions can tell us a great deal about an individuals' beliefs, how she responds to outside stimuli, and what hormones or chemicals are currently present in her bloodstream, in the end they tell us very little about who she is.

Allow me to explain.

The most striking characteristic of emotions is that they are constantly shifting and changing from one minute to the next. In fact, the Latin root from which the word "emotion" evolved is "movere" which means "to move." Because emotions are constantly shifting, they are not reliable indicators of one's worth, abilities, talents, potential of self-esteem. They are poor instruments for decision-making and poor prognosticator of one's future.

All our emotions really tell us is how we are responding to our current circumstances and how consistent these circumstances are with our hopes, dream, and desires. For example, when the external world mates our internal desires--that is, when we make the grade, get selected for a good job or a prestigious position, receive recognition from our peers, acquire material things or attract the attention of a high-status guy--we usually feel good. When external reality does not match our internal desires, however--when we are rejected by a desirable person or overlooked for a good job, when we are criticized or forced to endure material deprivation--we feel bad. Feeling good and feeling bad, sometimes within minutes of each other, is a perfectly normal human response to the swirling, dancing, ever-changing landscape of external reality and internal desire.

...The problem is, how often in everyday life does external reality actually match internal desire? Deconstructing emotions by accepting that they are a result of the interplay between desire and reality--and not an indication of who we are, what we are, or what we can be--is cultivating mastery in the emotional realm.

...The component of mastery behavior you are seeking to develop in your daughter, then, is this capacity to see through emotions. To take what would, in an adult, be a fleeting emotion and invest it with meaning is fraught with danger. Thus, "I feel bad" becomes "I am bad." To continue the process of developing resilience that began in childhood, you must help your daughter understand that identifying herself with a passing negative emotion or a temporary situation is just another "story."

"Inspiring and uplifting"

-Marian M. Jones, book editor, Psychology Today

"How to Mother a Successful Daughter is a rich resource for both mothers and fathers. Packed with practical ideas, it is a fresh and smart approach to raising resilient, self-reliant daughters."

-Dr. Barbara Mackoff, author of Growing a Girl