Mother and Daughter Bonding for Mother's Day

Parenting is always challenging and rewarding at the same time. As our children grow into their teen years, it gets even more challenging because bonding with them gets harder in terms of connecting and having quality time. Plus, our children are in a different generation where the challenges, pressures and experiences are different from those we had to live. All of this makes it a bit more difficult to have a good mother and daughter bonding on a regular basis.

The good news is that we can always find ways to bond with our teen daughter.  Below are a few tips that can help bridge that generation gap between your daughter and yourself. Moms Buzz believes this would a great Mother's Day gift from you to yourself!

Plan daily or weekly get-togethers. These could be anything from a weekly walk or hike, to having coffee or lunch together to signing up for volunteering activities to maximize the feel-good together factor. Pick activities you know you can both enjoy, and try to choose things that give you something to discuss or allow you to talk if you want to.

Ask what's going on in her life and yours. Remember that talking about what's going on with school, friends, and extracurriculars helps you feel more connected to her. Although you may feel you know what's going on, there is always something new or something you did not know about.  The same applies to you and your daily life.

Talk about your values. It can be awkward to discuss the tough stuff when it relates directly to you or her, but it's a lot easier to talk about general ideas, such as prejudice and discrimination, materialism, war, poverty, love, the environment, and countless other things happening in the world every day.

Don't get mad, stay even (even tempered, that is!). Of course there will be times when you guys don't agree. The key is to do it with respect. Instead of letting disagreements disintegrate into shouting matches, try to keep your cool and rationalize or make compromises. It's not always easy, but it's the best way to keep respect. If tempers do flare out of control, apologies in a loving and respectful way go to great lengths and results.

Although Mother's Day is still a couple of weeks away, you can start working now on your gift to yourself so that on Mother's Day, you can really feel the difference!

- The Moms Buzz

source: adapted from www.kidshealth.com

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