Raising my daughter to stand up for herself. Looking for some suggestions. - Al-Anon Family Group

danielle0516 · Senior Member

Raising my daughter to stand up for herself. Looking for some suggestions.

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

oh dear. My memory of childhood is very clear Danielle. You sound like my Mother, supportive and not critical.

My aunt however was so mean in a passive/aggressive way, he husband, I believe was mean to her, always did that horrible dutch rub on our heads that hurt! He thought he was funny.

My Mother never put anyone down. But she would say, I don't like to be asked why wasn't I in church? She stopped going becuz the mean aunt would ask her stuff.

I hated staying at my aunts house. I remember sleeping at their house, feeling scared, alone, it was not a nice atmosphere. I had a favorite toy this rubber bear that had a squeaker you could blow in, in his foot. I was blowing in it in the dark, Aunt came rushing in, yanked it from me hard. did not say a word. I was around 3 or 4!

she could have said, you silly girl, how can you sleep squeaking your bear? Ok time to put him next to you quiet so he can sleep to.

My Mother would say,Aunt M is just different. She is like some people who don't understand kids are people too.

She would not put them down but explain in a not hurtful way.

Danielle some people,most people sadly do not get how very precious and special kids are., There is NO reason to ever be mean to them or hurt their hearts. We are here to guide them.

I agree, we cannot change anyone else, it sounds like your dear mother was not supported either!

If you choose to, maybe share with mom and sis how smart and sensitive daughter is, that when they see her, maybe ask, has niece had a turn honey? ez.

You are doing great to teach your kiddo this. She will have to face many people in her life that are turkeys. Honey I used to cry when someone said something mean to me ever as an adult. But when I had my kiddos, momma bear came out.

Yucky neighbor yelled at my kids when they were 4 and 5. I heard her yelling, went over and she was horrible to me and pushed me off her porch!

I went home, cried called my Mother. Then the kidsitold me she called them nigger lovers! RRRR I met lots of great all colors of people when I went back to college they came over to goof around or let our kids play.

OH MAN wrong thing to sat to my babies! We are strong advocates supporting loving everyone. I called the police and we all had a stern talk with this horrid woman.

She never bothered us again.BUT she put poop under peoples car door handles, cut my garden down, put crackers under my tires, put nails under them.

So my kids learned to consider the source and to trust their intuitions. When they told me their teacher said this or that I believed them and they learned it was not them but that teacher felt that way. doesn't mean they have to.

I know this can be worked on with you relatives. If not, I have shared many times even family can be toxic, so I stayed away like Mother did.

I am sure your kiddo is smart. Her having your support means everything. Not everyone is nice. the sooner she learns its their problem not hers, she will do great!

Danielle I am so bad that if someone is mean to their kid in front of me, I just look at them and watch them without saying a word.If the person says bolony to me, I say,oh I know how hard it is sometimes raising our kiddos! Softens them, usually they start talking. I tell them how cute their kids are,how mine are grown....

I am sure many people would like to slug me..haha hugs honey,debilyn

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Sometimes simplest is the best with the child...You do great!! with a smile will go right to her heart. I use to work with kids and they like the truth...simple and with confidence. When they use to fall into degrading themselves I would tell them "that's not the truth. You have to see the good along with what you are saying is not good and get the balance." Keep teaching her how to appreciate and unconditionally love herself just like what we are learning here. There's more; the MIP fellowship has more to come. ((((hugs)))) smile

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

I hear you and have experienced the same behavior as a child and as the parent to a child. My Mom was emotionally destructive to all she interacted with It was her way, her ideas, her black and white rules that counted and if you disagreed she "cried yelled, slammed doors and did not talk until everyone agreed she was right. I tolerated that as a child and learned how to be "invisible" because it was easier than having to deal with the aftermath. When she started her negative criticism of my child I changed the rules.

Each time she chided him on behavior that, was "unacceptable" to her - for example He was not surrendering his entire being and needs on the altar of another person, I called her on it. I refused to let her invalidate him and make him less than others or invisible. She did not like it in the begining and I must admit she did change. She stopped this behavior to him and still acted out with everyone else myself inculded confuse

Your family has been interacting in this manner for a long time. Your daughter could really learn invaluable tool to handle this in ala teen

She can learn to detach, focus on her needs, validate her needs, let go of people pleasing and expectations. It is all a process I do wish I had learned these effective tools early on but I am glad I have learned them now thru al anon

Purchase some ala teen books and refer to the index in the back Great reading for children.

Good Luck

-- Edited by hotrod on Monday 25th of April 2011 01:35:31 PM

danielle0516 · Senior Member

Tks for your replies:)

To clarify, my mom adores my daughter and does a lot of fun things with her: go to park, zoo, play games ect.. and always before we leave my mom will say to my daughter something like: "I love you, I'm so proud of you, you are so great at 'x'," and hug her.

It's always just 'in the moment'... the good is never pointed out, only the perceived bad or whatever behavior that needs "correcting".

Also, my daughter LOVES going to gradma's house - she looks forward to it.

my mom is just very controlling and it annoys my daughter. Things like: fork on the left, knife on the right, bring your plate up to the bowl to serve yourself, do it this way, not that way. My daughter feels frustrated at learning all these 'rules'... there are so many 'rules'... things need to be a certain way most times. Plus the always pointing out, usually, only the bad in the moment....

My mom always says something nice to my daughter and praises her before we leave, will buy her a present for a good report card ect... but always in the moment... only the 'bad' is pointed out.

What is that? It's not like my mom does not see the good... she even praises the good, but in the moment... only seems to see the areas that need improvement. ..

atheos · Senior Member

This is going to sound absurd, but I'm 100% serious... get her DVDs of the TV show Buffy The Vampire Slayer for her to watch (seasons 1-4 only, the later seasons are a little too mature for an 11-year-old).

Buffy is a smart, strong, confident young woman, and when someone crosses a boundary, her verbal self-defense skills are excellent. She's also the kind of character that young women naturally tend to identify with.

As a teen, Buffy was the healthiest role-model I had, and she deserves a lot of credit for keeping me sane(ish) through the chaos of my life long enough to get to Al-Anon! Any time I stood up for myself, it was like Buffy's voice was coming out of my mouth instead of my own, because she's the one who gave me the idea that I *could* stand up for myself.

The vast majority of entertainment geared at young people is... not the best source of role-models or life lessons... but Buffy is a very different kind of show. The contrast becomes particularly visible if you watch the clip below... it takes clips from the movie Twilight (a very popular teen movie in the "heroine" Bella falls in love with a vampire whose creepy, stalkery behavior is portrayed as romantic), but the maker of the clip removed Bella, and edited in (much better) responses from Buffy instead.

-- Edited by atheos on Monday 25th of April 2011 03:38:38 PM

-- Edited by canadianguy on Monday 25th of April 2011 06:45:03 PM

danielle0516 · Senior Member

lol Atheos. Thanks. I totally agree that most entertainment geared toward adolescents have ridiculous role models - just like whiney Bella who's life is depicted as being over without Edward.

I'm actually a HUGE fan of Buffy. I own all the seasons.

Even though I'm almost 30, I just re watched them all about a year ago and loved them just as much then as I did when I was younger. I love the entertainment value of the show but also really enjoyed how Buffy was a different type of show - for those reasons, the heroine is female, tough, takes charge and stands up for herself, and listens to her head...

tks:)

-- Edited by danielle0516 on Monday 25th of April 2011 03:34:16 PM

BlueCloud · Senior Member

Hi Danielle,

I wonder if it would help to teach your daughter it's OK to have "her truth". Maybe put together a little pie chart (I love visuals!) to show your daughter that "her truth" is comprised of: a) her feelings b) her experience c) her perceptions d) her opinions and preferences. This could open up a discussion of we all have "our truths" and you could discuss specific situations in which grandma has her truth (or ANYONE for that matter; I wouldn't target this necessarily as a lesson "about grandma" but more a lesson about people and working well in the world) and your daughter has a "different truth". You might talk about how how important a truth is can vary on the context and how sometimes we can hold our truths inside and know inside ourselves who we are and sometimes we can decide to speak up and state our truth. As often as we can we try to state our truth politely and respectfully and sometimes it requires a firmer, louder, or more persistent and even angry stance. You might consider teaching her to evaluate inside herself is this a "1" for me? i.e. not very important and I don't need to speak on it to decide and know my truth. Is this a 5 for me mid-way importand and I may well decide to speak on it, but I can decide when and where. Or, is it a 10, it is very urgent and I most speak my truth now. I think having a wide range of hypothetical scenarios to talk through and keeping it neutral (again, not about grandma per se, but just about generic types of conflicts i.e. a friend criticizes your hair, etc.). Then, over the next year or so, you might playfully say to her as things come up "What's your truth in this? Keeping it light & even fun to discover where she stands on various life scenarios at school, at home, with friends, etc. And, to ask her what do you think your friends/grandma's/my/truth on this is? Over time, I can see it progressing to helping her find the balance between knowing/stating her truth and understanding/appreciating/considering other people's truths. At that point, you might work with her about how do we resolve differences in truths? For instance, if eating with a knife and fork in a certain way is a "1" for us but a 5 for grandma, maybe we'll just go along. But, if being kind is a 10 for us and we KNOW inside we've been kind all day and grandma says "swing the niece" we might say "No thank you. I would rather not right now". I firmly believe that a variety of options will help your daughter stand up for herself. It might be fun to brainstorm with her all the ways she could respond from the ridiculous to the appropriate in any given sceniario. So, she could state her feelings, state her preference, divert or distract, etc. i.e. she could say no thank you or she could say I will in a few minutes, but I prefer not to right now, or "hey grandma, would you like to try the swing?" etc.

This is not ESH per se, but it was REALLY helpful for me to think of this because I struggle with the same issues and tend to think "whose right and whose wrong?" and it's a difficult ping pong! I like this because it's nuanced.

Take what you like, leave the rest!

danielle0516 · Senior Member

Thanks BlueCloud.. :) I like the pie chart idea.... and the part about explaining what 'our truth' is comprised of. I may try this. oh, and I also like the scale from 1-10 on how important it is to us.... for example, if it's a 1 to us but a 10 to grandma, then I may decide to just put the fork on the left and let it pass. Thanks again.

Really I was looking for some ideas on, I guess, how to approach this topic with my daughter and provide her with tools to handle various situations...and to understand them...

Thanks everyone.

pinkchip · ~*Service Worker*~

Danielle, it could all be used as a lesson on how you can't change others and about acceptance. Perhaps tell your daughter that you love grandma, but there are things about her you never really liked and things about her you do like, same as most people. Perhaps accentuate that grandma is 50some or 60 years old and isn't going to change, so it's up to mommy and her to be patient and accept grandma because even grandma isn't perfect. Maybe explain that one of grandma's faults is trying to "play teacher" all the time or however you want to phrase it. She knows daddy isn't perfect but is trying to get better. It might help her even more to realize how this general concept extends beyond daddy and his recent problems with alcohol.

I recall going through a phase at about 11 or 12 when all of the sudden I was not the cat's pajamas with my grandparents anymore and it was not "everything mark does is great!" Grandparents treat older kids different than little baby grandkids and it's weird when that happens.

danielle0516 · Senior Member

Thanks Mark. Yep.. it's another lesson on how we can't change others. I have had that chat with my daughter a few times: how we can only control and change ourselves, not others. These particular instances between my mom and my daughter, I see, as an opportunity for my daughter to learn to stand up for herself (when she feels it's a big enough deal to want to do so). Not that being being scolded for finding the eggs first and not waiting for her cousin is an appropriate hill to die on.... but, when you add up all these types of incidents, combined with the potential for my daughter to never speak her mind and let all the irritation fester... well, I don't think it's healthy to keep all that bottled up inside you...every time. Make sense?

Ya...and now that my daughter is getting older, she isn't the perfect little granddaughter anymore. My daughter gets 'in trouble' for all these things and watches my 3 year old niece get away with everything (she's never punished and threats are never carried though on) and the niece remains 'perfect' in everyone's eyes. Must be hard.

Oh... and my husband is not my daughter's father. He's her step dad. (not that it makes a difference in how him being sick has affected my daughter's life but thought I'd point out nonetheless).

Tks for your reply:)

DreamXL · Senior Member

Well you have just described my mother ....and you have probably described alot of unrecovered adult children..there is definitely a lack of emotional intelligence and maturity which explains the behaviors you talk about your mom having. Mine has the same, the exact same...I guess that is why there seem to be universal "traits" or "isms"....Anyhow, the only thing I would like to add here is that kids reach out to adults for help becasue they dont know what to do, how to handle things. I mean geez I am an adult and dealing with my mother I dont know how to handle at times so how could I expect a child to. Its sorta like saying to a kid being bullied who is scared, stand up for yourself...that doesnt mean anything and they dont know how... Our kids learn from us, they watch how we interact with others, hear the things we say and watch what we do. If our words dont match our own actions when giving our children suggestions this can cause alot of confusion. I will never forget listening my mother talk to my sister about "how she would never tolerate such treatment, and she would tell him ..this that and the other, etc"...and thinking oh my god she is telling my sister the very things she wouldnt tolerate that she lives herself...Talking to your daughter about her grandma and the things you like and dont like about her yourself was suggested and I think is really a good idea. Getting it out in the open will also allow your daughter not to feel guilty about not so good thoughts about grandma she may have....

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