How to handle it when your daughters start getting interested in boys!

went through this video and found it useful for the future…I have 2 daughters…

Great share! Usually as parents, we assume our authority when it comes to sharing with children our experience or advice. In order to take on another persona such as a friend, I think this portion has to be nurtured.

No easy feat to put it into practice… :sweat_smile:

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I think it’s important that parents understand their babies are growing up and it’s a natural phase. My mum was quite open about it during my teenage years and I could go to her for relationship advice. She’s usually quite accurate with her comments. She even actually met some of my guy friends and they thought she was quite cool.

Just wondering whether mothers have an advantage when communicating with the daughters? Do fathers have to make extra effort to befriend their kids? Heh

I think emotionally, mothers will have a natural advantage. They are able to empathise much easily as oppose to men who are more logical and task oriented.

For fathers to connect with their daughters at that level, the bond must really start early…

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Something that helps me is to not see my daughters as “belonging” to me but start thinking of my daughters as being their own person. Not sure if that makes sense

@adrian yes… I’ve been trying to practice that as well.

Following clip explains it.

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I think mothers usually have the advantage as the bond between the child and mother starts when the mother is in the pregnancy stage. However I also see some daughters who are close to their fathers, almost like friends. Fathers nowadays can be quite empathetic too, and I agree the bond must start early, so that the child is used to confiding to the parent. Like what they say in the movies, it’s like flying a kite, sometimes tighten the string, sometimes have to let loose. You don’t want too create too much of a tension where the child doesn’t want to tell you anything.

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Thanks Jereme! This discourse is really useful!

@seokwai88 Any good tips or personal life stories to share with regards to the balance?

It’s something that can’t be avoided. During this time parents have to be more sensitive to the emotions of the daughter, as it means the girl will be influenced by what she notices around her, especially if the friends around her are talking about it too. Parents can try to put themselves in their shoes, after all we have been that age too, and also not to be over-critical over who she talks about, even if we do not approve of them. Parents can be pro-active and express interest in what is happening in her life too, instead of waiting for her to tell us. Parents are the role of the allies, not the enemy, so that she has a dependable adult to go to for advice when she needs a listening ear.

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I realised that when I have to act as a parent all the time, the children usually doesn’t want to confide in us because they will think we are from the dinosaur era and we wouldn’t understand, so sometimes I have to be a parent and other times I have to be her friend. An example of the balance is when my girl was quite crazy over a local teenage boy band and neglected her homework because she spent the whole day on the internet searching about them. So I had to ‘pull the string tight’ and grounded her from surfing the internet for a week, but I explained to her that her responsibility should be homework first, fun later. Of course a few days later I had to ‘loosen the string’ by showing interest in the boy band (but she had lost interest in them by then…). Now she is talking about some boys from her school, so I forsee it’s going to be another round of ‘tightening’ and ‘loosening’ again.

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@adrian Found another better clip by 海涛法师!
Recommended for all parents to watch!

Hi @seokwai88, thanks for sharing.
Check out this part of the clip here… resonates with what you are practising! From 28:16 onwards.

thx @Jereme!

some points i found useful:

  • parents to be involved in the child’s world so as to be a guide/friend to help the child in their decision making rather than taking a stand-offish position and just berating and disciplining them

  • addressing parents " 太care" and affecting their judgement when guiding their children, we can try to use methods that we would use for the benefit of a child that is not our own…so not viewing your child as a object or your property but really focusing on how to do good for this person that just happens to be your child

  • “Life Engineering” changing our 心态 and 行为 can change your life…using concepts of 因果 and compassion

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