Where Did I Go Wrong With My Parenting ?

Following this thread. Thank you for all the insights.

 

@mangaii preteen years are esp hard. Those are all wonderful suggestions from been there /still here moms.
I had the junk overload problem at home . Its largely under control now. The only thing that has helped is taking the boys grocery shopping. I would explain the nutritions labels what they mean . I let them choose their snacks but they had to come up with healthy(ier) options. It was funny seeing them hunt for stuff and come and say" amma these grocery guys are sneaky ..they keep the good ones out of reach ". They had to learn it for themselves. As a reward I let them get away with a packet of cheetos /doritos. Just the feeling of being in control instead of being told what to eat helped us quite a bit.

 

I have the same prob with protein . Few snack options
1) unsweetened fat free greek yogurt with granola
2) hummus and baked pita chips
3) apples and peanut butter.
4)smoothies. Starting around ur DD age I let them make their own smoothies.Would encourage them to add a bit of silken tofu to up the protein content. With boys the lure of "added inches with the more protein " helped.
5) they are slowly getting used to tofu. Marinated (in all the desi spices) and stir fried seems to be going in without too many complaints.

 

Sigh...add to this..each one is so very different I feel like .

 

Dear @mangaii,

You are a wonderful mother Mangaii and between you and me (well now that I am posting here), I have been fortunate to be a sounding board for many a teenager (as a mom's friend and a teacher) hence my suggestion came out the way it did. I understand what you are saying. What I meant was not you asking her to talk to a friend of yours but to see if you have a friend who she looks up to and the friend can casually talk with her, from time to time and a regular basis taking interest in what she does and asking questions, talking things out. That's not important anyways but this here caught my attention.

I think you have nailed it here. Start fresh with her - tell her you are a team and both of you need to make decisions together, be it food, grades, extra curricular activities or anything you sign up. This will only increase her confidence in the decisions she makes and will help you to listen to her and gently guide her as well. It is not just you, we all as mothers come with and bring our baggage. It is no doubt a delicate balance and I do know that.

Don't think about her reaction, use it an opportunity to get her on board and do what she says - together. Deep down she knows you are doing your best and she is trying hard to be what you are trying to teach, take the cues and back her.

Best wishes. Wonderful suggestions from everyone.

 

@mangaii,

I agree with everyone who said, "don't beat yourself up" for this situation. There are some excellent suggestions from everyone here. I don't have a daughter and hence I have no experience of raising a daughter and their age-related issues. However, we have raised only a son who performed very well in the elementary and middle schools. We have made a unilateral decision to put him on an IB program much against his wish to go to an Engineering oriented curriculum in a school far away from home. He resisted that throughout his high school and his performance dropped dramatically. Besides, both my wife and I are strict disciplinarians and when his friends were allowed to hang out until late night, we strictly followed the time schedule for him to go to bed and so on.

He was so upset with us and waited for an opportunity to join Undergrad. When he found a place to live away from us, his relationship with us was seriously hampered. Both my wife and I did a lot to make up our relationship with him and it took almost the entire undergrad for him to understand us and build the relationship back again with us. Guess, which undergrad program he joined? Engineering. We left him to choose his Major and change it as often he liked. Because of this strained relationship, his performance in undergrad was not all that great.

He came back to our home town to do his Masters and stayed with us for two whole years and that changed our relationship dramatically. His performance reached great heights and when he joined a Ph.D. program on a full scholarship in the University of Florida, we noticed that he is a young man with great talent.

He has one registered patent and two applied patents on the side besides his Ph.D. program in Computational Fluid Dynamics. His 7-8 papers were published in international journals so far. His ambition is to work for a National Lab and he is expected to complete his dissertation in July 2018.

The lessons I learned:

1) Believe in yourself and your child
2) Understand his needs through body language and verbal
3) Encourage him with words of appreciation always
4) Discuss how your child can determine his own future
5) Emphasize the importance of character more than education

In your situation, believe yourself and your daughter. Keep telling your daughter that you love her dearly and accept her for who she is. Understand the fact that there is a lot of struggle behind every successful children. She is going to turn around so well and all that was happening would become a thing of the past. God bless you and your daughter.

Viswa