What Girls Wish Moms Knew (Tip #4)

Any advice book on the shelf will tell you to listen. It's the secret to a great marriage, being a good parent, building a small business, and perhaps, leading an exemplary democracy. But as often as it's preached, listening is rarely practiced. Just think about the last big discussion you had at home or work. While the other person was talking, did you spend a lot of your time thinking about what you'd say next? I know I did.

So it comes as no surprise that the 11,000 girls who answered our survey on puberty wanted their moms to LISTEN. But implicit in their request was something else - that mothers not judge.

Daughter-mother tip #4: Just listen.
It’s tempting to want to jump in and make suggestions, give advice, or send up warning flags. But try not to when your daughter is talking. If you rush in too quickly, you might interrupt her though. Your quick-response comments also might go far afield of what your daughter wants to talk about at that moment. One of the loudest messages from girls was that they didn’t want a discussion of their changing bodies to morph into a scary talk about not having sex.

So I'll broaden the definition of listening here to mean more than just sitting quietly, giving eye contact, and nodding. Try to pick up on what your daughter is searching for in her brave attempt to talk to you. She wants information, yes, and maybe an answer to a nagging question. But she's also testing whether you are the right person to come to when she's "confuzzled" as one girl put it. When you let her talk and pay attention, she'll enjoy that rarest of comforts: knowing someone is truly listening.