Mother daughter relationships are complicated. Whether you have an adult daughter or are still raising teenagers, you’ve likely experienced moments when you have wondered why daughters are mean to their mothers. In this post, Heather Wagner takes a deep dive into this topic and looks at all the physical, emotional, and relational matters influencing our daughters’ behaviors.
This article is part 3 in our five-part series: The Art of Navigating Relationships. Read the whole series by clicking the links below.
The relationship between parents and children, but especially between mothers and daughters, is tremendously powerful, scarcely to be comprehended in any rational way.—Joyce Carol Oates
We all desire to cultivate healthy mother daughter relationships. Yet, whether our girls are 5 or 25, when we don’t understand their behavior, struggle to connect with them, or end up faking peace instead of making it, it’s easy to feel discouraged.
What constitutes a healthy mother daughter relationship may look a little different for each of us. Our backgrounds, expectations, personalities, and circumstances are not all the same. But when it comes to how we understand and manage the conflict that’s found in mother daughter relationships, I think a lot of us are asking the same questions:
What is going on with my daughter?
Am I doing something wrong?
How can I be a better mother?
BIOLOGICALLY SPEAKING
You may have heard the saying: “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes; it’ll change.” If you’re raising an adolescent daughter, you can probably relate. One moment she has a somewhat sunny disposition, but then you look at her with the wrong facial expression and a storm erupts that leaves you feeling confused and sweeping pieces of your feelings off the floor.
It’s common to chalk turbulent mood swings up to puberty. But there may be more than one type of hormone influencing your daughter’s impulsive or irrational behavior. You’re probably already familiar with the automatic stress response that prepares us to deal with danger: fight or flight.
When our bodies sense danger, a little almond shaped structure in our brains called the amygdala determines whether or not we’re in trouble. If it perceives a threat, it activates a warning system in our hypothalamus (AKA our brain’s command center). This triggers our body’s fight or flight response.
FIGHT OR FLIGHT
When we react without thinking to avoid a head-on collision, or jump out of the way when a rope on the sidewalk turns out to be a snake, we appreciate our God-given ability to react in a split second. However, it’s not always a physically present danger that elicits a stress response.
- The big exam your daughter has in the morning?
- That unflattering picture her bestie tagged her in on social media?
- The cute guy who sent her a text, but then ‘left her on read‘?
- That facial expression you had while talking with your daughter at the kitchen table?
CONSIDER PHYSIOLOGICAL CHANGES
Yep, her brain could’ve interpreted all those things as a threat. This means it could have activated the fight or flight response before she’s even processed what’s really happening. So while we’re trying to decide how to keep a conflict from escalating, her adrenal glands could already be busy pumping epinephrine into her system, and a series of physiological changes could be underway.
Her heart rate increases. More blood is pumped through her body. Extra oxygen is sent to her brain and lungs. Sugar is released into her bloodstream, sharpening her senses. Her body is quite literally preparing for battle—or for escape. It’s from this place that we can find ourselves facing hurtful words, slammed doors, or unresolved conflict that leaves us scratching our heads and nursing our hearts.
A SHIFT OF PERSPECTIVE
Your daughter’s emotional and reactive responses might suggest that her amygdala is fully functional. But the frontal cortex, the area of her brain that controls things like planning, problem solving, and reasoning, is still developing and will continue to mature into early adulthood.
So even though the logical part of our daughters’ brains may grab the wheel from time to time, it’s actually her feelings sitting in the driver’s seat. What does this mean for us as mothers?
It means that we might need to examine and adjust our expectations.
We wouldn’t serve our babies a steak, or get frustrated with our 3-year-olds for less than perfect penmanship. Clearly we understand those expectations would be inappropriate based on their level of development. Understanding what’s happening to our girls on a biological level is helpful because as Solomon tells us in Proverbs 19:11, “Wisdom yields patience” (NIV).
ADJUST YOUR EXPECTATIONS
Knowing that our girls’ brains are still developing doesn’t mean they can’t be held responsible for their behavior, or face the natural consequences of their actions. It just helps us understand why we shouldn’t expect our daughters to work through conflict or the decision-making process like adults. Maybe it shifts our perspective and improves our attempts at communication because we relate to them based on their emotions instead of their circumstances.
Whether the problems our daughters face are of their own making or not, we want them to feel safe enough to come to us when they need help. We want to be a source of encouragement and affirmation and care.
Take a peek at the rest of Proverbs 19:11. “A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense” (NIV). Maybe that verse will come in handy the next time your daughter rolls her eyes at you on the way to her bedroom. Parenting is hard, but so is growing up.
WEIGHT OF THE WORLD
I was entering grades into the computer when a student walked in and quietly placed her backpack on the ground. “Can you look over my conclusion again?” she asked. She’d already come to see me after school twice that week. Something was wrong.
I took the paper she extended, put it face down on my desk, and asked her if she was okay. She stood there for a moment and stared at the floor. Then she whispered, “I just…I just can’t today. I’m so tired.” She took a deep breath and the dam broke.
This sweet girl had been waking up at 5 a.m. to workout before school, spending the entire day feeling overwhelmed by a schedule full of advanced classes, and then staying after school for sports. But that’s not all.
RUNNING ON FUMES
Her evenings were booked solid with music lessons, youth group, athletic games, and community volunteering. And her weekends? They were reserved for the travel team she played with, hoping to grab the attention of a college scout and land a big scholarship for college.
She was running on fumes. Telling her coach she needed to get help after school for an assignment was the only acceptable way she could think of to give herself a break without dealing with criticism or disapproval from the people in her circle.
This young lady wasn’t old enough to drive, yet she was struggling to shoulder the real and perceived expectations she felt from her peers, parents, teachers, and the rest of the world. As I listened, I wondered if her mom was aware of how overwhelmed her daughter was feeling, so I asked. Mom didn’t know, but I knew she’d want to.
If we want our daughters to learn how to establish personal boundaries that support their health and well-being, we need to be able to own the limitations of our own time, energy, and resources. We cannot give what we do not have, and neither can our girls.
REDUCE THE PRESSURE
This wasn’t an isolated incident, friends. We’ve almost gotten used to the value our culture places on productivity and achievement. Being busy to the point of exhaustion is glorified. But God doesn’t call us to be busy. He calls us to be fruitful. And schedules like the one this student was trying to manage is part of the reason a growing number of our daughters are suffering from chronic stress. This stress leaves them feeling afraid, overwhelmed, and completely out of control.
Some of our girls manage by taking on everything at once, some struggle to find a balance, and for some the pressure makes it feel impossible to find the strength to try anything at all. However they’re coping, all this stress isn’t just making them irritable and tired, it’s making them sick. So much so that small, everyday stresses can feel heavy and unmanageable. They need our help.
HELP THEM MAKE CHANGES
Why are daughters mean to their mothers? It doesn’t necessarily mean they are mean daughters. Sometimes it has less to do with what we’re doing and more to do with what they’re trying to accomplish.
We know our girls may still be a little wobbly in the planning, reasoning, and problem-solving department. So we may need to initiate a conversation about how to move forward when they’ve overestimated their capabilities.
It can be hard for them to cut things from their schedules, but that’s one area we truly need to stand in the gap for them. But if we’re not modeling the necessity and goodness of rest, we may need to have a chat with ourselves first.
SET THE EXAMPLE
As mommas, some of us really struggle in this area because we don’t want to be the cause of our daughter’s disappointment. Even though the things our daughters ask for may not be unreasonable, they may be unrealistic for us at that point in time.
If we want our daughters to learn how to establish personal boundaries that support their health and well-being, we need to be able to own the limitations of our own time, energy, and resources. We cannot give what we do not have, and neither can our girls.
HOW TO MANAGE CONFLICT WITH YOUR DAUGHTER
Perhaps you’ve already identified and reduced the pressure points in your daughter’s life yet conflict continues. Here are four things to consider to help you better navigate your mother daughter relationship and manage any potential difficulties that may arise.
1. Acknowledge Your Role in the Conflict
We know the way we talk with our daughters matters. It directly impacts the quality of our relationship. Yet, if I could show you where some of my most significant mother-daughter battles took place, you would find them sitting at the intersection of Pride and Miscommunication.
In my restlessness, my fear, my frustration, and my attempts to predict and control, I can be blinded to the ways I’m contributing to the conflict with my daughter. Since I constitute 50% of that relationship, half of what goes down when an issue pops up is my responsibility. Only half of that is mine to control.
When there’s an unresolved issue, I need to go to God first because sometimes I’m the problem. Then I have to begin the work of evaluating how my words, attitude, behavior, parenting style, or even my past may need to be addressed, adjusted, or processed before we can move forward.
Conflict has a negative connotation, but it isn’t always bad. God can use it as an opportunity to help us grow. I’ve found there’s some truth to the saying “People don’t care what you know, until they know that you care.” I’m grateful for the helpful resources that are available to help us know ourselves and our daughters better. Even if we think we handle communication and conflict well, there’s always room for improvement.
2. Identify Her Love Language
What makes your daughter feel seen, heard, and loved may be completely different from the way you’re trying to communicate your affection. That’s why I appreciate the insight I found in the books Dr. Gary Chapman has written about the five love languages: quality time, words of affirmation, acts of service, physical touch, and gifts.
Studying his work and applying it to the way I try to show love to my husband and kids was a game changer for our family.
My daughter feels most loved by words of affirmation and acts of service. I learned that trying to express my love or support for her with big hugs or little gifts doesn’t bring her much comfort.
When she’s struggling, she needs to hear me speaking encouragement over her. Sometimes that looks like a conversation. But sometimes it’s a mother-daughter quote that I screenshot and text to her during the day.
She also needs me to take things off her plate. Driving up and cleaning her room before finals or picking up her contacts if the doctor’s office closes before she gets off work means a lot to her.
It doesn’t just go one way, either. She knows my love language, and she uses it to help me feel loved by her, too.
3. Consider Your Personality Types
At first, my feelings about the Enneagram were a little on the cool side. I’d taken personality tests in the past, and really didn’t see the need to take another one. Then my daughter came home from college talking about it, so I took the test, did some reading, and found myself weeping at my desk.
I’m a Type One on the Enneagram, and I cannot express to you the relief I felt when I learned there were other people in this world who know what it’s like to live with a relentless inner critic.
Behind the relaxed and confident exterior, there was a woman driven by a tireless pursuit of perfection. After years of assuming those vague, unnamed traits were just some kind of anxiety, I no longer felt alone. I could now name it, place it, and ask God to help me deal with it.
It’s discouraging when we’re aware that there’s an issue, but don’t have the language we need to communicate what we’re feeling. It gives the enemy a foothold. It leaves our minds free to wander and come up with believable thought distortions that don’t align with the Word of God.
Exploring the Enneagram from a biblical perspective and using it as a tool to facilitate a greater understanding of the way God shaped me and my daughter helped us learn to communicate with our unique personalities and temperaments in mind.
4. Know Your Triggers
When our daughters say or do something that hurts us, it can trigger an older, deeper pain that we’ve carried with us from our past. This unresolved pain can lead us to respond to our girls’ circumstances in a way that isn’t kind or constructive. That’s why acknowledging and working through it is one of the best things we can do to improve our mother daughter relationships.
Maybe that hurt is something we can work through with the help of a close friend, small group, or pastor. Or maybe it will require the help of a licensed therapist. Either way, we all want to parent from a whole and healthy place.
For me, the healing process started with a prayer that went something like, “Alright, God. I know I probably should’ve come to see You sooner, but I’m here now. Search my heart. Clean out all the yuck. I know it’s going to take a while. And I know it’s going to be uncomfortable, but I’m ready.”
Whatever taking control of your emotional and mental health looks like for you, I want to encourage you to take a first step towards healing.
READY, SET, GO
Why are daughters mean to their mothers? There are probably a few right answers for each of us.
Mother daughter relationships are complex because we’re uniquely made. We grow, learn, and change as we move through different seasons of our lives. We’re made for connection and community. And although conflict exists in the relationships we have with our girls, it doesn’t have to destroy them.
When we learn to appreciate the ways they are different, communicate openly and honestly, and try to navigate conflict in a way that keeps in step with the Spirit, it can develop a safe and trusting relationship. It will never be perfect, but we can create a joyful life in which we get to watch each other grow and pursue the things we’re intentionally shaped for and called to accomplish.
Girl moms, how do you manage the conflict that arises between you and your daughter? How might the tips discussed in this article lead you to make some changes as you work toward cultivating healthy mother daughter relationships?
Photos by Molly Cable | @molly.kathleen.documentary
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14 comments
Wonderful, useful insights for us girl moms! It helps to have this information, so we’re not blaming our parenting style, our own personality, our spouse, or our child. Great piece!
Thank you, Lori Ann! ❤️
Thank you soooo much Heather. This is amazing. I don’t know about anyone else but I can’t seem to find much stuff on mother daughter relationships (lots of mother and son stuff). I found that super helpful as I want a better relationship with my girls than I had with my Mum growing up, thank you so much x
Thank you, Hannah! I’m so glad you found the article helpful, and I hope you felt encouraged!
I’ve talked with a lot of mommas who (for a variety of reasons) are intentionally choosing to navigate this season of motherhood a little differently than their own mothers did. God is faithful to equip us each with what we need. You’ve got this, Mama! 🙂
This article about daughters and mothers is great! Lots of good positive advice. I would also encourage mama’s of boys to do the same. I have a daughter and a son ( they are adults now) but I took the approach of “learning” who God had made them. Yes we have some similarities to our children but we can definitely be very different also. Learning who they are how they react and what encourages them and what crushes them can make a HUGE difference in your relationship with them. You have to foster that you are not their enemy but their Allies! Foster respect and you will get it also. Figure out how to be intentional with your relationship NOT reactionary! Parent with real purpose. Both daughters and sons!
Hi Kimberly!
Thank you so much for sharing your insight! I agree! These tips are applicable for boys as well. I love that you mentioned learning about what crushes our kids. That’s so important!
Excellent article Heather! Very insightful. Boy, did I need this today and realize I have a lot of work to do. I have had to fight for most things my whole life – including my marriage and kids, etc. Now that my daughter is a young adult, my “warrior” mentality is creating strife and i now feel completely rejected after pouring my life out for so many years for everyone else. Time for a new perspective. Thank you!!
I hear you, Susan. Thank you so much for reaching out and sharing part of your story! You are not alone in this; it is hard to learn to when and how to step back when we’ve been fighting for so long. Give yourself a lot of grace. It takes time, but God doesn’t waste anything. Praying for you!
This article is SO helpful, Heather! Thank you! I have a 15-year-old daughter, and so in the last year or so, our relationship has become disappointingly complicated. Thank you for the reminder that I can’t expect her emotions to be under control all the time because her brain isn’t fully developed. I know I need to speak more words of affirmation- this is what she craves. And she views my correction as criticism. Beautifully written and much needed article.
Thank you, Shannon! The world is SO loud in our girls’ ears that it can feel like they can’t hear us, but they do. Sometimes it takes more time (and experiences) than we’d like for the truth of our words to wander down into their hearts. Keep going, Mama! Praying for you both.
I have a 18 year old girl that has been mean to me for year’s as she has a friend that is very mean to her mom as her friend’s sister is also! I know she has picked this up from her also along with my daughter’s own thoughts and mind development! I have also been wrong and read my daughter’s diary and found out she has body image issues and has been throwing up to lose weight because her boyfriend told her that he self gratified himself and she is very hurt from this and feels like she is not enough and her figure is not good enough! I do not know what to do?? I have prayed to God to help her know her worth is not in her boyfriend or her body but in God because he loves her and created her body and it is perfect! I really do not want my daughter to be throwing up for body image issues! Very unhealthy! Very unhealthy both physically and mentally! Please advise!
Thank you for sharing such a tender part of your story, Michele. You are not alone in this struggle. Many Christian mamas could read your words and relate to them on a personal level. Don’t give up. Keep praying. Even when we’re shocked by our child’s behavior, God isn’t. He wasn’t caught by surprise. He loves them and knows them better than we do. He knows what they were created for, and what paths they’ll need to travel to get them where he wants them to go. He also knows our hearts, and how hard it is to surrender to Him what we’d hoped would be for what is in this moment.
Time and time again in the Word, He redeems a person’s struggle for His glory. He still does that today. Sometimes that process takes a lot longer than we’d like, but we can choose to Praise Him now for what He’s going to do in our childrens’ hearts later. We can choose to wait in hopeful expectation as He works in ways we cannot see. While you’re waiting, ask God to help you love her well in this season.
If you have access to a licensed family therapist, I’ve found it helpful to have someone there to help me talk through and process hard things. Even though I’ve been a girl-mom for over two decades, I still have questions. And when we’re unsure of the direction in which we’re heading, I think Jesus, humility, and community are always good places to start.
Take heart, Michele! We serve a God who does immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine.
My daughter and I never had much conflict I til she hit her young afult years. Teenager daughter was a joy, even a breeze! It’s when she was staring adulthood in the face, at about age 20, that things have gone downhill for us. I’m at such a loss. We went from being close, with a trusted, open communication line, to her slamming the door in my face time after time. She refuses to talk to me about things that have her weighed down. No matter how hard I try, she continues to push me away…which triggers my own childhood trauma. So because of that, I’ve pulled away from even trying to connect with her. And she seems perfectly fine with that. She really only speaks to me, whether in person or via text, when she wants something from me. It’s devastating.
Oh, Jenn! I’m so sorry you’re hurting! Praying that God would restore your relationship with your daughter, grant you insight into the situation, and sustain you in the waiting.
I’ve talked with many mamas who said their relationships hit big bumps during times of transition. Everything was good until their daughters were married, until they took a job half-way across the country, until the accident, the illness, the break-up…and it hurts so much because we know what we’re missing! It hurts because we made it past what we were taught to believe was “the hard part.” Older mothers everywhere could have told us to adjust our expectations.
Jodie Berndt wrote a book called “Praying the Scriptures for your Adult Children,” and it has served so many parents, (including myself) so well. If you haven’t seen it before, check out the digital sample and see if it might be a good fit for you. It’s been a mighty encouragement for me.