Mother Daughter Relationships

Yesterday my neighbour’s youngest daughter came over to spend time playing with my son. Her mother came to collect her after work and spent several hours talking with us, my husband and myself. When she left I continued with getting my son ready for bed. The telephone rang and my husband answered. He relayed the message for me to go over to have a word with my neighbour’s eldest daughter, so I did several minutes later.

Mother had tried to explain the problems she was having with her daughter and her concerns about her future. Her daughter tried to put over her point of view and felt that her mother was being unreasonable. Her mother’s concerns were about organisation, time management, friendships and trust.

Conversely, as parent's it is sometimes difficult to let our children have a life of their own unless it is within our own constraints. At aged 18 on the one hand her mother would like to treat her as an adult, on the other hand she has difficulty letting her make her own decisions, and feels excluded in the decision making process. Her mother also has difficulty dealing with the fact that her daughter will not live up to her immediate expectations. Her daughter wishes for mother to let her have her own independence.

As individual’s we need to have our own space at times. What appears to be important for adults may not be as important for younger adults, as they have their own issues of trying to find their place in society, finding out about themselves – the who am I factor. I suggested that they need to work on themselves as individual’s before things can change in the home. More importantly, we should never try to change a person, instead we must look within ourself to change the faults we find in others. As Jim Rohn asserts in order for things to change you have to change.

I quickly ran over to my house to collect two personal development books by Ilyana Vanzantz, one for mom, Faith In The Valley, the other for daughter, Acts Of Faith.