Your Teen Daughter: Is More Discipline the Answer?
It is true that children of all ages need some parental control and discipline. The quality just may be more important than the quantity. Learn to use authoritative, not authoritarian, control over your adolescent daughter. The authoritarian parent may be less tired at day's end but the final result won't be nearly as good.
Dr. Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, professor of child development at Columbia University, says that well-adjusted and happy adolescent girls have mothers who avoid using authoritarian behavior. Good parental discipline is authoritative versus authoritarian. Look at the list below to get a good grasp of the differences.
| The Authoritative Parent | The Authoritarian Parent |
| Presents rules based on reason | Assumes absolute power |
| Maintains control through argument | Coerces through force |
| Says don't do it, there is a good reason | Says do it, because I say so |
| Uses logic that can then be used by daughter to further exhaustive discussion | Prevents daughter from learning to use logic |
| Connects child to sources of discipline and promotes maturity of self-control | Disconnects child from sources of discipline and denies development of mature self-control |
| Negotiates day-to-day conflicts |
Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Mothers and Daughters © 2001 by Rosanne Rosen. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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