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Good Rules for Adult Mothering

These tips can help you keep your children on the road to financial, physical, and emotional independence.

Good Rules for Adult Mothering

Okay Mom, your daughter is working her way into fiscal, physical, and emotional independence. Don't get in her way. The same rules apply for moms with daughters who are doing well on their own and for those whose gals are stumbling:

  1. Do not use dollars and cents to buy attention and devotion.
  2. Do not try to fund a lifestyle that fits the vision you had of your daughter's future.
  3. Allow your daughter to make her own blueprint for life that incorporates her lifestyle and identity, not yours.
  4. Work hard to control your pangs for intervention by achieving a reasonable degree of emotional detachment and physical distance.
  5. Develop motherly objectivity.
  6. Offer friendly help and advice when solicited.
  7. Maintain mother-daughter harmony through discussion, compromise, and problem solving.
  8. Insist on and show mutual respect for each other.
  9. Respect your daughter's right to privacy.
  10. Be cautious about commenting on her love life or making harsh judgments of her lovers.

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