You want the best for her. You may even want her to have a better life than yours. But she needs to choose a life of her own. One of the most important things I hear from teen girls—and I hear it often—is that they need you to accept their choices as they figure out their uniqueness.
Helping your teen girl explore her identity begins with letting go of any preconceived expectations of who you want her to be. In doing so, you can give her the space she needs to step into who she truly wants to be. In the quest to be supportive, parents may inadvertently tell girls who they should be, especially when applying labels or offering guidance or limitations: “You are quirky,” or “You have a dancer’s body,” or “You need to put more time into science so you can get a good job in that field.” This may cause confusion. Labels can feel like boundaries, but she may nevertheless sacrifice herself to fit them. From a brain-development perspective, her connection to you is her lifeline.3 Most girls will do anything to keep that lifeline of attachment open, even if it means bending to meet parental expectations. Essentially, she will be who she thinks you need her to be in order to alleviate fears of separation and disconnection.
What if you don’t like who she is becoming and your knee-jerk reaction is to steer her in the opposite direction? This is when you need to be calm, centre yourself, and change your approach. Remember, periphery parent. Be ready to guide her, not control her, by asking questions about how she’s changing and if she is happy with the person she’s becoming. Try asking, “What do you like best about yourself, or least?” Consider offering her this compliment: “I love how (kind/confident/competent) you are becoming.” When we tell girls who we want them to be and place them in categories, we hinder their quest for authentic identity. Instead of being in denial about who she is becoming (“My daughter would never be bisexual”—despite the fact that she’s mentioned having both boy and girl crushes) or being dismissive (“Her interest in playing the drums is just a phase”—even though she’s been practising for years), we help girls tremendously when we accept what they show us. Ultimately, when we accept her, she learns to accept herself.
SAMI
I actually don’t like it when people over-identify with any one aspect of their identity. It bothers me. Even with people who are part of the LGBTQ spectrum and only identify with that part of them and I know there has to be more to them. There is so much more to them. That’s one of my pet peeves. I try not to over-identify with any one part of me because I know there are so many aspects of me. All of our different parts fit into a puzzle, and I acknowledge that all those pieces are there and they make up a picture that is me. To take any one of those pieces and focus too hard on it is not really respecting all the other pieces and allowing myself to be the entire puzzle.
I am light-skinned but I am half black and I am treated as the acceptable token black person. I am “ethnically ambiguous.” When people ask me, “What are you?” I know it’s such an inappropriate question. I am not denying myself but I know how to pull on different aspects of my identity when they serve me best. It’s similar to code-switching, which a lot of people of colour have to do. They have to know how to talk to different groups in a different way to be taken seriously. Women have to do this as well. They can talk to their friends a certain way. But when they talk to their bosses or men, they have to speak differently to get their point across.
Her Centre and Circles of Influence
Identity is a tricky concept to unpack, as these teen years are all about growth, movement, and expansion. I view a teen girl as surrounded by a series of concentric circles representing her genetics, family, peers, and her culture and society. Your daughter is standing in the centre of her own circle surrounded by these circles of influence, all of which may exert pressure and constantly reflect back to her a version of “who she is.” As she learns to stand strong and rooted in her own circle, she feels the competing interests and allegiances between these circles. At best, she will deal with the pressures by setting firm boundaries and becoming more secure and certain in her own choices and decisions. At worst, she will give in, give up, and yield to the pressures around her. This may result in her feeling deflated, disappointed, and, most likely, lost in her identity.
We need her to feel shaped positively by surrounding circles of influence but still free to discover who she is, in her own way and in her own time. For when she stands inside her circle, she is rooted in her strengths and capabilities, and she is strong and secure. She will not be pushed out of her own circle. She knows she has the right to be standing there. She owns her space.
As described in the introduction, you are standing in a supportive role as a “parent on the periphery” (p. 6), but you are also closest to her centre. Now is the time to view her identity on a broad spectrum of possibilities rather than through a specific definition or role. Nothing will feel better to her than knowing you are there—with an open mind—if she needs you, and that she has your full support and space to grow. The world will try to tell her who she ought to be. Your message to her must be louder and stronger: “You do you.” The knowledge that you have her back will safeguard her against any insult or pushback she receives from others. Your assurance that she is the centre of her own circle will serve as a defence against other circles that have the potential to distort her true identity.
Therapist Tiffani Van Buckley told me that when it comes to teen girls figuring out who they are, the greatest challenges she witnesses are judgment from others and self-judgment. When I asked her to offer one piece of advice to parents who notice teen girls struggling to accept themselves, she said this: “Practise acceptance of who they are rather than impose ideas of who they should be.” Teens girls are tough enough on themselves. Let’s just see them for all they are in this moment. Let’s validate the good stuff and suspend all judgment.
Genetics—How She is Born
Identity is an ongoing and multi-faceted aspect of a teen girl’s journey; how she is born is simply the beginning of that journey. The influence of genetics unfolds in the womb in that DNA will determine her gender, eye colour, height and body type, and potentially her behaviour and personality. DNA also dictates the health of her genes, her genetic predispositions, and her cognitive functioning, including possible brain-based disorders (such as attention deficit hyperactive disorder, attention deficit disorder, sensory processing disorder, or autism spectrum disorder), anxiety levels and responsiveness to stress, and physical disabilities. Some girls will be born with a genetic advantage such as intellectual giftedness, artistic or athletic prowess, or some other kind of talent. A few girls will win what Cameron Russell, in her TEDX Talk, called the “genetic lottery.”4
Some girls don’t feel like girls at all. New research on transgender or transfluid individuals now shows that there are differences in hormone levels in the brains and bodies of those who feel they don’t match their DNA. In an interesting article in The Atlantic, Jesse Singal explores the complications that can arise when teens identify as transgender. For parents, this identification often results in great uncertainty. Is it the result of an intensified search for identity in the uncertain years of adolescence, or of exposure to internet articles and YouTube videos? Or is the identification an indicator of an actual conflict between their child’s gender identity and the sex assigned at birth?5
Whatever your child’s genetic makeup, you have the most influence when it comes to helping your teen to accept what she was born with, without shame or blame, and then move forward. You can do this by telling them, “How you are born is out of your control, never your fault, and what you have to accept.” Then reassure them that “what you can control is what you do with your genetics,” and that this begins with embracing the fact that we are all unique. Girls can get stuck on labels (such