Episode 100: Helping Your Daughter See Herself Through Your Eyes!

Have you ever wondered how your daughter truly sees herself in the mirror—confident, kind, and smart, or shadowed by doubts and insecurities?

In today's episode titled "Attachment and Self-Worth: Helping Your Daughter See Herself Through Your Eyes," we explore the critical role of secure attachment in shaping our daughters' self-worth and how, as moms, our perception of them molds their own. Through the art of mirroring and fostering emotional safety, we delve into practical, transformative ways to reinforce their sense of value, ensuring they see themselves through a lens of love and confidence.

Included in this episode:

• The foundational link between attachment and self-esteem, and how the 4 S’s—safety, seen, soothed, and secure—play a pivotal role.
• The science and power behind emotional mirroring in validating and acknowledging our daughters' feelings, enhancing trust and emotional awareness.
• Strategies for expressing unconditional love, distinguishing behaviors from the individual, and reinforcing the notion that our daughters are loved, “no matter what.”
• Ways to foster emotional safety and connection, including personal anecdotes and the transformative impact of dedicated one-on-one time.
• Dispelling common myths surrounding self-worth and attachment, and how awareness and intentional changes can break cyclical patterns of attachment issues.
• Practical exercises and activities designed to strengthen the mother-daughter bond, emphasizing positive reinforcement and mutual appreciation.

Ready to deepen your connection and help your daughter see her beautiful, true self? Join me in implementing one of today’s strategies, like the “I See You” practice or creating a Connection Jar. Witness the transformation in your relationship and her self-worth. 

And for moms seeking to navigate and thrive through the parenting journey with confidence and love, we look forward to seeing you inside the Aligned Moms Society, designed to guide and support you every step of the way. Let's empower our daughters together.

🔗 Seeking personalized support? Book a discovery call: askparentingtherapist@gmail.com

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Follow along for more insights and support:

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As Mentioned in this Episode - Check out Living CALM, a resource for moms on this journey to healing and raising compassionate & confident kids. 

The best thing you can do for yourself and your kids is effectively regulate your nervous system. And a great place to start >> to wire the brain for gratitude. Research tells us that gratitude increases happiness and a peaceful mindset. Make the shift and watch how things in your life start to change. Sign up today! www.pamgodbois.com/gratitude

Transcript

0:01

When your daughter looks in the mirror, what does she see? Does she see someone who's enough? Smart kind and confident or is she weighed down by self-doubt and insecurity? As mom. The ways that we see our daughters. Shapes the way that they see themselves. And today we're diving into this through secure attachment. And how that can build self-worth. We're going to look at mirroring and emotional development and also how to foster emotional safety to help your daughter truly believe in her own value. So if you're ready for this, let's dive in. Attachment is the emotional bond between you and your child. A secure attachment teaches your daughter that she's safe. She is loved and she is worthy of your care. People with secure attachments tend to have higher self-esteem and positive self-concept. They're more likely to be trusting and hopeful and self-confident. And they're more likely to form stable, satisfying relationships. Securely attached people also tend to have a positive view of the world. Believing that it is safe and predictable. People with insecure attachments on the other hand. Such as anxious, avoidant or disorganized attachment styles tend to have lower self-esteem. They may also be more likely to experience anxiety. And depression. Why does this matter? The bottom line your daughter learns about her value. Through how you interact with her through that attachment, that bond. She observes your words, your actions, and even your tone, shaping how she feels about herself. So think of attachment, like a mirror, your daughter looks to you to see her reflection. If the mirror reflects back, love. Encouragement and acceptance. She learns to see herself as worthy. But if the mirror reflects criticism neglect or disapproval, her self-worth may crack like a broken mirror. So what exactly is mirroring well, emotional mirroring, which is what we're going to talk about today. Um, is when you reflect your teen's emotions back to her showing empathy and understanding. But mirroring is something that they is like natural in us. It's born in us through our mirror neurons. It's why when your infant is an infant, when you're a child is a baby and you smile at them, they smile back. That's what that is. Right. Emotional mirroring is not about fixing the problem or giving advice. It's about saying, I see you. I hear you, your feelings matter. That's what we're using emotional mirroring for in this context. So let's say your daughter storms in from school, throws her bag down and mutters. Oh, I hate everything right now. Uh, reactive response might be, oh, come on. It can't be bad. Bad, right? Invalidating. Uh, mirrored response could be, it sounds like you had a really rough day. Want to tell me about it, or would you rather take a little bit of time first? Mirroring works because one it's all about validating when you reflect her emotions. You're signaling to her brain that it's safe to feel those feelings. This calms, the amygdala, right? The brain's alarm system and allows her to process emotions instead of getting stuck in them. It also helps to build trust. Emotional mirroring builds trust because it communicates. I'm not here to judge you or fix you. I'm here to understand you and over time. This trust helps her open up more often. So imagine your daughter's emotions are tangled. Ball of yarn. Mirroring is like gently holding the yarn. While she untangles it herself. You're not pulling it apart for her. You're just creating a safe space for her to work through it. So how do we mirror effectively? Well, first it's really important that we pay attention to nonverbal cues. If she seems quiet at dinner or scrolling her phone with a frown. Notice her body language and say, you seem a little off tonight, anything on your mind? Help her name emotions without assuming. So if she's upset, Try something like you seem frustrated. Am I close? If you're wrong, she'll correct. You which still opens the door to communication. And then you're holding space. You're not fixing, you're just simply there holding the ball of yarn for her. So you want to resist the urge to problem solve. Sometimes that sounds really tough. I'm here. If you want to talk about it is all she actually needs from you. I mean, think about. How many times you've gone to a spouse with a struggle and they give you a solution. Versus going to a girlfriend who just holds space for you and says that sucks, or I'm pissed at him for you or. I'll get the shovel. Right. Sometimes we just need to feel like someone's on our side. That's what holding space is. And then finally validating without agreeing. So sometimes I have parents say to me, well, I can't validate because I don't agree with what they're saying. Validation and agreement are not the same. Now your child might perceive them as the same. That's okay. Let's because their prefrontal cortex is still developing. You know, that they're not the same. You're just simply validating. So even if her frustration seems overblown, acknowledge her perspective, you can say something like I see why that might feel really unfair to you. You're not saying it's unfair. You're saying. I see your perspective of you believing it's unfair. Now, this is one of those lines. You have to walk because when you fall into the pattern of saying things like, I'm sorry, you feel that way, or I'm sorry, you're experiencing that. Our kids are savvy and they start to recognize that we're putting off their experience. So really. Tuning in and not being dismissive of when you're validating, even if you don't agree you can even say something as simple as I, yes. I see your perspective. And if I were you. I would probably see it the same way that's validation. You're not saying I do see it the same way. You're not saying yes, your brother's a jerk or I can't believe your father did that thing. You're saying. I understand why you are experiencing this based on all the factors that you have going on in your life right now. And the other thing that's valuable here is teach her the word validate. So that when you validate her in a way. That is not what she's looking for. She can communicate that my, I have a 15 and a half year old and she says all the time, that's not the kind of validation I was looking for. And I say, what kind of validation were you looking for? And she's able to communicate it to me. And I'm able to go, okay, let's try again. And then she expresses her concern and I validate in the way that works for her right now. Sometimes we just need that person that says, let me get the shovel. The really cool thing about this when you're practicing mirroring is you'll start to see some shifts, right? So before mirroring, maybe she slams the door feels misunderstood and isolates herself. After you've been practicing, mirroring with her for a while. She still feels upset, but also heard, which helps her regulate and eventually open up. Like she might go off by herself and then we'll come back and share what's going on. So mirroring has the ability to amplify the good right. Building emotional awareness through mirroring because when you name feelings, she learns to name them too. And over time, this boosts her emotional intelligence. So after consistently mirroring her emotions, she starts saying I'm just stressed about my math test instead of lashing out, right. She starts to find the words. This is the development of the prefrontal cortex. This is what we're doing here. When we do this work, when we're mirroring and communicating and validating and leading. This is the work we're doing. The other thing that it does, is it deepens the bond. When she feels seen and understood, she's more likely to trust you with bigger issues in the future. So a teen who knows her mom. Listen, without judgment is more likely to come forward. About challenges with friendship, drama, or school pressures that a teen who feels like her mom only cares about her grades. It also creates a ripple effect of confidence because when her emotions are validated at home, she learns to validate her own feelings, which foster self-worth. You can think about emotional mirroring as like planting seeds. You might not see the flowers right away, but each moment of validation. Is watering her confidence and emotional resilience. And this leads us to the kind of the next key, right? The next key component is unconditional love or communicating. Unconditional love. But let's talk about why. Unconditional love is actually one of the keys to secure attachment. It's the foundation for self-worth because secure attachment is built on the belief. I am love no matter what, when your daughter feels this deeply. It shows how she values herself in her relationships. And you have to remember that the adolescent brain is still developing, especially the prefrontal cortex, which handles decision-making and emotional regulation. So knowing she's unconditionally loved, provides a sense of safety. It calms the nervous system and allows her to navigate challenges with confidence. So, how do we communicate on conditional love? We're all familiar with this concept of wanting to feel unconditionally loved, wanting to unconditionally love our children. But unconditional love separates the behavior from the person. So your daughter might push boundaries. She might roll our eyes. She might forget shores. She might have an attitude or a comeback. But that doesn't define who she is. Unconditional love makes it clear that your love isn't tied to her actions. So instead of why can't you just listen to me? You try something like, I love you. No matter what. Even when we're not seeing eye to eye right now. You can also like use ICU moments, right? Teens often feel invisible or misunderstood. So take moments to show you notice her effort, her struggles, her strengths. My daughter happens to be an incredible baker and an incredible violin player. Amongst other things, but these are two things that she's really worked at and honed. And every time I watch her play. A really complicated piece of music. I am blown away and I tell her, like, I can't even imagine reading all those notes on the screen, on the piece of paper. And getting your hands to do what they're supposed to do. And like this repetitive motion and all the stuff going on, there are so many components that are happening when she's playing the violin And it blows my mind and I tell her all the time. How impressed I am. With not just the outcome, but the amount of effort. That I know it takes for her to get to that place where she can be playing that, that level of music. I say, I tell her all the time. Every chance I get, every time I hear her play, and I now say, I know I say this all the time. And she still soaks it up. She loves it. It doesn't matter that I've said it 4,000 times in her life. So keep that in mind. These ICU moments, they can be things that you've said that you've, I noticed that you've pointed out that you've, supported the, her through. Over and over and over again. You don't need to recreate the wheel. I also like to in these ICU moments, I like to highlight. That they should be proud of themselves. Right. So. I may say. I saw how hard you worked on getting to this place in your music career? You should be so proud of yourself for the amount of effort you've put in to get here. Because it doesn't matter at the end of the day, if I'm proud of her, what matters is that she's proud of herself. Another component of unconditional love is to be present in the hard moments. When she's emotional, when she's falling apart, resist the urge to fix. Or dismiss her feelings. Instead show her. You're there for her, no matter what. And you might use words to do this. You might say something like I can tell this is really hard for you. I'm here. We'll get through this together. You could just simply be present. And as long as she knows that you're there present with that messaging. I can tell this is really hard for you. I'm here for you. We'll get through this together. It could even be something like, I tend to say, I got you. I got you. And she'll come and sit with me and we'll just like sit together quietly because that's what she needs. Right. She needs that opportunity to co-regulate. She needs an opportunity to feel closeness. And to get a release of oxytocin. Next up is to apologize when you get it wrong. Because admitting mistakes, models, accountability, and shows her that love isn't about being perfect. Something as simple as I'm sorry. I raised my voice earlier. I was frustrated that wasn't fair for you. I love you. I'll do better next time. Simple straightforward. Owning it. And oftentimes I'll have parents say to me, I can't get my teenager to take responsibility for our actions. Nine times out of 10 it's because we don't take. Responsibility or hold ourselves accountable in front of them. And they need to see that they need to see it in the context of our relationship with them. And they need to see it in the context of our relationship with our spouses, our family members, our life ourselves. We need to be willing to take. Responsibility. To hold ourselves into like, take accountability for our actions and our words because they matter. Now. Oftentimes parents will say to me, I'm not really sure. If my team knows how much I love them. Like, I don't know if they get it. I don't know if they understand it. And oftentimes as a child and adolescent therapist, I would hear from kids. I don't think my parents love me. Right. I'm not sure that they do. I think they love my brother more than me or my sister more than me, because I'm a pain and that they're there. Well behaved, right. And it can be really easy to kind of give attention to the well-behaved. Compliant child. And Sean, the child who maybe has a little bit more going on or has a bigger personality, has feels a little stands, a little more strongly in who they are. And this was me as a kid. I know this person because that was me and I often got squashed. Sometimes parents will say to me, well, I say, I love you. Isn't that enough? The reality is teens often interpret love through actions, not words. If they feel judged, dismissed, misunderstood. They may have, they may question the depth of your love. They may question whether you actually love them. They may even say things like, I mean, Sure they say they love me, or you say you love me, or, I don't believe you, or they may say I hate you as a, trying to get a response out of you for you to demonstrate that you care. So, how do we reassure her? How do we reassure our daughters that we're there for them? We have their back. We love them unconditionally. Well, first and foremost, you've got to show up consistently. You got to show up daily with small acts of care. Whether it's making her favorite snacks or asking about her day or doing something special for her, maybe you're at the store and you see something that, you know, she's wanted or she's been thinking about, or she's been talking about and you just pick it up. I said to my daughter yesterday. Because as I'm recording this, we're getting closer to the holidays. Right. And, where I live. the Trans-Siberian orchestra performs the day after Thanksgiving. We have a, there's a, a performance center, not that far from us. And they perform there every year. And every year I say, oh, I should get tickets to that. And I always forget because that's just how my brain works. And I was scrolling Facebook, um, yesterday looking for something in particular. And an ad came up for trans Siberian orchestra and, and tickets. And I went in and I bought them. I did not. I talk to her. I didn't talk to my husband. I just went in and bought them. And she got home and I said, Hey, I was thinking of you today. And the universe placed an ad for the Trans-Siberian orchestra tickets in front of my face, as I was thinking of you. And I bought them because I knew it was something that you would love. And she was like, oh, that's going to be so amazing. I can't wait. When is it? Like, you know, the, just after Thanksgiving, a couple of weeks away. She's like, oh, I'm so excited. That was, and it doesn't, you don't have to buy your kids things for them to like, feel like you're thinking about, but then, but the small acts. Of thinking about them when they're not around thinking about not just their basic needs, but like showing up and showing that you care on a daily basis. Right. Think about how impactful it is. If a friend shows up it's your birthday or it's just a ordinary day and they see something, I was on Amazon the other day. And I saw this little like bag whose little zipper could be cosmetic bag. And it says, I'm a girl who loves pickles and it's got a little pickle character on it. And one of my dear friends who happens to be my neighbor. Um, loves pickles. Like it's a running joke and I saw this bag and I was like, I'm buying it for, and I bought it and I put it in a little gift bag and wrapped it up with some tissue paper. And while she was at work yesterday, I popped it into her house and she sent me a message. When she got home last night, it was like, oh my God, you just made my day. It's been such a hard day. I appreciate you. Thank you so much, right? These little things that are saying, Hey, I love you without having to. You know, they'll just saying, I love you, but these acts right. Another way to reassure her and help her to understand that you really do have her. You really do love her. Is showing up with patients. When she pushes you away, remind her. I'm not going anywhere. I love you no matter what, right. You've got to be patient with her mood, ups and downs. You've got any patient with her struggles. You got to be patient with her frustrations. You gotta be willing to weather the storm. And then finally celebrate her uniqueness. Let her know that you love her for who she is, not just what she achieves. So here are some practice. Here are some exercises for building connection. You can practice. With your daughter or your son? The first practice is the ICU practice. This is where you daily share one positive observation about your kid. An example might be, I noticed how kind you were to your brother today. That's such a great quality. That's it. I see you. I see you. That's all you're saying. I see you. I saw this thing. I caught you doing this thing that I really appreciate. The second one is the mirror check-in. So once a week, sit down together and ask. How are you feeling about yourself this week? Share something you admire about her and invite her to do the same for herself. Simple straightforward. Here's what I admire about you. What are some things that you admire by yourself? And the third one is a connection jar. So write down activities, um, you both enjoy on a slip of paper and it could be like a baking, a movie night, yoga taking walks. And pull one each week to get to do some, spend some time together. This works, especially while I had a mom reach out to me recently saying, you know, I've got a 13 year old and I'm in a new relationship, like just newly remarried. And we just had a baby and I know that my 13 year old loves her little brother, but. Like she's, I'm having all these experiences where that I didn't have before. Well, the truth of the matter is the before for the first. 11 years of her life, it was mom and her. And then this guy came along and he's great. She loves him, but like, Now there's another person. Then they have a baby. Here's another person. Mom works full time. She's taking care of a baby. She's got a new husband and she's got a daughter that's been with her through thick and thin. And. And her daughter's only 13, right? So like doesn't have the prefrontal cortex to be able to be like, oh yeah, my mom's going through some stuff right now. This is one of the things they did is they put together a connection jar and really made an effort to spend time together. Every week, kind of like a date every week. And to talk about it, to say like, Hey, I know things have changed and they have changed fast. Um, and they've changed fast for me too. And I really miss our time together. Can we. Do this, can we work to spend some more time together? And she noticed after doing this for a couple of weeks, that there was more spontaneous conversation. There was conversation at the dinner table, there was conversation. And she was like getting ready in the morning. There was conversation that hadn't been happening since the new husband and the baby had arrived. Um, and because they were starting. She was feeling her daughter was feeling again, like she was a priority. Right. And that matters. The biggest thing to remember here is that when your daughter feels secure in her connection with you. She begins to see herself the way that you see her capable, strong and worthy of love. It's a gift that will shape not only her self worth, but also the way she values herself in every relationship. She ever has. So. Decide today. I start with one practice. What's one thing that you can do. To start to strengthen that bond. Just start to show up for her in a way. Um, that aligns with, or is going to support what she needs. And a couple of journeying prompts, one for you, one for her first one for moms. What message am I sending my daughter about her worth? And how can I affirm her value? More intentionally. And then a prompt for your daughter, which is one of my favorites. What is one thing I love about myself and how can I share that with my mom? Okay guys. Thank you so much for joining me today on the peaceful home podcast. Remember every small step you take towards connection is a step towards building a foundation of love and trust that lasts a lifetime. Don't forget to subscribe and share this episode with another mom who could use it, um, and have an amazing day. I will see you guys next week. Take care.