Miss-connection: Why Your Teenage Daughter 'Hates' You, Expects the World and Needs to Talk

By Justin Coulson

A guide to surviving and thriving through your daughter's teenage years, from Dr Justin Coulson as seen on Channel 9's Parental Guidance.

What is the best thing about being a teenage girl right now? 'My friends!' 'Independence!' 'Discovering who I am.'

What is the worst thing about being a teenage girl? 'My friends.' 'Not knowing what the future holds.' 'Pressure to be perfect and look a certain way.'

What do teenage girls wish they could talk to us about? 'I'm sick of pretending to be happy all the time.' 'My face; if anyone is ever going to love me despite how grotesque my face is.' 'I sometimes don't want to be here.'

There has never been a better time to be a teenage girl. But perhaps there has never been a harder time. We know that connection is at the heart of our teenage daughters' happiness. And we do our best to have strong connections with our girls. But despite this, we often feel a disconnect. Or perhaps, more precisely, a mis-connect.

If you're looking to understand your teen daughter better and deepen your connection with her, this book is your guide. Drawing on cutting-edge psychology research along with interviews and surveys from close to 400 teenage girls, Miss-connection will take you into the world your teen girl experiences and help you connect with her the way she needs you to.

As the girls themselves set out the challenges they face - with social media, friends, boys, identity - you will find connection and solutions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Feb 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781460709122

Justin Coulson

Dr Justin Coulson is the co-host of the popular TV program Parental Guidance, and Australia's top ranked parenting podcast, The Happy Families podcast. He is author of five bestselling family and parenting books: 21 Days to a Happier Family, 9 Ways to a Resilient Child, 10 Things Every Parent Needs to Know, Miss-Connection and The Parenting Revolution. His viral video about raising children has been viewed over 80 million times. Justin is a regular contributor to the Today show and other major Australian media outlets. He and his wife, Kylie, have been married since the late 1990s and are the parents of six daughters.

Book preview

Dedication

‘People say parenting is the hardest job.

It’s not. Growing up is.’

– Draco Malfoy, in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

This is a book that involves the personal, even intimate, stories and descriptions from the world of teenage girls. In addition to obtaining written permission from everyone who provided me with their personal stories and information, I have gone to great lengths to disguise the details that might lead to individuals being identified. All of these changes were carefully considered so as to protect the girls and parents who spoke to me, while remaining true to the spirit of each story. The aim of this book was to reveal the characters of and challenges faced by the adolescent girls we are raising, so we can understand them more clearly and guide them more successfully. If you see yourself as a parent or your daughter in these pages, it’s coincidental. I also hope this will happen, because it means I have captured the essence of what it is to be a teenage girl today.

Contents

Dedication

Foreword by Dannielle Miller

Introduction

1.They’ve got to do the next bit on their own

2.You just don’t get me – and I don’t get me either!

3.Finding my tribe

4.Pixel perfect: You can’t be popular unless you’re hot

5.Is social media destroying my daughter?

6.Screen solutions that work

7.Mental health and our girls: Anxiety and depression

8.Would you set your hair on fire? Alcohol, drugs, parties, and other risky business

9.Sexuality, pornography, and intimacy

10.Positive conversations: Setting real-world limits with your teenage daughter

11.What your daughter wants you to know but won’t tell you

Conclusion: Doing the next bit on their own . . .

Acknowledgements

Endnotes

Index

About the Author

Author’s Note

Copyright

Foreword

In popular culture and in many adults’ conversations, the teen-girl years are often referred to, with a roll of the eyes, as a time that must simply be endured by everyone else. In books, in movies and on TV, teen girls are Queen Bees, Wannabees, Bitchfaces, Princesses, Divas, Mean Girls, Drama Queens and more.

But despite the fact that many assume adolescence is marked by the sugar and spice of girlhood gone sour, for the 25 years that I have worked with young women, the ‘trouble’ or ‘troubled’ labels have never really resonated with what I see firsthand.

Yes, our girls may be challenging at times (as we all can be). Certainly, they are a vulnerable group. Plan International’s 2018 annual report confirms that despite all the education campaigns aimed at reducing sexual harassment, most young women first experience intimidation when in a public space between the ages of 11 and 15. Australian research also indicates that young women aged 14 to 19 may be up to four times more likely to experience physical or sexual violence than older women.

Yet despite both their challenges and vulnerability, our girls can be hilarious, brave, creative, fiercely loyal and deeply insightful. What price will we pay if we fail to recognise and celebrate both the resilience and gorgeousness of young women? It’s time to look at teenage girls through new lenses.

And what struck me in reading Miss-Connection was the fact that Dr Justin Coulson truly sees adolescent girls – in all their light and shade.

Justin is an academic; he has a PhD in psychology. This book is, therefore, well researched. But when I was reading it, what I was most struck by was how this is clearly his heart’s work too. As the father of six daughters, he offers warm, realistic advice. I found myself nodding along, in affirmation, but also in delight at the fact that he so clearly cares.

He wants to get this right – not just for his daughters, but for all our daughters.

Justin doesn’t shy away from the tough issues either, yet these are explored with empathy and compassion. But more importantly, Justin hasn’t just observed; he’s listened. This book is filled with firsthand insights from a diverse range of teen girls, and from the women who mother them. He’s also had meaningful conversations with colleagues and been open to learning and having his own views challenged. The discussion is considered and nuanced.

The conclusion he reaches – that our girls need connection (for us to pull them in, rather than push them away) – is profoundly important.

Despite the fact that our girls are saturated in marketing messages telling them they should want more stuff, in all the conversations I’ve had with them, they’ve spoken with yearning not for the latest iPhone or a designer dress. Rather, they’ve expressed a desire for more understanding and for someone to ‘have their back’.

Justin unapologetically positions himself as their ally. He argues it’s time to lay down our arms against girlhood and to explore other ways of parenting that are more grounded in love, laughter and mutual respect.

He is, in fact, the male Girl Champion we’ve been waiting for.

Viva the revolution!

Dannielle Miller

Parenting author, teen educator, and CEO of Enlighten Education

Introduction

In 1999, Kylie (my wife) and I sat in the office of a Rockhampton obstetrician for our first appointment. He propped up Kylie on the bed, rubbed some goo on his ultrasound machine and placed it on Kylie’s pregnant belly. A blurry image appeared on the screen. Dr Khoo pointed out our baby’s head, arms, legs, fingers, toes, and more. We were in awe. As our eyes absorbed every detail on the screen before us, a song came on the radio that was playing softly somewhere outside the room. ‘A Little Ray of Sunshine’. Kylie looked at me, eyes wide, and proclaimed, ‘We’re having a girl!’

Later that year, we were so excited to welcome Chanel into our lives. But we worried, a lot. Could we give our daughter the opportunities we felt were important? Would she be healthy and happy? Would she have good friends? Would she be a good friend? Could we teach her well? Would she be a great student? A world leader? Could we raise her with the love she deserved? Would she love us like we loved her? Could we raise a daughter who would become a wonderful person?

As our family grew – with five more daughters – so too did my interest in raising children well, particularly in raising strong, caring daughters. As I have watched them grow and mature, my concern for the wellbeing of girls in our society has increased tremendously.

Endeavouring to guide our teenage daughters through a complex adolescent world is . . . complicated. As our girls grow, the often-thorny challenges we experience in our families require delicate and skilful labour.

I regularly speak at conferences for professionals who work with young people. You might say that the topics presented at those conferences are spicy. Teenage girls are implicated in most of them: depression, anxiety and other mental illness, sexting, self-harm, bullying and cyber-bullying, issues around sexual attitudes and experiences, pornography, unhealthy attitudes, and use of alcohol and other drugs.

It’s heavy stuff.

At times, the speakers leave the audience with the impression that all of our girls (and boys) are racing towards unsafe, unhealthy choices like seagulls rushing towards a cold, soggy chip thrown by an excited toddler at the beach.

As I prepared to write this guide, I surveyed hundreds of adolescent girls around Australia. Teenage girls (aged 13 to 19) from a number of schools nationwide completed a questionnaire that asked them about their challenges, their wellbeing, their friends, and their experiences with substances, sex, and screens. I wanted all the nitty-gritty info.

I also interviewed a lot of teenage girls and women, usually mums, to understand the challenges faced by girls and their parents, and the questions each are asking. I probed and dug, endeavouring to uncover the big issues that parents are wrestling with, and that our teenage girls are distressed by or worried about. I tried to be sensitive, but I was also clear that I wanted to know the issues so I could help parents grappling with big concerns.

l had anticipated that this book would be about the moral scourges of our time – and by moral scourges I mean anything that the media gets crazy about in relation to our youth: screens, bullying, eating disorders, self-harm, sex, and so on. It’s true that I address several of these issues throughout this book. But that’s not what this book is about. And that surprised me. This is not the book I thought I was going to write.

Those big, serious issues barely factored in the interviews. They were highlighted in the data I collected, but not in large quantities. Very few people – parents or teenagers – were wringing their hands over them. That doesn’t mean these concerns are not significant. They certainly are, and they must be taken seriously. Nor does it mean that parents and teenagers aren’t worried about these things. A small percentage are very worried.

Of course, I recognise that, perhaps, people felt uncomfortable discussing these ‘big’ issues. But when I pressed, I was rebuffed. Those significant issues were usually not difficulties for the girls and adults I spoke with, even when I tried to make them issues. It may also be that those who were willing to be interviewed didn’t fall into the cohorts experiencing those sorts of challenges. Regardless, I can only report on what people tell me. My findings were consistent with what larger studies have shown, particularly the Australian Government’s Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing.¹

And what my findings suggest is that most parents and teenagers are worried about more mundane, everyday challenges. Things like motivation at school and for learning, wellbeing matters such as body image and identity crises, or dramas with their friends.

And connection.

It would be easy to assume that the title of this book is referring to our daughters as ‘Miss Connection’, alluding to the time they spend connected to Wi-Fi. That can be one meaning. Perhaps a deeper meaning is the idea that our daughters want to connect with us – and we with them – but while we are not usually suffering a disconnection, we often experience mis-connection.

Connection, according to Brene Brown, is ‘the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship’.

Every conversation I had was awash with the theme of connection. Every survey highlighted this burning and basic need. Girls said things such as:

I need to be loved and understood. And sometimes, I just want you to listen to me and not say anything. Just listen.

Even though I’d never admit to it, all I want is my parents’ love, support and attention.

Tahlula, a 16-year-old I interviewed, confirmed this need for connection:

Lots of my friends, their parents don’t speak to them. Some of the girls seem to make it hard, but all girls want their parents to spend time talking with them.

When I asked the girls, ‘If there was one thing about your life that you could change, what would it be?’, they overwhelmingly responded with statements such as:

My relationship with my parents.

I would have more of an emotional connection to my family.

I want a close family and support from them.

This desire for deep connection carried across strongly to friendship groups, but the primary emphasis was repeatedly on family and parents. I could almost feel them pleading.

And it’s this kind of connection that is at the heart of wellbeing. Connection predicts positivity, motivation, and growth – now and in the long term – more effectively than anything else. Some of the most important studies in psychology, globally, have highlighted this. At its simplest, the research in this book underscores this idea that ‘other people matter’,² and that ‘happiness is love. Full stop’.³

Connection is the question. Connection is also the answer.

Who I spoke to

In the time that I worked on this book, 369 adolescent girls completed surveys about their wellbeing. They also shared personal details of the challenges they are experiencing as teenage girls growing up in the second decade of the 2000s. Additionally, I ran focus groups with schoolgirls and held face-to-face (or video) interviews with school principals, psychologists, and another few dozen mums and daughters to capture qualitative information that surveys often miss.

Listening to the many women and girls who shared their experiences, I was consistently shocked at how little men comprehend the complexities and challenges of adolescent female life. (Note that this is obviously a heavily gendered book and, due to the sample used, emphasises a binary approach to gender.) Writing this book has given me an appreciation of the remarkable strength it takes to be a confident woman in a world that is often brutally unkind to women and girls – and even more unkind to those who experience ‘minority’ status in one way or another, particularly teenagers and young women. The comments that girls made about their endless body-image concerns floored me; the sense of being assessed for how I look is something that rarely enters my thinking. Sure, like many boys and men, I’m health and image conscious, but not in the same way as the girls I spoke to. They openly told me about constantly ruminating over a small comment that ended with the wrong inflection, or the way someone looked (or didn’t look) at them. Relationships rise and fall on these micro-moments, which guys seem far less attuned or responsive to, or concerned by.

I’m grateful to all who have opened their lives to me – and to you – in order for us to improve the way we raise strong and caring girls, who can make such valuable contributions to their families, their communities, and maybe even the world. I hope that I have honoured the voices of everyone who spoke with me, and that I have shared their stories and ideas with the dignity and respect that they deserve.

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This book is not a step-by-step approach. Humans and our relationships are too complex for that. Every context, personality, and interaction is different. This book does not contain superficial strategies, controlling techniques (the ‘grow-a-spine’ strategy), or ‘to-do’ lists for you to raise a great kid by checking the boxes. Instead, this book is about principles. The ideas I cover will be relevant to anyone looking for a principle-centred approach to raising great girls and enjoying beautiful connections that last. It’s about helping you the parent to become more – for your daughter and for yourself. If you’re looking to understand your daughter better and to deepen your connection with her, let this book be your guide.

Although I have studied the psychology of child development, parenting, and teenage girls, I approached the task of writing this book with some trepidation. I’m not female and while I’ve been an adolescent that was in the late 1980s and early 1990s – a time qualitatively different to today. Regardless of all of my conversations with young people, I can’t truly claim to understand what it’s like to be a teenager today. I’ve had the opportunity to interview, survey, and observe, however, and this is what I bring to you the parent.

Furthermore, my goal in this book is not to speak for teenage girls. To assume that role would be both grossly unfair to them and arrogant of me. My objective is to model how we can better listen to and understand our daughters from within a context very different to the one in which we grew up. More importantly, my goal is for us to listen to them and understand how we can see them more clearly as they are – especially at their best.

1

They’ve got to do the next bit on their own

Our family loves musicals. Mary Poppins was one of our favourites when our children were younger. When we watched the stage production some years ago, a line in the show caught my attention.

After caring for Jane and Michael Banks for a time, Mary – the magical nanny who blows in on the east wind to look after them – determines she must leave 17 Cherry Tree Lane and find other children to look after. Her good friend Bert, the chimney sweep, attempts to persuade her to stay.

‘They’re good kids, Mary!’ he pleads, advocating on their behalf.

‘I can’t help them if they won’t let me,’ Mary responds, ‘and there’s no one so hard to teach as the child who knows everything.’

Bert asks, ‘So?’

Mary answers, ‘So, they’ve got to do the next bit on their own.’

If you’re the parent of a teenage daughter, you probably relate. Their challenging attitudes, regular scowls, and over-the-top eye-rolling leaves us feeling that they are hard to teach – and sometimes simply hard to reach. They know everything. And sometimes, when all that eye-rolling and attitude gets too much, you probably wish that the east wind could blow in and carry you away, like it does for Mary Poppins!

You also know that your daughter is a good kid. Even a great kid. Sure, she drives you nuts from time to time, but, gosh, you love her.

While we might all relate to the first part of Mary and Bert’s interaction, the last line deserves special emphasis: ‘They’ve got to do the next bit on their own.’

After observing and working with families professionally for many years now, I’m certain that adolescence is one of the hardest parenting stages we’ll encounter. When our girls are younger, they are innocent and sweet. They are inclined to nurture and take care of others, particularly their parents and siblings. As they enter adolescence, however, those attributes can often be subsumed by a desire to become independent thinkers who want to be left alone to make their own decisions and find their own way as ‘big people’ in a grown-up world. Their first 12 or 13 years are our best opportunity to teach our children everything we can: values, morals, principles, and how to get along with others. After that many adolescents begin to resist any or all of our efforts to control them. They want independence. They want to be allowed to do the next bit on their own. In fact, it’s a developmental necessity.

We know this. We also know that it’s our job to prepare them for independence. Yet, as parents, we chafe when they challenge us. We know better! Why won’t they listen? At times, raising a teenage girl feels like playing the board game Operation. We’re constantly bumping into the boundaries and setting off alarms. It’s tricky.

When parents want two things and can’t have both

Anna* is an HR manager for a multinational company. She and her husband have been together for 17 years. When they met, he already had two kids: a boy who was six (now 23) and a daughter who was two (now 19). Together, they have one biological soon-to-be teenage daughter, Charlotte.

When Anna and I sat down to talk about raising teenage girls, I was immediately taken by her zest for life. As we talked, Anna was quick to laugh. Loudly. And often. As a mum and step-mum, she was excited to talk about the joys and challenges of raising girls. Anna wants her daughters to be independent and strong, to think for themselves and carry themselves confidently. But she also wants her kids to do as they’re told!

The two hardest things about raising teenage girls, Anna described, were dealing with ‘personality issues’ (she used her fingers for emphasis), and working through the independence phase.

‘I’ve been a stay-at-home mum and I’ve been a working mum,’ she said. ‘Nothing, and I mean nothing, has challenged me like raising girls!’ Anna burst into laughter as she compared her personal and professional roles.

I asked, ‘Why is it so hard?’

‘Oh, well, first, there’s the personality issues. With my step-daughter, it’s hard because we come from different places. Her attitudes are so different to mine and she knows everything.’

Anna’s eye-roll was perfect. I could imagine her as a teenager, giving the same attitude to her own mum. She continued, ‘I find her really blunt and the things she says are just so wrong. She’s a lot more politically incorrect than I am – and opinionated! But if I try to correct her, it doesn’t go well. But it’s the whole independence thing that’s toughest for me with my biological daughter, Charlotte.’

It took Anna a while to explain what her key struggle was but, eventually, it emerged that she was struggling as her ‘baby’ girl grew up and started separating from her.

Anna said, ‘I want to keep this baby a baby. But I also want her to stand on her own two feet, venture out into the world, and have the confidence to take risks and live outside her comfort zone. Just this past couple of weeks, we’ve been having conflict. She’s actually being confident and wanting to take risks, which is what I keep saying I want for her. Then I’m trying to shut it down, because I’m worried about her. But when I do that, I see the erosion of this beautiful relationship that we had, where we were open and honest and talking about a lot of things. It’s going bad. We’re arguing. And what’s happening is that I’m trying to reel her back in, because it seems my little girl’s disappearing.’

Anna’s face showed a mixture of pain and amusement. The irony was striking and poignant.

Anna is not alone. So many parents I spoke with voiced similar concerns:

I want her to be her own person, but I want to keep her close to me. And I want to continue to influence her.

I want her to be independent, but I’d like her to do as she’s told!

We often talk about how contradictory our teenagers are, yet we’re blind to the glaring contradictions in our own attitudes and words. We sometimes need to remind ourselves that we are not a finished product. We’re a work in progress, too.

I said to Anna, ‘The challenge is that you want her to grow up to be independent, and you want her to listen to you and do what you say. You don’t want to lose that connection with her, and you can see that connection slipping away as she grows into the independent woman you want her to become. How do you reconcile that?’

Anna paused, and the silence hung in the air for some time. I could almost hear her thoughts, because they reflected my own thoughts with my daughters, the thoughts of so many of the parents who shared their feelings with me.

‘I want her to be independent,’ Anna continued, ‘but I don’t. She drives me mad when she won’t listen to me. But what I’m telling her to do is good for her. She has to work this out. I can’t hold her hand forever. But what if she gets it wrong? What if she makes a mistake? I don’t want that to happen.’

Today’s parents walk a fine line. We seem to feel more pressure to ‘parent’ well than previous generations did (although that perception may be due to the fact that we’re actually the ones doing the parenting now), and there’s little doubt that judgement is higher for parents today than for previous generations. We helicopter too much, or we don’t supervise enough. And we seem to second-guess ourselves a lot. It’s a tough gig, made even tougher as our teenagers seek independence and separation from us.

Anna continued. ‘This has really thrown me. I still want her to take my advice! This is not my first rodeo. I’ve been that age before and I’ve been through it with my step-daughter. But Charlotte says, You don’t know what it’s like to be me.’

It’s the mantra of adolescent girls everywhere. We respond by pleading, ‘Well, if you’d just tell us what’s going on in your life, we could help you. We’ve been teenagers before, too, you know.’

And then they reply: ‘No one has ever felt what I’m feeling. This emotion is unique to me and my circumstances. You wouldn’t understand!’

So how do we help and guide them? Before we get to that, there’s another more important question we need to consider.

What’s your WHY?

What is our purpose as parents? Why are we doing this? Really?

Nearly every parent I spoke to struggled to answer this question. We don’t usually think so much about why we parent. It’s just what we do. And maybe thinking about why seems unnecessarily philosophical. It is far more expedient and practical to say, ‘Just tell me what to do,’ which is precisely why people come to my workshops or read a book like this!

But the why we parent matters even more than the how we parent. Failing to develop an understanding of why we parent – and connecting to that why – means we’re more likely to take short-cuts, veer away from our ideal vision of how to succeed as a parent, and make choices that give us