Q & A on When Your Kids Are Teens

Posted to Resource Articles by Susan Epstein on Fri, 05/30/2008 - 8:24am

House Blogger Wanda Woodard asks:

I've heard that when girls hit puberty they tend to turn away from their mothers and turn towards their fathers. My daughter has been away from her father for 2.5 years now, and she is in the throws of puberty. Is there any validity to this theory?

Susan Epstein responds:

What you are referring to is based on Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory of how girls develop their sense of femininity during their early oedipal years.

Certainly, there are psychoanalytic researchers who might agree that a girl without a father in her life might develop differently than one with a father.

However, the definitions of 'family' and 'parent' have changed drastically since Freud's writings, and children are being raised more and more by single women, single men, and same sex partners. There is more that we don't know than what we do know about father/daughter relationships and their impact on girls' development.

More important than focusing on "theory" is that you talk to your teen about the differences she is experiencing in her family. How does she feel about not having her father around? Does she miss him? How does she feel around male teachers and other men in her life? Are there other good men that she knows and respects?

What it comes down to is keeping the conversation alive and taking what you learn from your daughter and helping her fill those voids in her life.

Best regards, Susan

Comments

the silent treatment from my teenage son

Submitted by where were you when i needed you? (not verified) on Sat, 08/13/2011 - 1:55am.

I'd like to know if a divorce can make a son feel like he would make a better husband than their dad did? "With his mom" I know this sounds bizarre, but my son recently turned 15 and knows "everything" now. He realizes that i missed alot of his years growing up because i left when he was four. I have a four year old from another relationship and when we go places he says that people probably think that he is her dad. I have just disregarded his comments like that and said something to change the subject. I am so fusturated now because he got upset with my choice of a boyfriend and has now resorted to the silent treatment. His father cradles him in his efforts in not talking to me. I continue to talk to him and he texts or walks away or just shrugs or pushes me away. The last time i tried to talk to him i reached for his phone because he was not paying attention to me and he held my wrist and bent it backwards and then pushed it away. Im so hurt emotionally by this that i dont know what to do to try to get him to talk to me again. We had such a great time together before and now he just flipped like a light switch. I dont understand the silent treatment?????

Q & A on When Your Kids Are Teens

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