How about you? Is it easy to see the treasure in your teen daughter? Or are you focusing on the debris, and the broken things? I hope you are focusing on the treasure, and giving your daughter credit for the good things she is doing. Whenever someone in my group found a great fossil, we celebrated with a “high five.” It felt great that other’s shared in our small victory. Are you sharing in your daughter’s victories? What has she done lately that deserved a “high five?”

We mom’s know that to raise a daughter, we need to teach them about life. But we often forget that teaching is far more than simply pointing out what our daughters are doing “wrong.” Yet many moms focus only on the negative. They forget to point out and celebrate the good.

Try this. Ask someone to sit next to you, and point their finger at you and say, “No!” Have them say “no” over and over. Sounds silly, I know. But if you try it, you’ll find something interesting happens in your body. People report that their stomachs churn, their hearts palpitate, or some other uncomfortable feeling arises. Most likely we feel yucky because we are remembering shame, guilt, or some other negative emotion from our childhood. That memory is a neural connection that is alive and well in your brain’s neural network. Every time you focus on the negative, you are shaping your daughter’s brain in ways that may not always be positive.

“But Dr. Jenn, my daughter snuck out of the house at 2 A.M. last night! I have to punish her! I have to focus on her trouble making behavior!” Well, yes and no. Remember, what you focus on is what you get. Just like I focused on fossils, so I found fossils. If you focus on your daughter’s good behavior, and reward her for that, she’ll most likely do more of it. If you deny your daughter positive attention, she will do whatever she can to get any attention at all from you, even if it means climbing out of her window in the middle of the night. The attention you give her when she sneaks out is still attention, even if its negative attention. That’s not to say that if you lavish positive attention on your daughter she won’t ever sneak out or do something you don’t approve of. She’s still a teenager, after all. But focusing on what you want in terms of her behavior, and not making too big of a fuss over the other things, can pay off for both of you.

Every day, find three things you can point out to your daughter that she did well, or right, or made you proud, etc. Give her a “high five” for each of those things. Let her know you are “catching her being good,” and not just “catching her being bad.” Think about what you focus on. I hope you focus on your daughters treasures, because they are there! Keep searching for them until you find them, and then celebrate with her.

The fossils I found were millions of years old. As I put each one away in the bag I carried, I thought of how short our time is here on earth. Start today, to focus on your daughter’s good stuff. Don’t let her memories of her teen years be just about all the fights you had, or all the times you scolded her, or punished her. Make sure she knows she is treasured.

From my research and experience as a mother and doctor of psychology, the fewer rules the better. However, the rules that are in place need to be BIG RULES. And, the consequences to breaking them need to be enforced calmly, quickly and matter-of-factly. Your daughter needs to have some say in making the rules and coming up with consequences for breaking them.

When my four young teenagers were at home, my BIG RULES were simple. The rules applied to my own children and their friends.

1. No harming self, others or property, either physically or verbally
2. No sex, drugs, smoking or alcohol in my house or on my property
3. No stealing from me, the house, or others in the house
4. No sneaking in or out of the house
5. No opposite sex friends in bedrooms with doors closed

Those were the issues I was ready to fight for. My consequences were severe.

I told the rules to every new friend who visited and told them if they broke a rule ONCE, they were banished from my house forever. (The consequences for my children were different than for their friends.) Harsh, but it worked! I don’t recommend you being that harsh. I was a single mom with dozens of kids hanging out at my house. I needed to make sure the kids respected me, the house and each other. I was taking care of other moms’ children and felt an enormous responsibility to the children and them. I’d recommend you give your daughters friends a second chance.

If you trust your daughter to tell their friend the rules, that’s great. I didn’t. I was the bearer of THE RULES, and even though my kids rolled their eyes, I told every new kid in my house, the rules and what happened if they broke them and asked if they understood. When I got a “Yes” they were free to go play and hang out.

If you have to enforce a rule, know that it can be tough. You may feel bad, your teen may hate you, but, if you don’t enforce the rules, you lose credibility.

The BIGGEST RULE OF ALL? LOVE!

Create a home where your daughter feels loved, welcomed, and safe. Make sure her friends know they are welcomed. Be the type of adult teens can turn to, talk to and trust. Be a good listener. Don’t spread gossip. Don’t rat out kids unless their safety is in danger, or they are breaking big laws.

Teens want places where they can hang out and be teens. Make your house that place! It means opening your house and your heart. It means a little extra dirt, a few more dirty dishes, more trash on the floor, and a bigger grocery bill. Small prices to pay for a teenage daughter who knows her and her friends have a safe place to hang out at her house. It makes a huge difference.