Episode 93: The Gender Gap: What Sets Apart Parenting Daughters and Sons

Why Parenting Your Daughter is So Different Than Parenting Your Son

In this episode, Pamela explores the stark differences between parenting sons and daughters, especially through the challenging pre-teen and teen years. Drawing from personal experiences and professional insights, she discusses the importance of connection with daughters and setting clear expectations and natural consequences for sons. Pamela also provides practical stories and strategies to help parents navigate these differences effectively.

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Transcript

Pamela: 0:00

Hey there and welcome back to the peaceful home podcast. My name is Pam and I am your host. In this week. We are talking all about the dramatic differences. Between parenting. Our sons and parenting our daughters. As we move into those challenging pre-teen and teen years. There are some vast differences and I have decoded what works and what doesn't. So. Stick around. No, I wouldn't necessarily put the label of gentle parenting on the parenting style that I use as a parent or the strategy that I've been teaching in therapy and in coaching for decades. But what gentle parenting means essentially is that you take into consideration your child's experiences, that you are curious about their emotional experience. You want to know how they're feeling? And you want to make sure that you're supporting their emotional development. This is not something that we got in childhood. Most of us, right. I was raised in the seventies and eighties. And if you were raised anywhere in that timeframe you probably didn't get this either, which is why it's so important. So put whatever label you want on it. I don't actually care. What I really want to talk about today. What we're diving into is this notion that maybe parenting your daughters and sons. Is different. And I want to start by sharing a story. I had a mom come to me. Who's, I'm a part of, one of my programs. And she said, you know, I use all of the strategies and really work to validate and connect and be compassionate. And I want to be connected to my kids. And I use our relationship as kind of my primary focus. Right. I really want to make sure. That our bond is there. But I'm noticing something with my son. I'm noticing that he's just not doing the things that I'm asking him to do. And it almost feels like I'm letting him off the hook because I'm. Invested in our relationship. And I don't want to damage that. And this kind of brought to light to. To me and to her, this understanding that. It's kind of like, How we parent our sons and how we parent our daughters, the order of operation is different. So, what does that mean? Here's the story she told. Her son always wants to have play dates. He's the middle child. And he often feels like he doesn't get his needs met. He's not seen. He has two sisters and that he just kind of like, you know, It doesn't really stand out as the only boy. And so he often wants to have his friends come over and mom will say to him, Hey, you can have your friends come over, but it's important that you clean up. I'm sick of cleaning up after you. And he says, okay, I promise I'll clean up. We won't make a mess. I'll clean up. Anything, any mess we make. And she says, okay, then you can have your friend come over. The friend comes over. And and this instance, they played with those little you know, those beads that you can iron and I'm forgetting the name of them right now. You're probably gonna start screaming the name it, the computer or your device as you're listening to this Perler beads. That's what they're called. So he comes over there playing with Perler beads and he leaves them on like the counter or the kitchen table. And the friend leaves. And she says, Hey, I need those cleaned up. So he takes the Perler beads and he puts them on the outside table. Right. This is like late summer, puts them on the outside table out on the deck and says I'll clean them up later. Right. Cause now it's time for dinner. They need the space. Okay. And Jesus. Okay. But I need you to clean them up later. He says, you will. A couple of days go by. There's a storm. As there always is a new England. Rain and wind. And after this storm, the Perler beads are everywhere. They're no longer on the table. They're all over the deck. They're all over the yard. And he has not picked them up. She still wants them cleaned up because now they're just everywhere and he's still not doing it. And then we get to the next play date and she feels bad. She doesn't want to say no, because again, only boy doesn't have any friends in the neighborhood. That he could go and play with. So she says yes to a play date, but he needs to clean up and outcome the Lego's or he'll ask to take out the Legos and he'll pull out the Legos and they'll stay out and they won't get put away. And if anyone who has stepped on a Lego at two o'clock in the morning, while you're going to the bathroom knows this agony. And when she was telling me the story. Uh, they had been having some back and forth and she was saying, I really need him to pick up after himself and pick up when his friends are there and he's just not doing it. And I don't know what to do. I'm at my wit's end. And I was like, okay, tell me what's been going on this week. And she said, well, he said the other day, he says, I know your mom. I know you're upset with me.'cause I haven't been cleaning up, but can I dump out my Lego's I'm looking for this piece and she says, okay. But you need to clean it up. And he says, okay. So he dumps out the bin of Legos in the hallway upstairs. Like I said, if you've ever walked to the bathroom at 2:00 AM and stepped on a Lego. You know, the agony that's coming. So he doesn't pick up the Lego's after. Of course. And mom's like, I'm so frustrated. I keep asking him, I keep saying, I need you to do this thing. Then I want to give him a consequence, but I don't know what the right consequences, because Monte, the Legos away there on the floor, he souls and picks him up. So maybe I'm taking away screen time or videos. I don't know. It just doesn't feel like a natural consequence. And so we went through some different kind of discussions on this. And this was like days later, she's like the Legos are still on the floor. He's moved them to the side of the hallway. Like he's pushed them to the side of the hallway and says they're cleaned up because she said, I don't want to step on them and hurt my foot. I don't want your siblings to step on them. I don't want dad to sit, but like, Nobody needs to get hurt or fall on these Legos. And he says, okay, I'll take care of it. Moves it to the side. Now in his eight or nine year old brain, that's logical. They're not in the way anymore, but. Mom's still frustrated. And we came back to this notion that in parenting and we have like, kind of these schools of parenting. And that's why I started with like parenting style. In this notion that in order to have a relationship with my child, I can't set boundaries and now she knows that's not true. And she sets boundaries all the time. That's not. The story here, but understanding that a boundary is not a bad thing and communicating that clearly is a positive thing for your child. But here's the thing. The motivation is different. So when you say to your son, Hey, you can have a friend over, but I need you to clean that up. I need to trust that you're going to follow through on this process. Because trust matters to me. And you matter to me. That's not going to get through. Now, if you said that to your daughter, much more likely to follow through on cleaning up after, because the relationship is important. Now we see this with adults, right? And this yes is a gender stereotype. So if you're like, that's not my kid, my kid tends more towards like relationships important, or my kid, my daughter tends more towards needing clear expectations. Totally fine. But in general, our gender differences are that women are wired for connection and men are wired for tasks. This is important in parenting. Because when you say to your eight or nine year old son, Hey. I need you to clean up those Legos. It's really important to me. I don't want anyone to get hurt. This is valuable. Like this is, there could be a consequence. I might have to, you know, take them away or whatever. It's not going to get through. Until he has a very clear understanding of the expectation. The consequence and the follow through. So just like in so many of like my, you know, Workshops and trainings that I, where I teach this kind of order of operations, the three things to get your kids to take action. We're talking about a clear expectation. You cannot have a friend over for a play date until all of the things that I've already asked you to clean up. Have been cleaned up and put away where they go. The natural consequence here, if you don't do so, is that we're not going to schedule any more play dates. Once that's done. I'm happy to schedule a play date for you, right? And then follow through. So he says to you on. Wednesday, can Tommy come over on Thursday or Friday? I really haven't had any time to play with my friends and I miss my friends and we, I don't get to see him at school because now we're in different classes. And please, can he come over, please? Can you come over? That you go back to reminding your child. Hey, I am happy to have Tommy come over on Friday. This is what I need from you. First. That's the difference. That when you ask your kid, like, Hey. Like. Do this thing for me after. You're not going to get the result that you're looking for. They need to do their part first misses what I teach in negotiation with parenting, right? Where you have your kid, you've got a, a son that's in this range. You probably know he's probably a master negotiator at this point. Oftentimes friends and families that I work with will say, I think my son's going to be a trial lawyer because he's so good at negotiating what he wants. And that's amazing. Our jobs as parents. Is to have them give the thing, like they're part of the negotiation first. So instead of if you let my friends come over, I'll clean up. It's. You clean up first and then I'll let your friends come over. Right? It's the order of operations matters. And with sons, it's more important that you're setting a clear expectation. That you're letting them clearly know what the natural consequence of the action is going to be. And then that you follow through, so you let the consequences, whatever it might be. Be taken care of. I remember when my daughter was little. The picking up of the Legos was always, the cleaning lady is coming. She will vacuum up your Lego's. If they're on the floor. So if you don't want Legos to disappear, Clean them up. If you're cool with her, vacuuming them up and never seeing them again, that's fine. And inevitably she would be like, no, because you know, you're playing with Legos. They're always falling on the floor. When they're sitting at the table or whatever, So that worked well, that was just like a clear, has nothing to do with me. I'm not putting a consequence in place. I'm just letting you know. Then when the cleaning lady comes tomorrow, she is not going to pick up your Lego's off the floor. She's going to vacuum them up. Period. Right. And so being really clear with that can be very, very helpful. That works well with young kids. So I would say before the age of seven or eight, it works really well all the way through with our sons. But our daughters are a different breed. And this is because they're becoming. Confident. Uh, supportive, compassionate, empathetic women, right? We're there, we're moving them in the direction of raising empowered women, which is great. It doesn't always feel great when your 13 year old is pushing back real hard. But it's important to understand that in order for your male child, in order for your son or in order for your young child to connect with you, they need trust that you're going to do the things you say you're going to do. They need an external locust of control, which means that you're putting structure and organization in place for them so that they can thrive internally. It's what helps them to, to manage the internal world. Now with our daughters when they become. Some I'm hearing this at like six, but like 6, 7, 8, 9 things start to change and they need a different order of operations, right. It just is not the same anymore. This is why as moms, we have so much. So there's such a struggle. To parent our preteen, our tween and our teenage daughters, because unless we understand this. We get stuck in this place of well I'm T I told her what the expectation was. I told her what the consequences gonna be if she did this thing. So then I had to take it away. What's a natural consequence. I took away her phone. She can't go out with her friends. I don't trust her. I don't know how to trust her. I don't know what's going on here. Right? It just becomes more and more and more. But have a really, really simple solution for this. It's pretty straightforward. And it's going to be harder than you think. The solution is that with our daughters connection has to come first. This means that parenting your preteen, your tween, or your teenage daughter, the way that you used to parent her when she was younger or the way that you parent your son. Is going to backfire. As a matter of fact, Telling her clearly, this is the expectation. This is the consequence of when you break or break that rule or expectation, and then you follow through on it. Without putting connection at the front of that equation. Uh, leads to these little micro stories where your daughter starts to believe that you don't care about her. You don't care about her opinions, her perspective, you don't care about her experience. You don't understand her or experience. And that nothing that she thinks or feels matters to you. Now I understand that this is an exaggeration, but you've got to remember that the developing brain exaggerates all the time, because it's driven by emotion. So it does not matter. That you don't actually think these things or feel this way. This will be how she perceives these interactions, if they are not first lead with connection. So how do you do that? Right. And maybe you're starting to notice that when conflict arises with your preteen or your tween, Or even your teenage daughter. That it escalates really fast. So you say something that you think is relatively benign that maybe you say Hey, if you don't get off of your phone, I'm going to take it away. And she hits the roof, right? She just has an absolute meltdown. She storms up to her room. She's screaming at you before, you know, it you're like taking away everything she owns and nothing you do actually works that the two of you just feels, feel more and more and more disconnected and that you're not getting the desired behavior. out of her either. That's because the equation has to begin with. Connection, which means that she needs to. Feel seen. And heard by you. She needs you to validate her. She needs you to understand her perspective and where she's coming from. She needs you to listen and support her, and she needs to feel that those things are not something you're just rushing through. In order to get her to do the thing that you've asked. Her to do. And this is not like unique to your daughter. This is our gender as women, right? You are raising a woman and as women. We need connection first, we can not open up and be vulnerable. We can not be open to understanding the rules of the game. If the connection is not. Clear, and this is the same for your daughter. So, what does it mean for parenting? Now. I'm not saying don't hand out consequences. I'm not saying be permissive and let your daughter do whatever she wants. I'm not saying let her run the household. I'm saying connect first. Expectations consequences and follow through after they still exist, they're still there, but what's important is that you're giving her the opportunity to know. That you're there for her, but you've got her back and that you're willing to listen and support her. I had a mom come to me recently. And she was beside herself, overwhelmed and stressed because her 12 year old daughter is on Snapchat and on Instagram. And mom's like against my better decision, I let her be on these platforms. I didn't totally understand all that was happening, but this is where her friends are. This is where her friends are communicating. And so I didn't want her to be like left out and ostracized and forgot about, and this was the daughter's complaint. If you don't let me be on these platforms, then none of my friends will be friends with me anymore. Nobody will invite me to do anything because this is where all of my friends communicate, nobody texts messages anymore. And I often will say to her like, Hey, I've got a teenager and that's just not accurate. It might be your daughter's friend group, but just understand that just because something's not accurate doesn't mean it doesn't feel important. To your kiddo, because our preteens are tweens that like 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. The brain is not fully developed all the way into like young adulthood. The brain is not fully developed, but the thinking prefrontal cortex is not fully developed, which means that they don't have the ability to come up with a rational reason. So they say things like nobody will ever talk to me again and I'll have no friends. Is that what you want? You don't care about me. You hate me. I knew it. You love my little brother and my little sister more than me. Right? Maybe these stories are sounding familiar to you. This is an indication that your daughter does not feel connected enough to you for you to be able to walk through the process of here's the expectation. Here's the consequence. If you don't meet that expectation and I'm going to follow through on that consequence, right? So this mom said to me, I went, I just decided that I needed to take her phone away. It's in her best interest. I understand that. She's not gonna appreciate that or understand that I'm okay with that. But every time I go to take it, she has his meltdown and she tells me that her world is over and she tells me how much I hate her. And I find myself getting in this battle of trying to demonstrate to her how much I love her. And then I don't take the phone away. Like I go, okay, I'll give you one more chance. And that doesn't feel good to me that doesn't feel like really showing up and connecting with my daughter. It feels like she's manipulating me and I don't love being manipulated. And then I get mad and then I get triggered and there's more battle and on and on and on. And she kind of explained more of what went on. And so here's the thing. Putting connection first doesn't negate all the other stuff, but what it does do is it consistently on a regular basis sends the message to your daughter that you do actually care about her experiences. That her view of the world is important to you. So, how do you go about doing that? Will you listen? So when your daughter says, none of my friends will communicate with me. If I don't have Snapchat. You come to her and you say I'm really concerned about Snapchat. I know that your, your concern is that your friends won't communicate with you. If you're not on it. I also know that you've been struggling because this girl was struggling with some bullying. You've been struggling with some bullying and you've been struggling with, you know, people you don't know are reaching out to you and you're not telling me about it. I'm hearing about it. Third party from like another mom. And that's not okay because that makes me concerned for your safety. And I love you so much. And I'm so concerned about your safety, then I'm willing to do these things that make us both uncomfortable. Let's talk about how we can come to find this middle ground. And then you hear her out. You validate. So when she says, and all my friends will talk to me and like, you just don't understand, none of my friends have these rules. And by the way, kids always say this, you know, you got to go to bed at nine o'clock. And none of my friends have to go to bed that early, or, you know, like you've only got one hour on the computer today. All of my friends can be on the computer as long as they want, or we can't have this up on our phone. Every single one of my friends has this app on their phone. Right. This is how their brains work. It's okay. You don't have to argue with them. You don't have to post in the, the town Facebook group to find out if other moms are going through this experience. I just want you to understand. Other moms are hearing the same stories. They're hearing the same thing. No, I'm the only one that can't do this thing. I'm the only one that has this experience. Right. So just understand that's part of the development here. But when you come circle back around to this idea of being supported, This might be a conversation you have to have outside of this context. How does your daughter most feel supported by you? What is important or valuable to her? I have an almost 16 year old and I've used the term validation with her for her whole life. That, what I'm doing is validating the way that she feels. Because even if I don't agree with it, Even if I think her facts are wrong. I want to validate the way she's feeling in the moment, because it's real to her. It doesn't matter what my perception is. It matters what her perception is. Have you ever had someone in your life when you say like, this person hates me and they're like, no, they don't, you know, they completely disregard or I'm feeling exhausted and you have no idea what exhausted is. You know, you don't live my life. My life is so exhausting. It's like the most invalidating thing ever when somebody just dismisses you and says, I don't care what you have to say, whether they say those words or not. And so we're trying not to do that with our own kids. We're trying to say. I hear you. I feel you I'm here for you. I want to see what you're going through and see what you're experiencing. And so one of my favorite phrases is can you tell me more? I would love to know what you're going through with this. I would love to know what your experience has been like with your friends. I would love to know what your experience has been like on Snapchat since you've been on there. Can you tell me more? Can you help me understand? What you're experiencing. This is how connection is born, right? This is what it's rooted in. It's the desire to see someone else's point of view. That is the foundation of connection. And it's not just, I can see your point of view. It's I, I want to see your point of view. Help me understand. And there's gonna come a time where your kid gets frustrated with you and says, you know, your daughter's going to say. God, you don't understand anything. I say. And it is your job to then take responsibility for that. When you listen, when you support. When you take responsibility for your own personal shortcomings. What you're doing is you're modeling how to connect. You're modeling how to show up for your daughter, which is going to be of service to your relationship. But it's also going to be in service to her. So once. You've had plenty of conversations. Plenty of interactions. Where. You start with, Hey, I want to understand what's going on here. Hey, I want to support you in this journey. Hey, I want to be there for you and hear you and love you and, you know, do whatever I can to make our connection better. The other component of that is not attaching to that connection. And not letting that connection mean something about you. So if your daughter is 12 or 13 years old and she's having a bad day and she's mad at you and she storms out of the house and tells you, she hates you and she doesn't want to talk to you anymore because you're ruining her life. That you don't take that personally. And that you don't come back to her later and say, you need to fix this thing. You come back to her later and you say, I can tell that you did not feel supported by me. I can tell, I could tell that you were upset this morning. And that you needed something from me that I wasn't giving you. Can we do this again? Can we try again? Can we start over with this conversation or this interaction? Because to be totally honest, the only way that your daughter is never going to be. Uh, unhappy with you. Is, if you say yes to everything and that's just not reasonable that doesn't work. And it is your job as a parent to put boundaries in place. It's your job as a parent to say no to things. And even if they don't want to hear the word, no. Even if they don't want to hear you say. Hey, if I can't trust you. On. Instagram or Snapchat. That we're going to have to remove the app from your phone. Can we have a conversation about strategies to keep you safe online. And honestly, one of the best opportunities to teach your kids. This is obviously not in the middle of the heat of the conversation. It's also when it's not about them. So watching movies and TV shows together, reading stories, or they're reading a book at school that you happen to know the book or understand some of the messaging in the book. Using that. Real life experiences in the outside world, I sometimes will reposts on social media and I'll share something with my daughter. And I'll say like, Hey, what about this? Or, Hey, have you guys experienced this at school? Or, Hey, have you had this thing going on? Or, Hey, can we talk about how you would navigate this? It's not really something that we've ever thought about or brought up. But like, let's figure out how you would keep yourself safe in this situation. Right? It's the same, same thing. As like our kids have fire drills at school, they have safety drills and like lock downs and all that kind of stuff. It's like having the conversations to help them be safe, online, to be safe with people in their life, to be safe with. You know, when they start to get that age where like dating and talking about consent, helping your daughters understand what that means. All of these things are really important. We don't do it young enough. We should be doing it all all the way through. But. Now is the time to take. Everything that's happening in the world around you and use it as an opportunity for talking points. And I don't mean talking at them, but I mean, asking them questions and having conversations with them. All of these things like connection, doesn't just happen because you're talking about, I want to listen to what your experience is. And I want to be able to support you. So that you can, so that I can take your phone away. Right. That's not what it's about. It's about a longer term longer. Experience with them, right? It's the full experience of life. That you're looking to connect with them over. So there's no deadline here. This isn't like, oh, I tried it once. And it didn't work. This is like from now until they are grown adults. And even into, beyond that, right. Even into their adulthood and on their journey, maybe they become parents themselves or they get a job or they go to college or they go off into the world and they come back and they need your support because they feel connected with you. That's what this is really about. But it is a safeguard for our daughters and it is the way that we have to parent them. To get them to that place. Where we know. That, when they go out into the world. And we're not holding their hands anymore. That they're going to make. Healthy. And safe decisions for themselves to the best of their abilities. And they're gonna know how to. You know, reach out to you and use words to communicate their needs to you. Because they know that you're going to be there for them. That's what this journey is all about. That's what this, uh, this stuff's all about. And that's why it's so important that we understand. This notion that the order of operations with our daughters is different than with our sons. So that's it for today, guys. Thank you so much. If you have questions, please DM me on Instagram at parenting therapist, Pam, I would love to be able to support you and answer your questions. And hate, maybe your story will get featured on one of these podcasts episodes. So thanks so much and I will see you next week. Take care.