Mother-Daughter Relationship Coaching: Empathetic Communication Techniques For Teens
The relationship between a mother and daughter can be fraught with pressure and contention. Mother-daughter relationship coaching can help you and your teen build empathic communication skills designed to improve your relationship.
Here are a few of the ways that mother-daughter relationship coaching can foster empathic communication between mother and teenager.
Empathic Listening
Mother-daughter relationship coaching for teens can start with discussions around empathic listening techniques.
- Active Echoing: Empathic listening starts with a sincere desire to understand how someone is feeling. For mother-daughter relationships, this means listening with the goal of understanding, not judging or problem-solving. For instance, you and your daughter might want to start discussions with simple prompts like, "How are you feeling?" or "Right now, what are you struggling with?". As you listen, you can utilize empathic listening skills that help you mirror the speaker's emotional needs and demonstrate a clear desire to be supportive. Active empathic listening involves interjecting phrases like "Yes, you heard" or "Understood, please continue."
- Empathic Elaboration: As the speaker continues to express their feelings, you can provide summative cues that prompt more extensive elaboration. For instance, when you feel like the conversation is beginning to loop or stall, providing summative phrases like "So, is it safe to say you feel…" or "You used this word/phrase several times…" can demonstrate to the speaker that you're actively listening.
For effective empathic listening, mother-daughter relationship coaching can aim to moderate discussions about contentious issues, which can help families begin to heal from old wounds and lingering disagreements.
Empathic Collaboration
A mother-daughter relationship coach can help you and your teen collaborate empathically. This collaboration can turn listening and speaking into concrete actions that begin to mend even the most tenuous relationships.
As a mother-daughter relationship evolves, it can be difficult to find activities that nurture distressed relationships. A mother-daughter relationship coach can help families index the activity or activities that can maintain and repair relationships. This indexing normally starts by having both mother and daughter generate a list based on the prompt, "When do you feel close to your mother/daughter?". Once this list is generated, both mother and daughter can look for shared activities that foster empathic collaboration. A mother-daughter coach can suggest ways to collaborate on these activities without triggering lingering frustration or anger. This can involve agreeing to parameters and avoiding topics during these outings that both mother and daughter agree to.
Contact a local mother-daughter coaching service to learn more.
Share