conditional love.
- Listen and validate her feelings. Help her name the difficult emotions. Find out what really is going on. Be compassionate. She needs to feel you understand and care.
- Facilitate teenage “play dates.” This is especially true of shy or introverted girls, who need to connect to one or a few girls before they are comfortable with a large group. One solution to this is to invite one of the girls over to the house.
- Find positive places for your daughter to belong. This can happen by helping your daughter find activities that will develop her skill. This is an easy way to find like-minded teens.
Normal teenage girls are going to experience the more difficult feelings like sadness, rejection, disappointment, or shame. These feelings can fluctuate throughout the day, but they can also experience the positive feelings. The sad feelings don’t interfere with their activities, schoolwork, or friendships. This is not depression. Depression persists over a long period of time and interferes with their friends, and functioning at home and school. If you are concerned your daughter is depressed and may harm herself, get professional help. Even if you see signs that she is depressed, like she is falling behind in school, not able to sleep, and is isolating from her friends contact a mental health professional and get her support.