Enjoy Your “Masterpiece”
Although your daughter is not a little girl anymore, she continues to crave your love, attention, and acceptance. As always, she wants you to be proud of her now and in the years to come. That means you have to show her that you trust her and that you have faith in her. You have taught her to master the basic life skills and you have instilled good values in her over the years. Now as she shows by her actions how much she has learned from you, you need to trust in yourself and feel good about all you have done.
Remember this: You were her master teacher throughout her childhood and youth. Although there are many more lessons you can still teach her, as she moves on, take some time to do the following:
Relive the wonderful years you had raising your girl.
Flip through your photo albums and look at the mementos of the journey.
Exhale more deeply than ever before; your biggest job is done!
Appreciate the sweet feeling of victory and be grateful that you had the chance to pass on so much of your best — all of it, really! — to your daughter.
Not enough parents pause for a week or several, or a month or several, to simply rejoice in having done a masterful job in raising their wonderful daughter.
Thankful Job
Here is the most amazing thing: Every minute you concerned yourself with parenting your girl, you did it out of duty, because you loved your child, and because you were her mother or father — and for no other reason. Yet nothing you ever did went unrecorded. Your girl made a mental note of everything. You see, in matters of gratitude a daughter may be quite different than a son. In many cases, she remembers each and every one of the small gestures you made over the years to raise her right.
There is not a single parent of a girl who did not sacrifice something in raising her, but it is not forgotten! Everything you did is etched into the mind and heart of your daughter. There is not one single good thing you ever did for your daughter that she will not repay you for later in life. If your daughter has not yet started, it is only a matter of time before she will. Count on that.
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JoAnn Deak, PhD, says that girls are made in such a way that they want to please, want to fit in, and want to connect with the world. Therefore, girls tend to make it a point to be more agreeable and to adjust to their surroundings. They also want to verbalize their feelings, are better at it, and can better express their thankfulness.
