Girl in the Mirror: Mothers and Daughters in the Years of Adolescence

by Nancy L. Snyderman and Nancy L. Snyderman Md

Book Overview

From the bestselling author of Necessary Journeys--here is the book every mother of a maturing girl will need to have on her shelf. "Just as we once peered over the crib rails to search our newborn daughters' faces for signs of personality or family resemblance, so too, during the years of adolescence, mother and daughter alike will look into the mirror of each other's faces, searching for hints of their past and future selves, of resemblance...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786886412
• ISBN13: 9780786886418
• Release Date: February 2003
• Publisher: Hachette Books
• Length: 284 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.1"
• Age Range: 17 to 18 years
• Grade Range: Grade 12 to Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

Solid Research Backs Practical Advice

I was tempted to disregard the authors when they admitted they had not survived the tempests of the adolescent girl and were opining that "[w]e see the challenges of adolescence as an opportunity." Right, I thought. Wait until your daughter gets to be my kid's age and see if you'll keep saying it's just a great opportunity.So with this bad attitude, I perservered. And after reading the book, I grudgingly agreed they had a point: you don't have to approach this phase as something to "get through," but as a period of self-reflection and growth for the mother as well as the daughter. They do a good job of explaining how to separate those issues and how what our mothers did influence us, whether by good example or bad. As the authors note, "[m]othering is not instinctual but an act of invention...[b]ecoming aware of who we are when we mother our adolexcent daughters is a step each of us must take, and will require that we look at how the ways we were mothered affect us now."The research was very well explained--everything to why it seems that our daughters are stressed out over things that seem so trivial to us to the effects of lenghthened educational requirements. The authors deal specifically with issues that may cause special problems for teen girls: sexual identity, substance abuse, depression, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, and abusive relationships. It would have been nice if they had addressed self-injury more, as it has become more epidemic among teenage girls, and only receives a one-sentence mention.Overall, however, this is an excellent overview of the issues facing mothers of adolescent daughters, and deserves to be both read and reread.

extraordinary book

This is an extraordinary book filled with support, encouragment,and insight for the mother of an adolescent girl. "Girl in the Mirror" picks up where "Embracing Persephone" by Rutter leaves off. As a psychologist specializing in adolescent girls, and mother of a 15 year daughter, I found the book invaluable and will read it over and over again for guidance. There is so much personal pain for mothers to let go of their daughters and move on with their lives. I have been searching for a book that would comfort and guide ME during my perimenapause in relation to the deep pain of some of the emotional letting go that must take place between mother and daughter during the teen years. These authors call it liberation not separation, they show through empirical and anecdotal information how mothers don't need to pull away, they need to be there and let their daughters pull away and come back when they need to. "Girl in the Mirror" steps out of the sterotypical advise about adolescent angst and moves the reader through some of the internal angst a mother feels letting her daughter become liberated. The research is in depth, and the anecdotal examples are rich with variety. Addressing mid life and adolescence is key for mothers to understand themselves, and appreciate they still have a strong solid place in their daughters lives. Snyderman and Streep honor the special bond between mothers and daughters. All mothers will benifit from this book. The pain of separation is the same, whether you have a son or daughter. Mother's need guidance and support to stay in the lives of their adolescent children, even when they tell us to go away. Snyderman and Streep put it this way: "Shepherding our daughters through adolescence requires that we give them love, support, safe haven, and when the time is right, permission to leave us behind; it also requires that we give ourselves permission, in turn, to move on to another stage of life." They let us reach this challenge as a journey and help us see it does not happen over night, they shephard the reader through this challenging journey and help us find the jewels amoung some of the pain, leaving us with hope. I highly reccomend this book to all mothers of all adolescents.

An excellent read !!

This book is surely worth buying !I was extremely impressed by the contents of the book.Iwill surely refer to this book a lot when my daughter who is only 8 now gets older.I am tempted to call this book a "bible" for women with daughters !

An excellent resource

As a mother of two preadolescent girls, this book left me with some new, invaluable tools at hand. It also turned upside-down some of my own beliefs about this definitive stage of development. Primarily, the notion that young women need to separate from their mothers in order to become autonomous individuals. In my heart I did not agree with what I had learned from the earlier research regarding separateness. I longed for a deeper bond with my own mother through my teen years, and suffered a deep sense of loss when I was forced to "grow up" at around age 13. The research compiled in this book is so thoroughly reviewed and explained by Snyderman and her coauthor, Streep, that the reader is left with a clear understanding of the critical issues we are facing. The writing is concise and conversational, with lots of anectdotal accounts from mothers included to illustrate the research results presented throughout the book. I would recommend this book for mothers of daughters as young as ten years old, as it has been useful in my relationship with my own ten year old daughter.

Complex subject- Complex and wise treatment

I have had the book for several weeks and have been reading and studying it all that time. The ideas in the book are based on real life stories from many persons and on research done by the authors. Bringing these two areas together had to have been difficult but is done well.The research takes a little time to read but when the fit with real life experience is shown it is well worth the study.