When you are a mother who has a daughter, you want to provide the best for them. As they continue to grow, however, they begin to exhibit certain traits that you may find frustrating.
It seems as if they want to prove that their mothers are wrong on everything, but you may find the results of a recent study to be rather enlightening. As it turns out, when mothers nagged their daughters at a younger age, there were more likely to go to college, get better jobs and avoid teen pregnancy. The study was led by Ericka Rascon-Ramirez and involved over 15,000 girls between 13 and 14 years of age. It lasted from 2004 until 2010.
One thing that was important in the life of those girls was high parental expectations. It was interesting, however, that the mother was the most influential in this case. There’s no denying that many mothers stay on top of their daughters regularly to keep them in line. This may be why we didn’t quit high school and ended up ultimately with a nice job or going to college. That is actually proof enough that nagging does have benefits, but we want to look at things scientifically as well.
Teens may not appreciate the advice that their mothers give but it doesn’t matter if they listen or not, nagging tends to have a positive effect. According to the research: “In many cases, we succeeded in doing what we believed was more convenient for us, even when this was against our parents’ will. But no matter how hard we tried to avoid our parents’ recommendations, it is likely that they ended up influencing… choices.”
It seems as if we live inside of their heads and they can’t do much to keep us out. The research also showed something rather interesting. Rascon-Ramirez had the following to say: “What our parents expected about our school choices was, very likely, a major determinant of our decisions about conceiving a child or not during our teenage years.” We may be interested in providing a high level of self-esteem but to keep a teenager out of trouble, a little nagging can go a long way.
So what does this mean for mothers who don’t give their daughters a hard time? Does it mean that they are doomed to failure? More than likely, no, but the study did have something interesting to say. “Parents with high expectations can reduce a teenager’s chance of becoming pregnant by four per cent compared to parents with ‘middling aspirations’.” Although it is not at 0%, it does show the potential for good things.
One of the most important things for a mother to do is to learn the proper way to nag her daughter. If you already nag regularly, you can be confident in your abilities. Give your daughter a regular routine, inform her that it is unacceptable to quit school or get pregnant and tell her to stay off drugs. You have the backing of science.