There’s nothing quite like the mother daughter relationship. Daughters are a tremendous gift to their mothers and mothers have the ability to influence their girls like nobody else. If you long to connect with your daughter, but you don’t know where to begin, I have 7 easy ways for you to start building relationship with her starting today.
How To Connect With My Daughter
Write Her Notes
There is something so special about receiving a kind letter.
Even though tech has made it easier than ever to connect with people around the world, receiving a text or social media message just isn’t the same as a hand written note that was sealed, stamped, and sent directly to your very own mailbox.
Leave your daughter uplifting letters on her pillow.
Pack notes that will make her smile in her school lunch box.
Post sweet words about her on the fridge and wait for her to notice.
If you have a girl that craves words of affirmation, she will truly appreciate the time you took to write her a one of a kind letter.
Include things you adore about her and things you want to thank her for.
Build her up and affirm the beautiful young lady she is becoming, inside and out.
Writing sweet surprise letters is one of my favorite ways to connect with my daughter.
Do Her Hair
An easy way to connect with your daughter is to take the time to do her hair.
Some moms might think this is a no brainer and others might feel totally incompetent when it comes to hairstyling. I definitely fell into the ladder category of timid moms for the first few years of my motherhood.
For the longest time, my mothering was purely about survival.
I had kids to feed, diapers to change, and babies to keep alive. I didn’t have time to keep up with the latest hair trends or keep track of sparkly bows.
Also, as someone with curly hair, I consider my hair “done” if I have showered and scrunched it with a bit of mousse.
But now that I have two growing young daughters, I have realized the power of doing their hair.
Brushing, braiding, twisting, and pinning back my girls’ hair has given me the opportunity to connect with them and reach their hearts.
Doing their hair isn’t about vanity or the way they look. We don’t place a high value on outward appearance in our family.
We have four young kids and most of their days are spent running, jumping, and playing outdoors. They have usually worked up a sweat and covered their feet in mud before lunchtime.
I don’t put effort into doing my girls’ hair expecting it to last. The external fruits of my labor never last very long. But the internal fruits will last a lifetime.
Every moment that I spend brushing, admiring, and twisting my young girls’ hair into princess “perfection” is a moment well spent.
My girls love to sit and talk with me while I do their hair.
They light up when I gush about the lovely young ladies they are becoming.
Do your girl’s hair if you want to unlock an easy way to connect with them and make them feel loved.
It only takes about five minutes. It can be done at the breakfast table while they sip milk. But despite how simple this practice is, the opportunity for connection is far reaching.
Listen To Her
Most of the girls I know enjoy talking. That is definitely true for me.
Woman are typically verbal processors.
We don’t expect the person we are talking to to have something profound to say back to us.
We aren’t usually looking for a solution to a problem.
For the most part, we just want to share our hopes, dreams, concerns, and thoughts and simply be heard.
An easy way to connect with your daughter is to make space to listen to her.
Give her your undivided attention.
If screens are always competing for your attention, this will be a challenge. Devices ding, buzz, and flash all day long, alerting us of notifications.
These little computers in our pocket suck us into the virtual world and pull us away from what truly matters—our relationships.
But you can build relationship with your little girl if you choose to silence the phone, stash it in a junk drawer, look her in the eye and simply listen to whatever she wants to say.
Grab my free printable Screen Free Family Bingo to connect with your family today
Read To Her
Whether your daughter is three or thirteen, she’s not too old to be read to. Reading aloud to kids is a simple way to connect with them.
Choose something that would be of interest to her and carve out ten minutes every couple of days to read.
You can increase your bonding time with your daughter by putting your arm around her, smiling, and making sure the ambiance is relaxed and unrushed.
Make sure she knows you want to spend this time with her, that you are looking forward to the story as much as she is, and that there is no other place you’d rather be.
Books can serve as an icebreaker for you and your daughter.
Keep all devices silenced in another room so that distractions do not put a damper on your time together.
You can also make your read aloud an interactive experience by asking your older daughter simple questions about the story like…
“What did you think about that?”
“What would you do if you were in that character’s shoes?”
For younger girls, ask them things like…
“Can you count how many rabbits there are?”
“Which animal is your favorite?”
“Which dress would you wear if you were one of those princesses?”
“Where is the puppy?”
Put Down Your Phone
The most important ingredient in all of these ways to connect with your daughter is that you remove technology from the occasion.
If your device has the power to steal your attention, it has the power to ruin your time with your daughter.
Kids today are unfairly competing with smartphones to get their parent’s attention. They are learning from our example that the flashy handheld computers in our palm are more exciting and more important than they are.
Don’t let this be.
Don’t let technology cause division between you and your daughter.
Make a commitment to put away your phone, not just during special moments of connection with your little girl, but consistently throughout the day.
If you have a little one, consider leaving your phone in the junk drawer all day except during her nap or quiet rest time.
If you have an older girl, shove all your tech in a closet before she gets home from school and be a plugged-in mama for all the hours your get with her.
Devices have their place in this modern world, but it’s not to take the place of authentic connection with our loved ones.
Surprise Your Daughter
Girls love surprises. A surprise means that someone thought of you and planned something in advance to make you smile.
For me, it’s not so much about the surprise itself, it’s about the forethought.
Here are some ways you can surprise your daughter:
- Leave a brand new book on her bed that you know she will enjoy
- Wake her up early and take her on a surprise adventure day to get breakfast and play on the playground with you
- Make her a gift bag of small things she would appreciate like gum, lip balm, chocolates, and a stuffed animal
- Take her out to lunch or dinner out of the blue on a regular afternoon when she doesn’t see it coming
- Drive her on errands with you and then stop somewhere unexpected and fun like the library, trampoline park, or local zoo
Listen To An Audiobook and Do a Hands-On Activity
Similarly to reading aloud, you can listen to an audiobook with your daughter. This still gives you the opportunity to connect over the plot and characters of a good story, but it also opens up lots more possibilities of things to do together.
While you listen to an audiobook with your child, you can sit side by side and draw pictures, color in coloring books, paint, knit, build with Legos, or string beads into necklaces and bracelets together.
My oldest daughter has enjoyed making jewelry since she was very little. It is a pastime that has stuck with her for years.
One of her favorite ways to hang out with me is to sit and make bracelets together.
Sometimes we do this quietly, sometimes we talk, and other times we listen to an audiobook.
If you listen to an audiobook with your daughter, remember to pause it and chat.
Check out my post on the Best Children’s Audiobooks to get ideas on where to start.
Anything by Laura Ingalls Wilder has always been a win with my daughter.
Leave a comment below and let me know your favorite way to connect with your daughter.