The Mother-Daughter Project

Book excerpt: Few things are more meaningful—or more complicated—than mother-daughter relationships. This helpful parenting guide helps moms navigate their relationships with their daughters to create strong ties and a close, respectful connection that will last a lifetime. SuEllen Hamkins, MD, and Renée Schultz, MA, originally created the Mother-Daughter Project with other women in their community in the hopes of strengthening their bonds with their then seven-year-old girls. The group met regularly to speak frankly about such issues as friendships and aggression, puberty, body image, drugs, and sexuality. The results were amazing: confident, assertive teenage girls with strong self-images and close ties to their moms. Equally important, the mothers navigated their own concerns about adolescence with integrity and grace. From their dedication and efforts arose The Mother-Daughter Project, an incredibly useful parenting handbook that details the success of the Project’s groundbreaking model, providing mothers with a road map for staying close with their own daughters through adolescence and beyond.