Show Notes
Here I talk to a mum about how she feared she might be repeating the mother-daughter trauma from her own teenage years with her teenage daughter, despite her best efforts to do quite the opposite. Emma Campbell told me how she tries so hard to get teenage parenting right, yet she constantly feels like she's failing. And I sighed a big sigh of relief. It's not just me. In fact, I suspect it's all of us, so as well as the validation you'll get from listening to Emma, I list mine and Emma's best tips for living with a teenage daughter in this blog post [https://actuallymummy.co.uk/tips-for-living-with-a-teenage-daughter/]. You've got this!
Who is Emma Campbell?
Emma Campbell [https://limitlessem.com/] is an author, speaker, and podcast host. She's also an all-round lovely human being who happily puts all her flaws out in the open for us to see, so that we can all feel less alone with our own struggles. As a mother of teenagers, if Emma's Instagram posts [https://www.instagram.com/limitless_em/] struck any more chords with me, they'd be a symphony orchestra. On a recent post she says "I'm hugely out of my depth with teenage emotions and seem to be successfully repeating the mother daughter conflict I was SO intent on avoiding. Trying to articulate unconditional love, but it comes out as the opposite. Miscommunication spitting and spinning like a Catherine Wheel." Emma writes so beautifully of failure as a mother, of the pride we all have for our kids, and of the deep, deep longing to get motherhood 'right'.
More teenage parenting from Helen Wills:
Helen wills is a teen mental health podcaster and blogger at Actually Mummy [https://www.actuallymummy.co.uk/], a resource for midlife parents of teens.
Thank you for listening! Subscribe [https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/teenage-kicks-podcast/id1501488455] to the Teenage Kicks podcast to hear new episodes. If you have a suggestion for the podcast please email [email protected].
There are already stories from fabulous guests about difficult things that happened to them as teenagers - including losing a parent [https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/how-do-you-cope-loss-parent-when-youre-teenager-ryan/id1501488455?i=1000495564421], becoming a young carer [https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/danielle-on-being-a-young-carer-for-her-alcoholic-mum/id1501488455?i=1000468538022], and being hospitalised with mental health problems [https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/emma-bradley-on-being-hospitalised-mental-health-problems/id1501488455?i=1000470008123] - and how they overcame things to move on with their lives.
You can find more from Helen Wills on parenting teenagers on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/iamhelenwills/] and Twitter [https://twitter.com/iamhelenwills] @iamhelenwills.
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