Focus on the Family

John Fuller: This is John Fuller, and please remember to let us know how you're listening to these programs on a podcast, app, or website.

Dannah Gresh: My mom looks in the mirror and tells herself out loud every day how ugly and fat she is. And she's in tears and she's like, I think my mom's beautiful and I look just like her.

John Fuller: That's Dannah Gresh and she joins us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, sharing how you as a mom can help your daughter grow in confidence, faith, and emotional strength. I'm John Fuller and welcome to the show.

Jim Daly: Here's a neon sign. Us parents, we want the same thing. We want a great marriage as good as it can be. We want to raise our kids to be as healthy as they can be: spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically. That is universal. I sat in Kenya with a PhD in child development, Dr. Lillian Wahome.

I said, Lillian, what we have to share around the world at Focus on the Family, will it be relevant here in Africa? Will it be relevant? She smiled and looked at me and said, it's just like an American to think you invented the family. Which is a great line. She went on to say that is the universal language. Everybody around the world wants those things.

It is so true, but you have to be mindful about it. You've got to know as a parent how do we shape this child's heart and spirit and desires. It's a good job to have, but it's demanding. You need to be intentional about it. Sometimes we wonder if I am doing enough, am I doing the right things? We are going to make mistakes. How many of us as parents want the do-over? That was me. But today we want to talk with our guest, Dannah Gresh, about how to do it wisely between moms and daughters.

John Fuller: Dannah has got some great insights. She's the founder of True Girl. She's a popular speaker and podcast host and a bestselling author of a number of books. We're talking today about one of those called *8 Great Dates for Moms and Daughters: How to Talk About Cool Fashion, True Beauty, and Dignity*.

Jim Daly: Dannah, welcome back. It's great to have you at Focus on the Family. You're talking of course to millions, but here's John and I sitting here talking to you about the bond between moms and daughters. There is something special. I feel in some ways for Jean, my wife. We have two sons. We didn't have a daughter and I think she really missed that. She didn't have that experience. She loves our boys and she loves being a mom of boys. But for the moms that didn't have a girl, and for dads too, it's just a hole that we're not going to experience that. Speak to that special bond between a mom and a daughter and what's going on there.

Dannah Gresh: I don't know what's going on there. I remember when my first—I have one by birth and one by adoption. When that first one came by birth, I remember distinctly thinking, I just gave birth to my best friend. I didn't think that when my son was born.

Fast forward now my girls and my daughter-in-love, who I call the wife of my son. There's three of them and we get together once a month for discipleship. I just ask, "how can I pray for you?" and their hearts just gush with everything. I pray over them and just keep tabs.

I was having a really bad day on my last birthday, just a no-good, very bad day. One of my girls picked me up, took me to coffee, and just loved on me. She gave me a note that said—it was that one I'd given birth to—you are my best friend in the whole world. I don't know. But also, if you saw snapshots of it, you would be like, they don't like each other. It's a complicated relationship and it's good to have someone mentoring you and guiding you on how to do it well.

Jim Daly: In that regard, some of the principles that you mention in *8 Great Dates for Moms and Daughters* is full attention. John and I, remember you're talking to two guys here. Really? That would freak me out. Full attention? But it's important for your daughter to feel as a mom that she's got your attention. How did you learn that or were there some things that you had to change to give your full attention?

Dannah Gresh: I learned it ministering to these moms and daughters and I didn't learn it from my own mothering, even though I needed to. What happened was I started interviewing girls. I'm a research geek. I like sociology. I like learning from psychology. I think psychology's very helpful in helping us diagnose things, not always the end remedy, because that's Jesus.

I do a lot of focus groups and surveys. As I was informally researching teenagers or doing focus groups with teens, I was like, what do you need from your mom? They're like, her attention. She sits down and looks her friends in the eyes when she's talking to them, but when she's talking to me she's taking out the trash. She's emptying the dishwasher.

It was like my heart was arrested because this was a girl who thought I was the perfect mom because I was asking her questions about her and her mom's relationship. I'm looking at my relationship with my daughter, guilty as can be of the same thing. I realized I need to just push reset. I tell moms all the time, push the reset button. Don't give into the guilt. Mom guilt is such a tool of the enemy. But push the reset button. Do you need to really sit down and totally look her in the eye? That's what one teenage girl called it. Really, like totally sit down and look me in the eye. If you do, make a date to do that. Even if it might be once a week, it might be once a month, because the reality is there will be dishes to put away and there will be trash to take out and there will be laundry to fold.

Jim Daly: Let me ask you this because I'm thinking of Jean. She's very efficient that way. I think she would say, just when we're talking, she'll be scurrying around the kitchen and doing exactly that. It would be efficiency for her. She can be totally plugged in and hearing me and I'm sitting in my oversized, needing-to-be-replaced chair. It's losing stuffing. I love this thing. Jean's like, we got to get a new chair.

She's in that zone of I've got a lot to do. I've got a list in my head. I've got to get some things done and I'll be listening to you. For that mom, what is it communicating to the daughter to be able to stop?

Dannah Gresh: It's communicating love. It's saying you matter. There's probably no more important thing to tell our children, boys or girls. We are the first encounter with the love of God that they will ever have in a healthy family.

That really matters when they sin even more than when they're behaving like angels. Again, I love surveys. When I wrote *Lies Girls Believe*, I surveyed fifteen hundred 7-to-12-year-old girls. One of the questions I asked—these are churchgoing girls—"do you know God loves you?" Of course they did. 98, 99% of them were so sure. I am loved by God.

In follow-up conversations we asked them about sin. Then we revisited that question and they felt a lot less loved by God when we talked about their sin. Don't we all? Don't we all struggle with that our whole life? We think that God is distant. I've described that feeling of separation, which is very theological and biblical and real. Sin separates us from God like bad Wi-Fi. It's not that the signal's not out there. I just can't reach the love of God. I can't feel the love of God. I can't hear the voice of God. I think it's really important that we're attentive to our kids and loving them when they sin. The Word of God says that God loved us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He didn't have to put it that way in the Word, but he did because he knew we were going to lose that connection.

Jim Daly: It's a good analogy. The other thing, again, this applies to all of us as parents, but specifically between mom and daughter, that ability to guide without sounding like the old Charlie Brown thing where that's all they hear when you're giving guidance. How do you do that in a way that your daughter can actually be engaged and listen and respond and be who she is and how God created her in listening to the guidance that you as mom want to provide? That is an art.

Dannah Gresh: There's certainly those moments where you're trying to get out the door to church and I don't know why church is so hard to get out the door on time. It goes crazy. You have to be directive, but whenever there's the space and the time, rather than being directive, you should be inquisitive.

John Fuller: Girls can especially be prone to all these lies in the culture. I can see myself as the dad, and I would guess moms feel the same thing, of responding back blindly and textbooky. "I don't feel like I look good" or "I don't measure up, I'm not part of the right crowd at school." Oh honey, you're fine, you're whatever. How can a mom avoid those pat answers and hear what's going on and address what's really under the surface?

Dannah Gresh: Questions, not to beat a dead horse, but why are you feeling that way? Why do you feel ugly? Why do you feel like you don't measure up? Start to get to the bottom of the pit of the lies. A lot of times I've always said this: emotions are good. They're good tools of God. He created them. After he finished creating everything, he looked at the world and he said it is good. Then after he created us, he said it is very good. Everything about us is good, including all of our emotions.

That includes grief, sadness, the emotions we don't like that much, stress. But our emotions are also meant to be messengers. They come and they tell us something and then you respond to it. For example, a girl is saying, I just feel really insecure when I show up at school or unattractive. Maybe it's because she's rushing through her day and not brushing her teeth before she heads out the door, not brushing her hair. There's something practical you can do so that she walks out the door feeling a little more prepared for the day. Then that emotion goes away.

But if it doesn't and it's there and we don't know why, or it's what I call a sticky emotion, it's just stuck to her like glue, that's when you can say, is there a lie here that she might be believing? When it comes to her beauty and body image, the lies are so prevalent. I'm so grateful. I was a teenager during the era of the supermodels. There were like 20 perfect women on planet Earth that I had to compare myself to. Our girls today are coming of age in a filtered world where they have to compare themselves to everybody's untruthful version of themselves. That's going to create lies in their little hearts.

Jim Daly: Many girls feel the pressure to live a dual life. Boys do as well, I'm not saying that, but we're concentrating on moms and daughters. How does a mom first surface that and then talk about it and create an environment—this is probably the way to eliminate it—create an environment where your daughter can be honest with you?

Dannah Gresh: Way back in the 2000s, I think 2007, 2008, I was doing research for *Lies Young Women Believe*, which is for teens. One of the big lies they believed, and they verbalized this, was it's okay to be one person at school and a different person at home. It's okay to be one person at church and a different person in my neighborhood. The teen girls were actually saying, I don't think this is okay, but I believe it and I'm doing it.

The Bible calls that being double-minded and the Bible says a double-minded person is unstable in all their ways. Fast forward to today, the internet and social media has dramatically put that desire to be a different person on steroids. They're showing up on social media as not even a close version of who they are sometimes. It does make them unstable. If you see that or sense that in your daughter, it's really an important thing to address. Just sit her down and say, I saw this social media post. I don't know that girl. Can you tell me a little bit about what made you want to present yourself like that?

Again, you start with the questions. I'm not saying that you don't at some point, if what she's posting is dangerous for her or really creating some cognitive dissonance in her heart and you're seeing that, you might have to discipline. You might have to say let's take social media away for a while. Let's take the phone away for a while. But as much as possible, lead her to an understanding of how destabilizing it is to live as two different people.

Jim Daly: The practical application of that, it sounds right and it's so hard to do for some parents. It's a Draconian measure. I can hear the mom and dad chat. "You sure you want to do that? Of course she's going to go through the roof." But those are good things to consider and good things to do.

John Fuller: This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly and our guest today is Dannah Gresh. We're talking about some of the content in her book *8 Great Dates for Moms and Daughters: How to Talk About Cool Fashion, True Beauty, and Dignity*. Get a copy of the book from us here and find other helpful resources for your journey as a mom at our website, focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Dannah Gresh: Let me talk to you as dads. There's nothing like the power of a dad to say you're beautiful. You look adorable today. You go out there, girl, and you just show up in this world because you look fantastic. That means so much. But we also have to get down to the bottom of—she has to feel that value innately in herself, not in how her hair looks. If there's a lie there, we've got to address it.

Jim Daly: How did your mom help you with that idea of body positivity?

Dannah Gresh: My mom—first of all, world's best mom. Literally, there's an award with her name on it. It says world's best mom. She was so good at asking the questions. She was so good at not making it all about my external beauty but also about my internal worth. That's the mistake we make in trying to address body image issues is we try to make them feel good about their outside. That never really fixes it and that's deteriorating.

What we have to do is fix the inside. My mom was great at saying, "you showed up in strength today." I was proud of how you showed up with courage today. She complimented the inside stuff. First Peter 3:3-4 says, don't be obsessed with the outward beauty of beautiful hairstyle, jewelry, and fine clothes. But instead, be concerned with the inner beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. When we say to our daughters, you showed up with gentleness today, you showed up with helpfulness today, believe it or not, that goes a long way in fighting these body image issues. I think that's one of the things my mom just heard her say over and over again, complimenting the internal qualities of beauty that she saw God cultivating in my life.

Jim Daly: I think one of the difficulties in parenting in general is we forget the positive attributes. We're concentrating on the C, "what happened? I thought you were going to get an A." You can filter that down to everything. Probably mom and a daughter it could be a couple of things. One is a mom who is saying the right things but is in her own actions showing anxiety about her body image. The daughter's going to pick up on that. What you do is more powerful than what you say. She's going to learn from mom that she's worried about her looks. That's part of it. How does a mom effectively help put that daughter at ease?

Dannah Gresh: There's incredible research that what a mom says when she sees herself in the mirror is what a daughter believes when she sees herself in the mirror. The first time I heard this wasn't from research. It was from a teenage girl who was gorgeous.

She said, "my mom's on a diet." And I've got to tell you the diet because this is so crazy. She was on a hot dog and ice cream diet to lose weight. Yes, I don't know. Apparently this mom thought that if she only ate hot dogs and ice cream. We don't endorse that, by the way. It's not health advice from Focus on the Family. We are not endorsing this. But this mom had tried diet after diet, fad after fad. This teenage girl said, "my mom looks in the mirror and tells herself out loud every day how ugly and fat she is." And she's in tears and she's like, "I think my mom's beautiful and I look just like her. So what does this say about me?"

She was a very verbal and mentally aware 15-year-old girl I was talking to, because most girls wouldn't be able to verbalize that. That was the first time I heard it and then research really does indicate that that's true. Moms, your daughters need to hear you say, instead of when you get back from a run how bad you feel about your body, they need to hear you say, "man, my legs were strong and fast today. That felt good." When you look in the mirror, they don't need to see you make faces at yourself. They need to see you affirming what God has created in you.

You are a masterpiece created by God. That's what Ephesians says about us in 2:10. You are a masterpiece created by God. That word masterpiece is the word *poiema*. It was the name in that time used for an artist's highest work, their opus, if you will. That's what we are to God. Look at how beautiful this world is. Sunsets and Northern Lights. My husband is so tired of my obsession with chasing the Northern Lights. We are obsessed with the beauty God's created. And yet all of that pales in comparison to his *poiema*, his masterpiece, which is us. We have to plant that truth in our daughters and the best way we plant that is by believing it about ourselves. This truth is better caught than taught.

Jim Daly: Dannah, I want to ask this question because I think it's endemic in the church. Again, this is general parenting 101 and it applies to both boys and girls that we are parenting. Leaning into the daughter-mother relationship, we project a certain perfection in Christian households. I get it. We want to live by the tenets of the faith. We want to pursue God with all our heart. We want to do everything well. Even projecting to our children sometimes without honesty, if I could say it that boldly, what we are as a family. Speak to the danger of that. I think one of the dangers is your kids then go off to college or do whatever and they've been bottled up in this fairly tight, more legalistic system and then they're not prepared for what they're going to encounter. How does our honesty as a parent, as a mom with our daughter, prepare her maybe better than trying to project perfection?

Dannah Gresh: We were big in the Gresh home raising our kids to do two things. One, we said I'm sorry when we parented poorly. Mom just lost her cool. Dad just was so busy that he ignored you. Whatever, we would stop and say I'm sorry. I shouldn't have responded to you that way. Will you forgive me? That goes a long way.

When you present this picture perfection, it's crazy-making. Our kids know we're not perfect. They see it. They see all our sin better than anyone. When the kids would see Bob and I fight and when it wasn't fair especially, we would sit down and apologize that they watched us fight and that we didn't fight fair. If you don't do that, it's like if you walk into a room that smells like smoke but you can't see any smoke in the air. You can't see any cigarettes in anyone's hands and you're like, it seems like someone was smoking in here. And they say, "no, nobody was smoking in here."

You start to not trust your sense of smell. That's what we do to our kids when we aren't transparent to say, "yeah, there's been some sin in this house. Your smelling is right. The aroma is accurate." That is a skill they need for the rest of their lives. If there's hiding and posturing and legalism to use your word—I detest legalism. Rules are okay, but rules without relationship are devastating to the future of our child. It leads to absolute rebellion.

So saying I'm sorry. The other thing we said—I don't know if you should do this because honestly I think we could have said it better—but we told them we'd pay for the counseling in the future for what we were messing up. We'll pay ahead. I think what we gave our kids is even to this day this honest, open, transparent conversation to where sometimes when I get together with my girls on monthly discipleship night, they'll say, "I was really frustrated with you because—" and they'll tell me I wasn't available to them or I seemed like I was too busy right now. Then I talk through that. That helps me push my reset button. It's still an open relationship. They need to feel that way with Jesus. It's not that they need to feel that way with me. They need to feel that way with the Lord and that sets them on a trajectory for wholeness their whole life.

Jim Daly: So good. Dannah, it's flown by the time here. Thanks for being with us once again. It's always good to have you here. Let me turn to the listener. Focus on the Family is here to help you and your family to thrive in Christ. We want to equip you, both mom and dad, as you're raising the next generation. When you are grounded in the Lord, your relationships can flourish. They actually should flourish. That doesn't mean everything's going to be perfect, but you'll be able to walk the parenting journey knowing you're not alone.

We offer a library of trusted resources, articles, programs like this one, videos, and so much more. It's all created by our parenting team to help you stay informed, stay encouraged, and equip you for every stage of your parenting journey. In fact, we have a video series with Dannah and Christian influencer and mom Whitney Lowe. It's free. You can sign up for that. They go even deeper into ways you can connect with your daughter, help her manage emotions, build healthy body confidence, grow in her identity in Christ, and handle conflict in positive ways. That's the answer to so many concerns of moms and parents.

The series targets moms with younger girls so you can look ahead and start implementing some strategies to tighten your bond as she grows. We also have Dannah's wonderful book, *8 Great Dates for Moms and Daughters*. You'll find lots of fun, easy-to-use ideas for strengthening your relationship with your daughter, all centered on God's truth. When you make a monthly pledge today of any amount, we'll send you the book as our way of saying thank you for supporting the ministry of Focus on the Family. Of course, if you can't commit to that monthly amount, we understand. We'll be happy to send it to you for a one-time gift of any amount.

Let me share this note from Julie who wrote in to tell us this, but also you, the donors. She said, "I can't even begin to express how much Focus on the Family has meant to me over the years. I relied on you while raising my own daughters, and now they listen to the broadcast too. I also mentor a young woman at church and regularly point her to your resources. They've made such a meaningful difference in how I've parented."

I love that and it is a great testament. Julie, thank you for those words of encouragement that mean a lot to the team here at Focus. When you donate to Focus on the Family, you're helping folks like Julie strengthen her marriage and raise her children in positive, healthy ways. But this kind of ministry is only possible with your support. You can provide that much-needed help when you do your ministry through Focus on the Family. So please donate today.

John Fuller: Donate, look for that new video series with Dannah, make a monthly pledge as you can, and get your copy of *8 Great Dates for Moms and Daughters* when you call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY or stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Coming up next time, you'll hear some simple encouragement about how you can transform your marriage.

Guest (Male): The essential element of love is sacrifice. When you sacrifice, God, your Father, who is also your father-in-law, will bring the transformation that's needed in your heart and your mind and your life and he'll transform your relationship.

John Fuller: Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.

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