I just finished reading a book called:  My Teenage Werewolf: A Mother, a Daughter, a Journey Through the Thicket of Adolescence by Lauren Kessler

It was a very interesting read. I don’t agree with everything in the book, mainly because the author does not have experience with the transformation Christ will have in a mother daughter relationship submits to His guidance.  However, it is a highly entertaining and informative book that does provide quite an array of research.

As I was reading this book, I would also dialogue with my mother to talk about our own relationship. It was very insightful for me as an adult daughter to be allowed to ask any question I wanted regarding the way my mother chose to parent me.  One insight came as I was reading about the author’s epiphany in a department store where she was on her last straw with her daughter during a shopping trip to get an 8th grade graduation dress for a daughter who never wore dresses.  Her epiphany was that she was playing a part in this story and kept reading the same lines over and over again.  Her daughter would read from the same script.  They both knew how this story would end.  Each would walk out of the store, angry and stone cold.  Each of them would continue this pattern until they got home, where each of them would not have a good evening because of this silent treatment.  But what would happen if she changed the script?  What would happen if she changed the story?  She decided to grab her daughter’s arm and say: “hey let’s go watch a movie and grab some popcorn!”  The story changed, and the daughter responded with a hesistant yes.

So my question to my mother was:  Did you ever think we scripted?  Her response: No because I made an effort not to do that. I wanted you to know that I wanted to know you.  My mother asked me the same questions every day after I came home from school. I never wanted to do that to you.  I never wanted to get into a pattern where you would think I didn’t care.

My mother will be the first to tell you that she was and is not perfect, but I am so thankful for her and most thankful that she didn’t script with me.

So here’s a question for you:

Are there questions or conversations that you tend to “read” over and over again into the lives of girls that God has placed in your life? Too much repetition in the same exact form will only fall on deaf ears.  Learn how to look at your “messages” and conversations to find fresh ways to say some of the same things.  “You are loved” is a good statement for your girls to hear.  It can be communicated in fresh ways so they hear it continually in different ways. Mix it up…and see what happens.

Another question: Is there a girl you know who is “reading”  from a lifescript that is causing her life to spiral into a story that is going in a direction that is not going to end well? How can you help her to “read from a different script”?