Restoring Our Girls: How Real Conversations Shape Our Daughters' Lives, Help Them with Teen Challenges, and Remind Them That They Matter - Softcover

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Cathy Cassani Adams, LCSW, is a certified parenting coach, teacher, and podcast host known for her profound work in empowering thousands of young women and parents. Using her previous experience in social work and education, Cathy released her 2009 debut book, The Self-Aware Parent, to help fellow parents navigate complex struggles that their daughters were facing as young women. This inspired her to start Zen Parenting Radio with her husband Todd, where they offer support and advice for not only parents and their children, but also therapists, parenting coaches, and organizations. Cathy has gone on to become a key speaker and guest for several platforms, including CBS, Parents Magazine, Newsweek, and Today’s Chicago Women. Later publications include award-winning titles such as Living What You Want Your Kids to Learn and Zen Parenting. Cathy and Todd currently live in Illinois with their three children, and she teaches at Dominican University.

Dr. John Duffy is a Chicago-based clinical psychologist, bestselling author, keynote speaker and national media expert. He has been in vigorous private practice for twenty-five years, specializing in work with adolescents, young adults and their parents. He has consistently provided the tools young people need to thrive through his empathy, knowledge, experience and practice. He has written three books intended to provide parents with the tools to help their teens and young adults thrive in this persistent age of anxiety. For more than a decade, Dr. Duffy has also spoken to thousands of parents internationally through PTAs, Fortune 500 corporate programs, and other parenting networks. Dr. Duffy has written and contributed to articles for CNN, the Washington Post, The New York Times, Your Teen and countless other media outlets. On television, he has been a regular contributing expert on NewsNation and Steve Harvey, and has shared his expertise through frequent appearances on CNN, the Today show, the Morning Blend, and hundreds of appearances on local outlets. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.

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Excerpt from the Introduction

As parents, therapists, and educators, we have considerable influence when it comes to nurturing girls' self-awareness and safeguarding their inner worlds. They will still be confronted by a culture and society that expects them to bow down and conform, but our ability to openly discuss and understand their experiences as they navigate in and out of these demands is what allows them to remain whole.

Navigating real conversations with our girls can feel daunting because it also requires facing messy and uncomfortable aspects of ourselves. Meaningful conversations necessitate valuing our views while recognizing our flaws—a paradoxical concept that isn’t typically taught as we grow up. As young girls, we're told to fit in, accommodate, conform, and even acquiesce. Then growing up and maturing is all about questioning these expectations, unlearning layer upon layer to rediscover a clearer, more appreciative view of ourselves. This can take decades, and for some, it doesn’t happen at all.

Gen Z has significantly more access to information and greater emotional awareness, but these advantages become drawbacks when it comes to interacting with their parents. Older generations struggle to understand these young girls; they didn’t have the same opportunities or support to speak up and express themselves as they do now. Pair that with a strong urge to make them conform to our beliefs, perspectives, and expectations for their future, and we can see where the conflict begins.

Everyone eventually faces a challenge to their outward identity, and for most of the Gen X moms I work with, this tends to show up as a midlife challenge. But for their daughters, it seems to be happening earlier and at a faster pace. They are being confronted with loss, grief, addiction, failure, or pain at an earlier stage, pushing them to reassess their understanding of reality.

These girls require assistance in processing what they are seeing and experiencing; they need genuine conversations, not superficial pleasantries that only appear clean and tidy on the surface. They need relationships with their parents that are trusting and supportive rather than adversarial. Establishing an environment that embraces genuine conversations, approaches challenges with curiosity instead of shame, and welcomes our less glamorous aspects with understanding creates the foundation they are seeking.

For years girls have confided in me, sharing their struggles and wishing they could be more accepting of themselves, and that life didn’t hurt so much. They want to trust who they are, but they've learned they can't—not because they're incapable, but because of the messages they've absorbed. They want to talk to their parents but are afraid they will be met with a rejection that reinforces their pain. What they need is understandable and what they want is relatable-the hope is that parents can understand and relate, too.