Q: What can I read to help me parent an (adopted) 13-year-old angry daughter better?
Charity fundraiser, 58, Dorset
A: Children’s author Jacqueline Wilson, whose new book, Dancing the Charleston, is out now, writes:
There are lots of self-help books about parenting teenagers, but surprisingly little fiction about being a supermum. I can only think of one fictional mother whose teenage girls adore her: Marmee in Little Women. She is a good mother, tactful and kind, but I’m afraid I’ve always thought of her as Smarmee, as she’s so smug and sure of herself.
Sometimes inadequate mothers are more endearing. Try My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout. Lucy’s mum has been a hopeless parent in the past, but when her grownup daughter is seriously ill in hospital she sits by her bedside day after day and proves she can be a great mother when she tries.
Writing Motherhood, edited by Carolyn Jess-Cooke, is a marvellous book of poetry and prose and interviews with all kinds of mothers who feel tender, loving, angry, guilty, exhausted – they’re very reassuring. All mothers worry about being a better parent.
And finally, Extraordinary Birds by Sandy Stark-McGinnis is a title you and your daughter might enjoy. The narrator is 11-year-old December, a child who has had numerous placements in foster homes. She’s obsessed with birds, writing her own story, Bird Girl, and is dangerously determined to fly herself one day. She goes to live with Eleanor, a taxidermist who’s having her first go at fostering. They’re an unlikely couple and you might think the book sounds too fey and whimsical, but it’s sharp and honest and uplifting, with a happy ending.
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