The Mother-Daughter Circle: Making Lifelong Connections with Your Teenager [Hardcover]

Celia Straus (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2003

I would like to be more affectionate with my daughter, but she shrugs me off. It didn t used to be like that.
Mother of a thirteen-year-old

One of the deepest, most loving family relationships is between mother and daughter. But it can also be a bond fraught with tension, conflict, and tumultuous feelings, especially when girls reach adolescence. In this wise book, Celia Straus uses your spiritual nature as a common meeting ground where relationships can be transformed and healed with straightforward simple connections that will last a lifetime.

By providing space for you to write down your feelings on a variety of topics, this book itself becomes a connection, a treasured gift to your child and a tangible tribute to your love for her. With comfort and candor, Celia guides you through the volatile territory of adolescence to a deeper relationship with your child. Her approach takes you step by step to a greater understanding of the effortless connections you and your daughter can make. By sharing intimate experiences from raising her own teenage daughters, as well as a wealth of perceptive insights and personal examples from other mothers and daughters, Celia allows every mother to effortlessly create her own sacred circle.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In her prose companion to the Prayers on My Pillow and More Prayers on My Pillow books, Straus offers mothers a heartfelt guide to "connecting with spirit" to their daughters through shared emotions and experiences. Chapters such as "Connected Since Birth," "Connecting with Story" and "Connecting With Laughter" reveal how Straus and other women bonded with their daughters-by talking to them while they were in the womb, reading them books at bedtime, telling them family tales and watching silly movies together. Poem-prayers from Straus's first two books bookend the chapters, which also feature writing prompts; mothers can fill in the spaces after "I respect you for what you..." and "You and I might create an altar that would include..." to personalize the volume (which Straus encourages they then give to their daughters). Some may find the project (and the poems) a bit cloying, but Straus's tone is rarely syrupy, and for women who want to feel part of a larger community of connected mothers and daughters, this book, prettily illustrated by Straus's daughter, may be a warm and encouraging resource.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Inside Flap

?I would like to be more affectionate with my daughter, but she shrugs me off. It didn?t used to be like that.?
?Mother of a thirteen-year-old

One of the deepest, most loving family relationships is between mother and daughter. But it can also be a bond fraught with tension, conflict, and tumultuous feelings, especially when girls reach adolescence. In this wise book, Celia Straus uses your spiritual nature as a common meeting ground where relationships can be transformed and healed with straightforward simple connections that will last a lifetime.

By providing space for you to write down your feelings on a variety of topics, this book itself becomes a connection, a treasured gift to your child and a tangible tribute to your love for her. With comfort and candor, Celia guides you through the volatile territory of adolescence to a deeper relationship with your child. Her approach takes you step by step to a greater understanding of the effortless connections you and your daughter can make. By sharing intimate experiences from raising her own teenage daughters, as well as a wealth of perceptive insights and personal examples from other mothers and daughters, Celia allows every mother to effortlessly create her own sacred circle.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (April 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345448863
• ISBN-13: 978-0345448866
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,148,438 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Mother - Daughter Circle- An Insightful Read, April 24, 2003

By 

Kay Halle (Provincetown, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mother-Daughter Circle: Making Lifelong Connections with Your Teenager (Hardcover)

I found this a wonderfully helpful and challenging book. As a parent of two adult children (a son and a daughter), the reminder to cherish all of the moments of our lives and our relationships- the calm periods and the stormy periods is important to me. The book will be helpful to anyone, whether you have children or not, as it explores the nature of building emotional connections and relationships. Please do not miss the bibliography. Celia annotates the selections in her bibliography and some of the books I chose to read from the list have been life changing for me. Thank you.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Importance of Conversations with our Daughters, April 11, 2003

By 

Amy Gaver (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mother-Daughter Circle: Making Lifelong Connections with Your Teenager (Hardcover)

The Mother Daughter Circle is a gift of guidance for having the conversations we all want to have with our daughters. The stories we share will become treasures and remind us that we really do love each other so deeply even when communciation is difficult. I wish this book was available when my Mother was alive. Ms Strauss made me realize the importance of sharing our mutual experiences. I will not miss that opportunity with my daughter. The Mother Daughter Circle provides the perfect venue for having the conversations you want to have with your daughter. I also believe Mother's of daughters, young and old, can benefit from the words in Celia's book. It is not too late or too early to enjoy the connection of Mother & Daughter. I want to thank Celia Strauss for writing this so piognantly for all of us.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Important Lessons for Us All, April 2, 2003

By 

Joanne Mazurki (Chatham, NJ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mother-Daughter Circle: Making Lifelong Connections with Your Teenager (Hardcover)

Celia Straus writes beautifully, generously, and lovingly about building mother-daughter connections, but her book will be cherished by anyone who has a relationship worthy of nurturing.

Acceptance, creativity, truth, laughter, courage, and love--who wouldn't want those values in their relationships? For those of us willing to make the journey to better relationships, Celia's book shows the way.

Does Celia's wisdom ring true outside the pages of her book? As someone who has benefited from her friendship, I can unequivocally say "yes, without hesitation or doubt!" She lives the ideas in her book, and they work.