Originally Posted by Missy

You know, the thing I keep seeing over and over in the previous posts is "just spend time with her". While that is one of the most important things you can do for your relationship with her, there is one thing that I didn't see mentioned, and that is to always tell her that you are proud of her when she excels at something, or when she makes a "correct" difficult decision, or even when she doesn't quite succeed at something but you see how hard she tried. For whatever reason, girls really need approval from their dads, and I can say that having a dad who never gives compliments or approval really affected the way I saw myself as a teenager, and both of my sisters share my feelings about that. Our father believes that "no matter how good you do, you can always do better", and that by pushing us to do better, we would become better people. But never once did any of us hear any words uttered from his mouth that resembled "I'm proud of you" or "you did a good job today". If we brought home Bs on our report card, it should have been As. If we got 2nd place in the relay race, it should have been first.

I know it sounds silly and juvenile, but I'm almost 30 years old and I still wait for the day that my dad says to me "I'm proud of you."