Between Fathers and Daughters: Enriching and Rebuilding Your Adult Relationship

At first I thought I'd jumped the gun when I read the subtitle "Enriching and Rebuilding Your Adult relationship" but after reading the book I realized, no, this book is far better on the information than most contemporary books on the subject marketed to the father of a young girl. Nielsen is far more attuned to what grown women and their fathers have to say and have experienced than most of the authors offering advice to Dads of girls. She is blunt on the excesses of gendered discourse, be they feminist or chauvanist alike and cuts through the political/cultural-gendered firestorm to get to where real people live. For a father who worries about the fiery little girl he helped make, now a tween, reading this was like a relief-valve that put things back into perspective. The book is like a map of what's coming and how to set up for the best ride down the rapids rather than just jumping into the river and hoping for the best--or as too many of the pop-psych dads and daughters type books advise, diverting the river in order to best control it--yeah, that'll work.If you have a daughter who's still a kid or all grown up, you owe it to yourself to read this book. If you're partnered to a man with a daughter, or even one of those that claim men are irrelevant, you need to hear what Nielsen has to say... a lot of it will surprise you. Men need to do much better by women in U.S. culture. This book helps.

I'm the new wife, and my husband cannot seem to reach the nice side of his daughter; it has to be there somewhere, but I don't know if she'll ever show it to him. They have absolutely no relationship at this point. I thought reading this book would help me understand. The questions that were provided to help father and daughter open up and talk with each other about more than the typical stuff (work, politics, friends, etc.) were helpful, though I don't know if it will work in this situation because the daughter can't get past the blame. They went through a period where they would meet alone to talk, but they never got into any real conversation; it was just chit-chat, so I'm told. Also helpful was the advice that the daughter may never have a real friendly relationship with the new wife, but that the daughter should be cordial and respectful of her father's new wife.The divorce chapter seemed one-sided, as if divorce is usually the man's fault. There wasn't much if anything about when the woman leaves the man because she's simply fallen out of love, and the daughter goes to live with her mother. In this case, the father really has nothing to apologize for, as he has been the victim all along. He tried to make the marriage work and urged the ex-wife to go to counseling with him, and he tried to visit his daughter, but often, she just laughed at him with her mother behind the front door when he came over. If something better was going on, she would tell her father she didn't want to go out with him.Yet, the 28-year old daughter still thinks the father should apologize for something (maybe because she was brainwashed by her mother during the 4 years of separation, and now it is 7 years post-divorce) instead of realizing that she owes her father the biggest apology. Her father would wipe the slate clean if the daughter didn't continue to try to blame him for their failed relationship. She has been brought up to be a princess, and I fear that she will never grow out of it. She doesn't know what she's missing by always pushing him away and expecting everything to revolve around her. She has told me that blood is thicker than anything else, so that her father will always want a relationship with her, no matter what I do, and I have told her that I would love it if they had a nice relationship. But I'm afraid she's being proven wrong; blood means nothing when you treat your father the awful way she is treating him.So, as far as this book is concerned, I would recommend that more information be added on the effects of divorces on the adult daughter and how to improve the father/daughter relationship when the mother was the one at fault, and the father has not done anything wrong to the daughter. Then the book would be more balanced.

Book provides good insights about the challenges daughters and fathers face and some helpful exercises to be done together which may lead to insightful dialogue. Clearly emphasizes good communication and honesty between daughter and father.

Nielsen's book discussed topics that went past forgiveness to relationship building. I was looking for a book that would help, in the area of relationship building and this one arrested my attention. Some authors focus way too much on forgiveness. Which is important, but never write about relationship building after the forgiveness level has been reached. In this book I learned to see things from the offenders point of view, move past blame, be emotionally intelligent, and found the courage to extend my hand in friendship to my dead-beat father.In addition the book does start off kinda dry and repetitive, but I encourage you to keep reading and you will learn a lot.

The new version of this book is now available: IMPROVING FATHER-DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIPS - A GUIDE FOR WOMEN & THEIR DADS

My daughter loves this book. She say the book has really understand the father point of view. Before this book, she says, she only had the female point of view of father-daughter relationship.

There are very few books on the market about grown up Father's & daughters trying to build a relationship based on making up ground as adults for development that didn't take place in the first 20 years.

This is really an informative book and would recommend both the Father and Daughter read it at the same time (if that is at all possible) and share what they have read, how they feel about what was said, and how you can both improve on building a stronger and more loving relationship. Best of luck with your hopes and dreams.

everyone should read it