Dear Maggie,

My fifteen-year-old daughter is bound and determined to get a belly button ring, and I’m completely against it. Her dad won’t get involved one way or the other. So I get to be the bad guy. This began as a small disagreement, but it’s blown up into her barely speaking to me, shouting matches between us, and a general sense of chaos that’s impacting the entire family. What’s the solution?

Signed,

Exhausted Mother

Dear Exhausted,

This is an easy one, but then again, things always seem clearer to an outsider looking in. The perspective is different. Your daughter is becoming a woman, and one of the things that happens during this time is that girls need to express themselves as separate entities from their moms. Individuation. Often this process includes doing things they know their moms wouldn’t want them to do, as a way of declaring and proving (to you and to themselves) that they are individuals.