'When my eldest daughter was 15, I wasn't even allowed to butter her toast in the morning because it was seen as controlling," says Annie Taylor. "For about a year we'd fight over the same stupid issues and I'd dread having to raise them."

It's a common complaint. Conflict arises in most families when the children are adolescent, but mothers and daughters seem to squabble that much more intensely during the teenage years.

Recent research by Terri Apter, social psychologist at Cambridge University, suggests that mothers fight more often and for longer with their daughters than they do with their sons. The good news is that she found no correlation between the number of fights and the quality of the relationship. "Some mothers and daughters with good relationships fought a lot, while others who were not close didn't fight," she says.

But mothers and daughters tend to identify much more closely with one another, and are far more committed to getting their point across. Girls fight to differentiate themselves from their mothers and from the little girl that they once were, while boys are more likely to withdraw completely from confrontation. "Teenagers fight when they feel their parents consider them to be less grown up than they think they are," says psychologist Dorothy Rowe, "but when women fight it can be really horrible. Everything is up for grabs."

Personality and birth order can also play a part. Novelist Maeve Haran has two daughters aged 17 and 15. "The eldest has always been much more confrontational than the younger one and challenged me on everything. I even found myself saying to her once, 'I went to Oxford you know, and I've written 10 novels so I don't not know anything!' I think we just have personalities that rub each other up the wrong way sometimes."

Annie Taylor (not her real name) is a single mother with two daughters and a son and she only really fought with the eldest daughter. "We're both feisty and argue a point. All through her life she has been the trailblazer who has pushed me to the limit, and when we've fought it's been out of joint confusion, two strong personalities who were both confused about what was safe. I didn't know the clubs she was going to or which taxi firms were safe to get her home. I've had to grow up with her and the two younger ones have benefited from that."

There's much to fight over with teenagers, from getting them up and out of the house in time for school in the morning, to getting them back into the house or into bed at a reasonable time at night. The average healthy family squabbles two or three times a week about everything from tidying bedrooms to whether or not they can go to Glastonbury - but, although tiring, this is not of itself a problem. Research shows that conflict and argument are essential, positive aspects of healthy family life, particularly when each side listens to the other's point of view. When there is negotiation, the conversation can be ongoing, vibrant at times, but it is no longer threatening.

The young person's need for greater trust and freedom is balanced with the parent's need for honesty and a greater sense of responsibility from their child, and gradually the boundaries limiting what an adolescent is allowed to do extends. This can be harder with daughters, who may seem more vulnerable than sons, and it can be much harder to let go.

Teenagers often deliberately pick arguments with parents, by hurling insults or making categoric statements about capitalism or vegetarianism to work out what they really think about things and to provoke the intimate connection that comes from argument. The tricky bit for mothers is finding the strength not to feel rejected or hurt by those insults, or to allow the conflict to degenerate and become negative and destructive. All healthy families fight, but some families fight unhealthily.

"Bad conflict comes when there is bitterness, when hurting the other person is more important than compromise," says Rowe. Apter agrees. "It's not the number of quarrels but what happens in them that matters. If there is ridicule, distortion, humiliation and global criticism - 'You never listen to me', 'You don't love me' - then you're fast approaching meltdown. When mothers perceive their daughters' demands as a direct rejection of their love and values, they are more likely to shout, use coercion, get defensive and exaggerate the ill- effects of what the daughter is trying to do - 'If you go out with him, you could be maimed for life' - which of course the daughter knows is not true, so you've basically lost it then."

Mothers need sometimes to be able to concede defeat, because that communicates far more valuable messages - that they trust their daughter and have taken their views on board and can put them first. "Conflict gets nasty when the mother's agenda or needs are perceived as being the only ones that count, and when the daughter isn't given enough space," says Jeannie Milligan, psychotherapist in the adolescent department at the Tavistock Centre in London. "Without negotiation or compromise, teenage daughters easily feel helpless, humiliated and childlike, which is not what an adolescent girl wants to feel when she's trying to grow up."

Mothers have immense emotional power over their daughters, who want to please them and easily feel unloved and abandoned when they feel misunderstood. One of the most heartbreaking encounters I had while researching my book on adolescent development, The Terrible Teens, was with 15-year-old Emily, who had had such a massive row with her mother the night before that she had sought refuge with a friend and felt unable to go home. She was depressed, found school boring, longed for a boyfriend, suffered from bad acne and showed signs of an eating disorder.

But what seemed to distress Emily most during our conversation was the fact that she didn't feel able to talk about her problems with her own mother because she knew that her mother would get upset by the discussion and Emily would feel as if she had let her down, again. "I just want to be able to explain some of the things that were said yesterday, but that's hard when I know that we'll have another row and she'll cry," she told me. "Parents are supposed to be the strength that you rely on."

It isn't easy being a mother to a teenage girl. Our emotions are likely to be volatile - increasingly so now that more women delay childbirth until their 30s, which means the seismic life stages of menopause and adolescence coincide. Teenage girls can be hurtful, difficult and confrontational, but somehow we have to find the strength to be grown up enough not to mind. This is just how they are at times, how they grow up.

Adolescent experts agree that it is crucial to let them storm off and slam doors while you try not to behave like an adolescent yourself by chucking plates after them. When they shout, don't shout back. Teenagers won't hear your words, only your anger, which they interpret as hate. Listen - really listen - to what they are saying, pause before a considered response and always explain your reasons for particular stands or rules and be prepared to explain them repeatedly. Above all, pick your fights carefully over issues that matter, such as health, safety and education, rather than the state of their room.

"Parents need to take things a little easier and ask themselves, is this really worth fighting for?" says Rowe. "Often it is their own uncertainty that leads them to take a position which is really quite stupid."

'You can be fairly confident that your daughter loves you and still needs your love," says Apter. "See the quarrel as rather awkward attempts to update or alter your relationship, rather than sever it." Often daughters give out valuable signals during rows that they want peace, which mothers miss because they are so angry. Changing the subject, paying a compliment or offering a concession such as 'You can pick me up from the party, provided you don't come in' are important white flags."

Maeve Haran found relations improved dramatically when she went on a parenting course and learned how to hold back and be less critical of her daughter. "They also have such a lousy time with all these exams that I feel sorry for them and have become much kinder."

Annie Taylor used to ring about an hour before she got home if her daughter had friends round to get them to clear up so that she wouldn't come back angry. The rows diminish as daughters grow older, feel stronger and more confident about themselves and are more able to manage their emotions. "When she was about 17, she started to take responsibility for herself and I started to trust her," says Taylor. "She became an adult and now we're incredibly close to the point that I run problems past her as much as she does past me. I don't worry about her any more."

· What About Me? The Diaries and emails of a Menopausal Mother and her Teenage Daughter by Kate Figes is published by Macmillan on June 18. The Terrible Teens: What Every Parent Needs to Know is published by Penguin.