Michelle Obama Shares How She Got Her Daughters on Board with Dressing Presidential: ‘We Had a Deal’ (Exclusive)

Getting kids to wear what you want them to is rarely easy. Add being a parent to tween girls in the White House and that task becomes even trickier.

That said, Michelle Obama, author of new style book The Look, out Nov. 4, tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story that she had a method for getting daughters Malia, 27, and Sasha, 24, on board with presidential dressing during their family’s White House days.

That method, was to delegate: “Meredith worked with them,” she says of her longtime stylist and friend Meredith Koop, who cowrote the new title with her.

“She would sit down with them and have conversations about what they liked. And she had those fights with them about, ‘No, no, pull that down. That hem is going to be a little bit longer.’ ”

At their young ages, the fashion conflict was to be expected. “Kids, growing up, they have their own style. And what’s in for a 13-year-old is not acceptable walking down the staircase of Air Force One to a formal greet with President Medvedev, right? There’s [a] protocol that is different. And so they knew that.”

“We had a deal,” she continues. “When they did things with us, the deal was, you work with Meredith when you were dressing for public events because there’s so much…What I didn’t want them to be is part of the negative cycle of ‘what were they wearing’, and ‘how dare they wear that.’ There’d be smoke coming for my little girls, and it’s like, ‘You don’t want the smoke, just put the sweater on.’ ”

But for the most part, the fiercely protective mom says they weren’t a part of official business and formal events. “I was so opposed to them doing these things because these were weeknights, and it was like, ‘You have homework. You’re going to school tomorrow,’ ” she says. “It’s like ‘your job is to go to school and be a kid.’ And plus, I didn’t want them taking up seats for really important people! These seats were limited, right?”

More often, she says, “They didn’t want to come. They didn’t think what we did was interesting. They wanted to have sleepovers at their friends’ houses.”

Though she and Koop helped shape and guard their public image, the former first lady says Sasha and Malia had true autonomy in their private lives — even if their dad didn’t always agree.

“When they were in their own world, going to school, picking their prom dresses, it was all them,” she says. “And so like any mother of teenagers, or parents, a lot of times you’re like, ‘Oh, you’re going to wear that out?’ Barack would be like, ‘Those shorts seem really short.’ And I was like, ‘Don’t say anything. Let them cook. Let them learn.’ ”

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She adds, “Because they had these restrictions, they needed some autonomy to play, to try on different versions of themselves. That’s all we do, especially young girls. They’re just playing around with makeup. But Barack was like, ‘Sasha’s wearing makeup?’ And it’s like, ‘It’s just makeup, dude. And in fact, it looks good!’ Sasha could beat her face from a young age.”

These days, their mom couldn’t be more proud of the women they’ve become. “Now my kids are grown,” she says with the relief of a successful empty-nester. “They are launched. They are healthy and happy.”