Pre-teen and teen girls are a mystery, aren’t they? One minute they are standing tall telling you how to run the show, the next they are a wailing mess because they don’t like their shirt. When you think about it, they’re a lot like toddlers (please don’t tell my girls I said that!).
Watching my daughters’ self-confidence plummet the older they become has been one of the most heartbreaking aspects of parenting for me. I guess I expected it. I remember being in late primary school, early high school, when I started comparing myself to other girls and felt very, very lacking. I know I wasn’t alone; I think most of us spent our entire teen years feeling like we didn’t stack up. Sadly, many of us still do.
It can feel so hypocritical to teach my daughters how to stand tall and believe in herself when I often struggle to do the same myself. Which is why apart from doing my very best to be a confident role model, I often find myself pointing out women in the media or in our community who I feel are doing remarkably well. Think Caitlin Moran, Pip Lincolne, Magda Szubanzki, Amys Poheler and Schumer and Gretchin Rubin.
For this reason, I couldn’t get my daughters down to see the Ghostbusters relaunch starring mighty women Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wigg fast enough. (I’d never heard of Kate McKinnon or Leslie Jones at the time, but I’m awfully glad I know who they are now!). Melissa McCarthy is the woman who said, “I’ve never felt like I needed to change. I’ve always thought, ‘If you want somebody different, pick somebody else.’” Wow, right? I want that for my girls.
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Ghostbusters didn’t disappoint – it’s just one big, loud, crazy, in-your-face girl power fest. It shows strong women doing tough things – while demonstrating that good humour will get a gal through just about anything. It’s the kind of movie my girls want to watch again and again (you know how kids do that?), so I’m happy that it’s newly released on DVD. I’d much rather they re-watch Ghostbusters 100 times than Barbie Life in a Dream House. Spare me!
See, I figure that the more I immerse my girls in strong, funny, wise women who can take care of themselves, the more my girls are going to think, “I can be like her. I can be who I want, when I want, how I want.” That’s what I want for them. That’s what I want for girls everywhere.
Check out the slideshow for 20 more ways that I’m raising my girls’ self-esteem through the roof:
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More ways to raise confident girls:
- The Most Inspiring Mothers and Daughters of All Time
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- Why Dads Should Talk to Their Daughters About Periods, Sex and Boys
Boost Your Daughter's Self Esteem - AU
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1. Accept yourself
I know that I’m by far my girls’ biggest role model and I want them to see a role model who accepts herself, warts and all. They don’t need to know that I feel inferior every time I wear my swimmers at the beach. They just need to see Mum togging up and getting out there, enjoying the sunshine.
I never talk about my weight with my girls. I never mention how I wish I was thinner or prettier. Never, ever, ever. As far as my girls are concerned, I’m absolutely content with the way I look. And you know what? Part of me really believes that to be true.
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2. Eat well
Still being my girls’ biggest role model here: I eat exceptionally well whenever I’m around them (I save my Mint Slice addiction for after they are in bed!). At our place, we don’t talk about dieting or whether foods are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ or ‘make you fat’. Instead, we talk about making healthy choices that fuel our bodies to run, kick, climb, lift and play.
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3. Talk about the media
There’s no way today’s girls can fail to notice that every billboard features a certain body type. Every magazine cover features gleaming white teeth, glistening bronze skin and hair galore. So much hair. How long has it been since you saw a primary school-age girl with short hair? Not a single girl in any of my girls’ classes has short hair or even medium-length hair. Instead, they all have the same swinging ponytail.
We should never underestimate how early our girls learn what they are supposed to do and be. For that reason, I make a point of showing my girls alternatives to the mainstream depiction of women (like Ghostbusters, as I mentioned earlier). I make a point of talking to my girls about what they are seeing in the media whenever the opportunity arises. I want them to develop a critic’s approach to what they see and read. It still doesn’t mean my girls will let me cut their hair though…
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4. Encourage and listen to her opinions
Even as young kids, we want our girls to know that what they have to say matters a great deal. We always make the space to hear them out when they have an opinion that differs from our own. We say, "What do you think about that?" before we offer our own opinion. This is so important because, as we know, society has a habit of shutting vocal females down. I want my girls to grow up thinking that no matter where they are and what they are doing, it is their right to express their opinion and be heard. Because it is.
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5. Let her be herself
Sometimes there’s a bit of a ‘matchy matchy’ mum in all of us and we can’t help but want our daughters to be just like us. We enjoyed netball as a kid, so we steer our daughter towards netball. We love the colour pink so we deck her out in pink. Let’s not do that though, okay? Instead, let’s step back and let our kids decide what they want to be all by themselves.
My eldest daughter refused to wear skirts and dresses from the age of about two. It horrified so many of our friends and family. They couldn’t seem to let it go. Well, friends and family, let it go. My daughter is allowed to explore her own way of doing things, including what she wears and especially what she doesn’t.
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6. Make it less about appearance
“She’s so pretty,” well-meaning people say. “She’s got such lovely eyes.” Yep, she does. But please don’t mention it because she doesn’t need to know. I’d much rather you mentioned how brilliant she is at running, or how quick-witted she is, or how kind. There are so many things our daughters do that are super-duper wonderful. So why do we reduce them to “pretty”?
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7. Team sports are go
I reluctantly tell you that neither of my daughters has so far turned out to be a team sport player… but I live in hope. I know that team sports are excellent in building self-esteem and confidence in girls. The good news is that sport in general brings the same level of autonomy, sense of achievement and strength that team sports do – just without the general camaraderie with a group of like-minded girls. So my eldest daughter’s obsession with Parkour will hopefully play out for her just fine.
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8. Watch for gender blocks
There is probably a technical term for it, but I call it ‘gender blocking’. All those times our daughter’s feel they aren’t able to do something just because they are a girl. We need to smash through the stereotypes – another reason to love Ghostbusters, where women are shown as kick-ass scientists, not the receptionist (that role is taken up by the adorable – and funny – Chris Hemsworth).
How our girls feel about themselves starts so early and the messages can be very subtle. I was livid when I realised how restricted my daughters’ were by the winter school uniform our school (and so many other schools) wear. I was so pleased when our school sprang to action and created a ‘gender neutral’ uniform that the girls were only too happy to wear. Now they can play just as hard as the boys at recess and lunch.
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9. Read between the mags
While magazines like ‘Girlfriend’ and ‘Dolly’ are probably not that big a deal in the scheme of things (I was obsessed with ‘Dolly’ and later ‘CLEO’ as a tween/teen myself), I am still cautious for my girls. Girls today are just so bombarded with lifestyle images that I’m careful about what I let them read. It worries me that girls’ magazines don’t seem to have changed one iota since I was a kid. They still peddle the same inept view of girls they always did. It’s always best to keep in mind that magazines exist to sell us stuff and for no other reason.
Instead, try setting her a reading list that is heavy on the fearless females: Pride & Prejudice; Jane Eyre; Nancy Drew; Helen Keller; Anne Shirley; Pippi Longstocking; Jo March; and Friday Barnes.
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10. Beware social media
The mags are one thing, social media quite another. I’m floored by the number of my daughters’ friends that want to ‘friend’ me on Facebook or follow me on Instagram. My daughters are 8 and 10 years old! Horrors! You better believe that my girls won’t be getting social media accounts until they are the requisite 13 years old (that’s high school in my book) and doubly believe that I’ll be monitoring those accounts closer than a surveillance expert. The thing that worries me the most about social media is the fact that approval is so externalised. I want to raise my kids to internalise their need for approval. If you like something, then that’s good enough – no second opinion needed, thank you very much.
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11. Put the brakes on the judgement
We’re all human, we judge others, we can’t help it. But I do try to be as non-judgmental as possible when it comes to talking about other women. It all comes back to role-modelling the type of woman I want my girls to grow up to be. A kind woman, a supportive woman, a woman who boosts other women up, not puts them down.
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12. Be her #1 fan
I want my girls to know that I love, love, love everything about them. I think they are wonderful and I tell them that every single day. I don’t want it to be empty-talk, though. In order for them to truly believe it, I back up my adoration with examples. “You are such a kind person, I love the way you… today” and “You’ve become so strong, I can’t believe how well you ran today” and “That was a really smart way of looking at that problem.” The more winning examples we can give our girls, the more they are likely to believe that they really are a winner.
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13. Encourage different friendship groups
A great group of friends from school is very important to a girl, but it’s good to make sure that her entire self-worth as a friend is not tied up in that group alone. My girls each have a whole new circle of friends from their extra-curricular activities and I think that’s fabulous. The wider the circle of friends, the less likely they are to place importance on the general ups and downs of friendship. And we all know how low the lows can be amongst a group of female friends!
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14. Keep the conversation going
The older they get, the more I know I need to keep talking to my girls about this, that and everything in between. Keeping up with their lives and dreams is so critical for keeping the conversation going. I might not always agree with their choices or what they want in that moment, but I can definitely empathise with where they are coming from. I want my girls to know that I am here to listen and advise, or just to listen, whenever they need me.
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15. Allow her to dream big
I try never to squash my daughter’s dreams, no matter how outlandish they may be, or how far from my own dreams they are. Kids will hop from one dream to the next in rapid succession anyway, so when my youngest had her heart set on joining the garbage crew when she grew up, I simply told her that she’s need to start training for those 4 am starts.
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16. Surround her with the power of women
We often have ‘girls own’ adventures with my own female friends and their daughters. A big group of us will come together to celebrate life and (metaphorically!) howl at the moon. I love to surround my daughters with the joyous love that female company can bring. It’s role modelling at its very best.
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17. Immerse her in cultural diversity
Australia is a wonderful place to raise girls. If you can help her see past the silly advertising messages that seem to believe only one type of female exists in the world (see point 9), there is plenty of diversity for her to enjoy. The more we appreciate other cultures, the less likely we are to believe that we have to look a certain way and act a certain way. People all over the world (and Australia) are doing things vastly different to what some consider ‘the only way’ and they are thriving. It’s good for our girls to know that.
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18. Help her set goals or intentions
When we are clear in what we want out of life, it becomes much harder to be swayed in a direction we shouldn’t go in. You can see how that might work for our girls growing up. I like to talk to my girls about their dreams and ambitions and help them formulate some solid goals to get there.
The goal might be a short term intention that can be accomplished in a few weeks (“I will do Smiling Mind three nights a week until the end of November”), or a much broader goal that she wants to work towards all year (“I will win the MVP award for soccer” or “I will learn to draw portraits”). Either way, achieving her goals – or even just slowly working towards them – makes her appreciate how clever and consistent she can be.
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19. Allow her to take healthy risks
It can be soooo tempting to lock our daughters away for the duration of their teen years. The world seems particularly fraught with both physical and emotional dangers when kids are so trusting and determined to fit in. Like all parents, we struggle with when to loosen the reins with our girls, but we definitely know that the idea is to hand them over to their control entirely. We can only do this little by little, bit by bit, from a very young age. Ensuring that our girls comfort zone is a very big zone indeed can only serve them well as they grow older.
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20. Talk about your own experiences
I do think that the best way to parent (and to live) is through sharing experiences. My kids have always responded so well to the stories of my own childhood. I think it’s both the idea of a little mummy running around doing silly stuff combined with the fact that no matter what was happening at the time, they know mum turned out just fine. They can see that the experiences of my childhood are not looked back with horror and shame, but rather fondness and humour. It’s almost like giving our girls the benefit of hindsight before something has even happened yet.
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