Girls are succeeding like never before. However, girls’ leadership organizations and experts have been seeing a worrying trend on the ground: Girls working so hard, often starting in middle school, to attain what everyone says is the gold star of life - college admission - are seeing their confidence stagnate and even plummet. How is this possible when, on paper, girls look like they can achieve anything?
To blame are the techniques girls are using to achieve.
I certainly don’t mean to condone walking away from a friendship whenever anything gets hard. In fact, girls frequently tend to avoid difficult conversations, and I am a big advocate of having a well-planned-out, face-to-face conversation as a way to get to the bottom of the conflict which, ironically, ends up strengthening the relationship.
However, in my experience girls (especially young girls) don’t intuitively recognize that A) there is a spectrum of friendships, B) friendships are rarely static and C) not everyone is a friend. Ending friendships is brutal no matter if you are doing the breaking up or being broken up with. However, it is a necessary and normal part of life. But how do we do this correctly and with respect?
Increasingly, young people are feeling lonely in a crowd. As my daughter starts a new school this year I discover she is no exception.
A new study alarmed many when they discovered that young people were reporting rates of loneliness at far higher rates than older adults. The same study says social media is not the culprit. Nor is it the solution whereby one can feel connected by merely clicking a few buttons.
This is a face-to-face problem and my daughter discovers it isn’t as hard to overcome as she thought.
Rachel Simmons says in her new book, Enough As She Is, “There is something troubling stewing beneath the surface of all this (girl) success.” This brewing starts young in our daughters and can blindside us once she is in her late teen years.
My daughter is 14-years-old, so I hope I can catch her. But it is too late for many of my son’s 17-year-old friends. They are at full gallop on the hamster wheel that Simmons calls the College Application Industrial Complex. It’s dizzying and exhausting by itself, but Simmons says when dumped on top of girls who’s, “drive to achieve is fueled by brutal self-criticism and anxiety that they will fail,” we find “girls who may look exceptional on paper but are often anxious and overwhelmed in life.”
What if your girl has a big goal like "improve my grades" or "get into my dream college?" We want our girls to achieve their goals, not just because we are parents, but also because it improves confidence and setting goals is an important executive functions skill.
But why do some resolutions fail and others succeed? Author, Deborah Reber, offers 8 steps to support your girl with big dreams.
So what if it's not New Year's day. January 22nd is just as good a day to go after your dream as any other!
Ever feel like you are only focusing on your child's weaknesses? Good news. There is something called Strength-Based Parenting that is highly effective.
When we focus on eliminating only weaknesses in our kids, we can only improve the process or person from low to a sort of average. If instead, we identify, focus on, and leverage strengths, we can attain better consistency and success. In fact, each person’s greatest room for growth is in the areas of his or her greatest strength.
If we take our natural ability and multiply it times the effort we put in, we will reach higher milestones sooner than others. Psychologists call this the “multiplier effect.”
Not only is this great for us parents but it will be a relief to your child who thinks you only see their negatives.
Praise is one of humanity’s deepest cravings. It satisfies our need for acceptance. It can give us meaning in our lives and it can help to build our identities. It’s easy to see why parents dole it out thickly to their children. However, when used improperly, the compliments can harm the very people we are trying to encourage. In fact, Dweck’s experiments showed that, sadly, the brightest girls collapsed the most.
Here's how to avoid the pitfalls of praise and, instead, motivate your child to excel!
A friend recently asked me, “What if your daughter doesn’t want to be a leader when she grows up?”
It’s a question I have heard before. It’s the, “Should we even be focusing on female leadership if most women eventually end up choosing to lean out?” question.
So what do I think? I think the premise of this question is entirely wrong. I don’t believe becoming a leader only occurs when you get ‘that’ position or they crown you with ‘that’ title.
In fact, given how different the economy is from when I grew up, I don’t think my daughter has any choice but to be a leader.