6 Tips To Raise Confident Girls and Daughters
Between the age of 8 and 14, girls’ confidence levels drop by 30%. But why is it? Where does it start? And how can we raise confident girls and daughters?
1.Where does girls’ lack of confidence come from? and 2 .Six tips to raise confident girls and daughters
1 — Where does girls’ lack of confidence come from?
When girls and boys grow up, they seem to be equally confident. They take as much risks, scream and talk as much, show an equal thirst for adventures. As they grow up, girls’ confidence tends to go down, and boys’ tends to go up.
When does confidence start to be a problem for girls? And why ? The answer is simple: puberty.
When they reach puberty, girls start being targeted by the media, school, peers, movies, adverts, parents etc. that remind them they should start becoming women.
Girls have to ‘be feminine’ and ‘act like a woman’ — and they have to prove it everyday
Besides their body transformations (breasts, pubic and body hair, periods), puberty is the moment when teen girls are being told that they should start “acting like a woman”, which first means taking care of their body and their appearance more than ever : shave their legs, wear perfume, and make-up (not too much but enough to look feminine).
Going through puberty also means that what was allowed for girls isn’t anymore for women such as sweating; sitting, speaking and standing the way they feel comfortable; screaming; not caring what they look like (…). This phenomenon is called conformity to feminine norms. Boys don’t have to go through such prohibitions to become men (sometimes, it’s even the other way around).
Becoming a “woman” also means following precise rules and behaviours that girls need to fit in without ever being ‘too much’: be strong but stay sweet and gentle, take space but only a small amount, talk but not too much and not too loud. Be confident but not a know-it-all. Dress in a feminine way but don’t show too much of your body. Those rules and behaviours form a frame in which women are supposed to stay and which limits aren’t supposed to be crossed.
Women are entitled to a frame specifically created for them
In other terms, there is only one good way to be a woman, and it is the one where girls should never cross the limits of the frame that was meant for them to respect. Those who ever do (Kamala Harris being called ‘too ambitious’ as Biden’s VP; Greta Thunberg being described “mentally ill, hysterical and a millennial weirdo” while addressing the climate crisis; Serena Williams being labelled with the racist and misogynist stereotype of the “angry black woman” when she accuses umpire of sexism), cannot be considered ‘women’.
‘If we get angry, we’re hysterical.’
Serena Williams
Girls and women are exhorted to stay in the square of norms created for them. Whenever you cross those fine lines, you’re out of your way. An angry woman isn’t a woman anymore, she’s hysterical. Therefore, being perfect as a woman means remaining in this frame that were meant for women to stay in.
How does “being perfect” relate to “being confident”?
When society teaches girls to act “like a woman”, it is taking away their risk-taking capacity as taking a risk also means the possibility of failure and therefore the potential crossing of the women’s frame — and failure and mistakes are the opposite of perfection. Moreover and in a vicious circle, as Katty Kay and Claire Shipman write: “Confidence is an essential ingredient for turning thoughts into actions”.
In other terms, puberty is the time girls realize that they need focus more on their appearance than on their ambition. As they tend to always feel the need to be liked, pretty and appreciated — which means giving up their true self — their confidence level drops heavily. (Young girls need to conform to the norms built for women in order for them to be considered as such — which means giving up their own self.
Problem is: the less confidence you have, the less you’re going to act; and the less you act, the less you’ll be confident about what you can do.
Now, what can parents and adults do about it?
2– Six tips to raise confident girls and daughters
1 — Value the experience instead of the goal
There’s a positive side to every failure. The interesting part of an experience is to value the experience itself rather than the goal to reach. What if you’re not the best? What if you don’t reach perfection? In a sport competition for instance, what’s really the most important? Winning? Sure.
However if she’s feeling bad being ‘only second’, this is what you can ask her: “What did you learn from that experience? Were you happy doing what you were doing?”.
You could also add: “Maybe you didn’t win, but you know what competing feels like. You know what having competitors mean, you know what team spirit is, or speaking in public etc.”
She has to remember that whatever the outcome, there is always something to learn. Even when we say that we failed at something, it’s never true: we always get something out of it. We just need to know what.
2 — Push her to do things she actually wants to try
First, your daughter’s experience is not about you. I’ve met some parents who are pressing their kids to do activities they were doing when themselves were kids. Your children can’t repair a failure or achieve your own dreams.
Second, some parents are preventing their children from practicing a specific sport because it’s too “girly” or too “boyish”.
If she wants a skateboard for her birthday, why not give it to her? She’ll probably be way better at an activity she actually wants to practice, will have fun and will do a lot more physical activity than with a sport she’s not keen on.
Tip: by practicing a sport which doesn’t require girls and boys to be separated — at least at a non professional level (such as skateboarding, roller skating, chess, climbing etc.) she will also get used to boys’ presence, criticism and competition — which helps when they grow up as high-level positions at work are often occupied by (white) men.
3 — Promote sports that girls aren’t usually pushed to practice. Promote the competitive ones.
Competitive sports are excellent to boost girls’ and women’s confidence as they develop a competitive spirit, leadership skills and team effort. Dark side: they still remain “boys’ sports”: football, skateboard, basketball, handball, boxing etc.
Girls aren’t innately keen on classical dance, neither are guys born with the inherent feeling that they should play rugby. If you don’t know him already, it’s time to know about Rudolf Nureyev.
Important note: in the end, if she’s not interested in the sports that you promote, sometimes it’s okay to let it go. Sports are a great way to learn competition, but they’re not the only way (games, contests at school etc.).
Also, extra tip if she doesn’t feel like practicing a competitive sport: you can promote outdoor activities and games, instead of playing inside. Push her to explore, be an adventurer and take some ‘risks’ — such as climbing. Girls and women are usually pushed to play indoor games, when boys and men are more driven to play outside as adventurers or famous spies (Indiana Jones, Livingstone, James Bond etc.) or team players and therefore feel much more comfortable occupying (public) space as grown ups, and feel much less barriers when it comes to lead or compete against other people for a job.
4 — Make her talk about her achievements (more than her appearance)
Talking about an achievement isn’t bragging. What did she recently succeed in? What did she do? Did she manage to score a goal at her football game? Was she happy about her presentation at school?
5 — Show her (diverse) female role models who succeeded (in valued fields)
Men are featured in media way more often than womxn (womxn meaning any and every women: cis&transgender, non binary and women of color): Barack Obama, Gandhi, Neil Armstrong, Edmund Hillary, Lionel Messi or Mark Zuckerberg. They’re mostly sportsmen, adventurers, politics, scientists etc — fields that are highly valued in society.
Moreover, when successful women are being featured, media and critics tend to always mention their appearance, their family links to men.
Instead, let’s talk about Marie Curie (famous chemist who received the Nobel Prize for her work about radium and polonium), Ada Lovelace (first computer programmer), Aung San Suu Kyi (Peace Nobel Prize in 1991), Benazir Bhutto (first woman being democratically elected Prime Minister in Pakistan), Esther Duflo (french and american economist who received the Nobel Prize in 2019), Serena Williams (the tennis player who has won the most Grand Slam titles), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Greta Thunberg, Janet Mock and many more.
She can also watch movies and series which display great heroines, such as Captain Marvel, Killing Eve or Betty.
6 — Remind her that humans can’t ever reach perfection
A car can be perfect, a bike can be perfect, a fridge, a microwave or a TV as they were designed and created by humans in order to accomplish a specific function.
But humans have brains, emotions, feelings, sensations that disrupt a task to be as ‘perfect’ as an object would be built. A machine will never have a ‘knee problem’ preventing it from crossing the finish line; a machine will never be so angry that it loses a tennis point. Therefore, humans can do extraordinary things but without ever being able to reach perfection.
She can be the best, indeed — but being the best won’t make her perfect.
Reach for excellence, instead of targeting perfection.
Read more about womxn and intersectionality on the New York Times.
