I have always been a little bit nervous about raising a girl. Don’t get me wrong – I was over the moon when I found out I was having a girl but I’m well aware of the societal issues that plague women. I vowed that my daughter would be a strong woman, confident yet kind and respectful. She would love herself and, of course, her body. Little did I know that nurture plays only a small part in raising children. Once they’re unleashed into the schoolyard, start making friends and watching TV, there is little you can do about what other kids (girls) do and say. I found I needed a strategy to counteract what my daughter was hearing out there in the big bad world.
Like most parents, I was constantly telling my daughter how beautiful, smart and fantastic she was. As she got older I started to wonder if this was the right strategy. There was no question she was confident and seemed to love herself. However, I was noticing that she didn’t like to get any negative or constructive feedback. She was putting a lot of pressure on herself not to make any mistakes and try and do everything perfectly the first time. We all know how unattainable this is. It occurred to me that I was doing a disservice to her by telling her how great she was all the time. I was setting her up to be disappointed by herself and others.
There is a fine line between praising your child all the time for every single thing they do and critiquing everything they do. Because I was raising a girl I thought I needed to praise her even more so she wouldn’t fall prey to those pesky issues like gossip and mean girls. But when I told her she was smart or beautiful she would say: “You have to say that, you’re my mom”. She had me there.
We started talking more and more about working hard. About failing sometimes, getting things wrong and learning from your failures. We talked about differences between all kinds of people; how some people are better at some things than others. I still praise her (a lot) but I try to encourage her to try things and push herself versus just blanketing her with generic praise. It’s “specific encouragement”! It is hard to control myself and it’s more an art than a science to know when to step in and help versus when they need to hear a comforting word but do things on their own. I’m not entirely sure I’m getting it right but with a little encouragement I’m sure I’ll get better.
