Girl Power: Building Confidence
Understanding the Girl World
By Leigh Felesky
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Like many new moms I know, my palms get sweaty imagining my baby girl as a teenager: talking back to me, dating teenage boys and wearing half tops. At the same time, I want to make sure she’s confident and happy; that she avoids the feelings of insecurity my teenage years brought. If only there was an easy manual to developing strong, confident girls—but the reality is that like everything in parenting, it’s not that easy. The good news is that parents can make a difference. Here’s what I learned.
Understand the girl world. In Rosaline Wiseman’s book, Queen Bees & Wannabes, she talks about the “Passport from Planet Parent to Girl World.” And make no mistake: to earn this passport you need to do research, but there are resources to help.
First, knowing what your daughter’s going through can go a long way in understanding her. Get the facts about puberty—from how she might be feeling to what’s normal and what’s a concern—in Understanding Puberty: What Parents Need to Know.
Second, learn about the girl-positive community. It’s not a formalized world but if you do some research, there are plenty of Web sites and books to guide you in the right direction. Read what girls have to say in a girl-friendly or girl-positive magazine/publication, for example, or attend a youth and parenting workshop available through some of the links below.
Resources and more
The Empower Program is a national, nonprofit educational organization that runs long and short-term workshops and classes, programming for parents and community groups, youth leadership development as well as public outreach and advocacy. The goal is empower young people and adults to create safe schools and communities by providing effective prevention strategies to address bullying and other forms of peer aggression. There is also a Girls Advisory Board (GAB) that hosts regular conferences. Well-known author, Rosalind Wiseman, is the Co-founder of The Empower Program.
Girls Leadership Institute: The mission of the Girls Leadership Institute is to fight the crisis of confidence that often occurs in adolescent girls. The Institute runs various workshops and camps.
Dads and Daughters is the national advocacy nonprofit for fathers and daughters. DADs inspires fathers to actively and deeply engage in the lives of their daughters and galvanizes fathers and others to transform the pervasive cultural messages that devalue girls and women.
Third Wave Foundation: This site is about resources, public education and relationship building—particularly focusing on issues of race, class, gender identity, heterosexism, and other justice movements. They have a section on scholarship resources.
Girls Scouts: As they put it, Girl Scouts of the USA is the world’s preeminent organization dedicated solely to girls—all girls—where, in an accepting and nurturing environment, girls build character and skills for success in the real world. Don’t miss girls only.
Other sites to check out:
