How to use praise the build your girl’s self-belief

By the time our girls hit 10, many are consumed by what other people think. This leads to insecurity and anxiety. It's really hard to like yourself if you let other people decide if you're good enough. 

If we use praise the right way, we can help our girls (and our boys!) live by their own standards and understand that the opinion that matters most is theirs.

Transcript

How to use prais to build self-belief We know that by the time our girls hit the age of ten, many of them are consumed and crippled by what other people think. We've heard stories of girls not wanting to go to school because they are worried about what someone might think about their choice of drink bottle. Girls are often reluctant to put up their hand in class, try something new, volunteer for a leadership role, because they are worried about being judged by other people. This only gets worse, certainly more visible as they get older, where their day and sometimes their entire self worth is determined by many likes they get on a social media post. Our girls are growing up, caring more about what other people think than what they think. This is the opposite of a power perspective. It is also a recipe for a life of insecurity and misery. A girl cannot like herself if she relies on other people to determine if she is good enough because no matter how great she is and how hard she tries, There is always going to be someone somewhere who disapproves. So if we want our girls to like themselves, then we need to help them live by their own standards, to understand that the opinion that matters most is theirs. They are the ones who get to decide if they are good enough. That is their superpower and they should not give it away to anybody else. A really easy way to teach this lesson to your daughter is with praise. Tweaking the way we praise our girls is the first of the five everyday situations where you can strengthen your daughter's power perspective. I just want you to think for a moment how many times in a week your daughter comes to you seeking praise. Ten times? twenty times? They'll show us their paintings, their lego creations, their school assignments, and ask Do you like it? It's not them who is deciding if they're good enough. It's us. They are essentially giving their power to us. Rather than claiming that power for themselves. But there is a simple way to handle praise that builds your daughter's power perspective rather than corrodes it. Here's how. Rather than simply praising her work, take the opportunity to turn the question around and direct it back at her. When she asks you, do you like my dress, dance, somersault, artwork? flip the question around and ask her Do you like your dress, dance, somersault, artwork? If your daughter says yes, then tell her that it is her work so her opinion matters most and she should be proud of herself. If she says no, then you can talk to her about what she'd like to do differently next time and the importance of practicing. In the larger scheme of things, this strategy might not sound that significant. But think about how many times each week your daughter comes to you seeking praise. Times that number by fifty two for each week in a year, then times it by eight years of her life. If your arithmetic is as rust as ours, here's one we prepared earlier for you. If your daughter, from the age of two, seeks your praise twice a day, fourteen times a week. By the age of ten, that is five thousand eight hundred and twenty four opportunities to teach a power perspective, and subtly tell your daughter that her opinions about her achievements, behaviour, and appearance matter more than anybody else's, even yours. That's a lot of powerful reinforcement for very limited effort on our part.