10 Common Mistakes Parents of Girls Make

<p><strong><u>Show Notes</u></strong>:</p> <p>The following are 10 of the most common mistakes parents make that leave girls feeling misunderstood and unsupported.</p> <ol> <li> <strong>Parents don’t really listen</strong>: Girls tell me their parents do a lot of interrupting, judging, and fixing instead of just getting in their shoes, seeing things from their point of view and empathizing. They truly just want to be seen, heard, and understood, not fixed. </li> <li> <strong>Parents value achievement over character</strong>: Kids whose parents value achievement over character fare worse than kids whose parents value things like empathy, compassion, resilience, and integrity more than accomplishments.</li> <li><strong>Parents don’t let girls solve their own problems</strong>: Once you listen and your daughter feels heard, ask her what she will do about the problem. Let her think for herself and come up with her own solutions. Resilience and grit are earned through working through challenges and being able to say, “I did it!”</li> <li><strong>You tell her how great she is</strong>: When girls express their negative self-talk out loud, please don’t reassure them with a barrage of compliments. What they need first is to just be heard and then some help learning tools to redirect her limiting thoughts and to express her emotions in healthy ways.</li> <li><strong>Overfocus on external qualities</strong>: Stop overfocusing on things like her appearance, beauty, grades, being the best, club sport teams, trophies,  being popular, and  looking good.</li> <li><strong>Focus on ‘How do I motivate my daughter’</strong> instead of ‘how I can help her find and support her intrinsic motivation’: don’t ask enough why questions about grades, interests, friends, college, activities</li> <li><strong>Don’t respect when she says no</strong>: try to convince her to agree with us, ignore her (dad tickling her), try to push her to spend time with friend she’s moved on from, persuade her to stay in a sport she’s burned out from, respecting