Ep 74: Growing Strong Girls

<p><a href="https://talkingtoteens.com/growing-strong-girls">Click for full show notes, exercises, and parenting scripts from this episode</a></p><p><br><em>Be assertive…but be nice to everyone. Love your body…but lose ten pounds. Be proud of your achievements…but work harder. Wear these clothes…but be unique. </em>These are the conflicting messages that girls are constantly faced with on social media, at school, on TV, even sometimes at home. It’s confusing enough for full-grown women to know how to act in the face of such pressure, but even more so for a thirteen-year-old!</p><p>Teenage and preteen girls are in an incredibly vulnerable stage in their lives. Society and the culture bombard them with messages telling them to act, look, and even <em>feel</em> certain ways! Without the proper guidance, it’s easy for daughters to feel overwhelmed in this sea of content. They may be afraid to ask questions and torn about who to listen too. This is why it’s absolutely vital for parents to teach their daughters from a young age to be proud of their own voice, understand &amp; value their needs, and pursue their interests. If not, daughters may get answers from the wrong places!</p><p>Lindsay Sealey, author of <a href="https://amzn.to/399bNo5"><em>Growing Strong Girls: Practical Tools to Cultivate Connection in the Preteen Years</em></a> and “girl advocate”,  sat down with me to talk about this and a lot more! For fifteen years, Sealey has been running group workshops and working with young girls one-on-one to help them develop their own sense of pride, confidence, and selfhood--making her an authority when it comes to helping parents connect to and support their daughters!</p><p>According to Sealey, a major part of empowering young girls is to provide them with a safe space to focus on their own wants and needs. In an age defined by comparing ourselves to others, it’s crucial for girls to understand—first and foremost—they need to make <em>themselves</em> happy. Sealey points out parents have an incredible opp