How To Raise A Daughter With Good Self -Esteem

Twenty-five years ago more than 30,000 women from 200 countries arrived in Beijingfor the World Conference on Women determined to recognise the rights of women and girls as human rights.

What started as global women’s movements campaigning for sexual and reproductive health rights, political participation and equal pay, to name a few, expanded to movements organised by and for adolescent girls.

Today, girls’ movements are stopping child marriage, promoting girls’ education, standing up against gender-based violence, demanding action on climate change, tackling issues of self-esteem, and more.

Here are ways to make sure our girls know just how smart they are and that they can stand toe-to-toe with any boy out there.

Make sure your praise doesn’t only focus on your daughter’s appearance. Little girls are beautiful and gorgeous and adorable. It’s a fact. But it’s also a problem if that’s the only way you’re referring to them.

I have decided that when my daughter is born, I will tell her all of that, but i will always be vigilant about adding other attributes to my litany of adulation — adjectives like smart, clever, kind, and strong. She is a woman, and she is all of those things. I don’t want her to ever question that. As she gets older, I will also make sure to tell her (explicitly and repeatedly) that she can do anything that her male peers can do. I will encourage her to break all of the glass ceilings in her way.

Watch your own gender bias. Our words make a deep impact on our children, even when we’re saying them without much thought. You may not think it’s a big deal to refer to a doctor — or mathematician, engineer, or astronaut — you’ve never met (and whose gender you don’t actually know) as a man, but you will unintentionally convey the idea that men are more likely to hold that profession.

Value fearlessness, independence, and boldness. In today’s society, there’s a pervasive message that boys should be loud and strong, while girls should be quiet and “good.” To hell with that.

By encouraging girls to be themselves and to embrace their wild sides, we can teach them to be confident. (Note: As parents, we should be teaching children of both genders to be polite and empathetic. That’s not what I’m talking about here.)

Be careful not to quash girls’ natural impulses, their natural curiosity, and their natural desire to speak up.

Moms, don’t talk in self-deprecating terms about yourself. It is amazing how much negativity we can accidentally exude on a daily basis. We do it with our appearances (“I look fat in this”) and with our emotions (“I’m so stupid, why did I do that?”). But, depending on our backgrounds, we can also do it with STEM-related fields (“I’m so bad at math, but your dad has always been good at it”).

We are our daughters’ biggest role models, and if we talk about ourselves in a way that diminishes our intellect, we’re doing our children a huge disservice. So, be kind and complimentary when speaking about yourself, and you will be helping your daughter in immeasurable ways.