Parents. Are Your Daughters Confident?

[deb1]

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That is what I want for my daughters.

 

[sourland]

deb1, you're just starting. We've made 46 years!

 

[deb1]

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[WriterofWords]

My own opinion on this subject is this: If we demonstrate to our girls that we are confident women it will show them how to follow in our tracks. I find that most girls who have a lot of self-confidence come from mom's who like yourself, had a lack of confidence. I think suffering as you did, you tried to make an impact to the opposite on your girls. One thing I've noticed in my classroom though tends to be opposite at this age. When I have mom's who exude a lot of self-confidence, I find their daughters have very little and tend to be intimidated by their mothers. This is not all the girls, it depends on how the mom relates to the girls. My niece is very self-confident, her mother is not in any way, shape, or form, confident in herself. Chele, my niece, has told me that she wants to be a teacher like me and have an impact on other girls. That makes me very proud. I admit I can be very over-bearing in my own eyes even. It's hard to find that median, or common ground, to support our girls and have them develop that confidence and surety of themselves without having them turn into over-bearing feminists,, the anti-man kind, not the self-sufficient kind.

 

[ChickensRCool]

O.K. So what is the secret to raising a self-confident girl? I have one daughter and confident she is not, even though we are trying lots of things to boost her confidence?

 

[WriterofWords]

It's hard. Sometimes you have to put her into situations you know she can succeed in but she may have doubts and let her work it out. Find things she's good at and make sure you fit some in at regular intervals. For instance: if you know she's good at bowling and you aren't,, go bowling. Or even go and let her win, not by a lot, make her work for it,, but if she beats you by a thin margin it's still a victory. Just don't fill her up with "You are wonderful!! You are the best!! You are the greatest!" They need to earn it, or it means nothing and gives them a false sense of security rather than self-confidence. Girls take more effort to believe in themselves, it stems from history and society shoving down their throats they are not as good as men or they need to be taken care of. I love to see a young girl realize that she can do something for herself.

Here a couple of links that have good ideas,, some you have to pick through, but they have some good stuff in there:

http://www.askdrsears.com/html/6/T061500.asp

http://www.momscape.com/articles/self-confidence-building.htm

http://ezinearticles.com/?Self-Confidence-Builders---How-to-Improve-Yours&id=2431822

http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/subarticle.jsp?id=4324

You have to take some of the advice and methods and change them to meet your own situation, but I've used a lot of these with my students, both male and female.

 

[farmerlor]

I think one of the ways to imbue self-confidence is NOT to be there supporting and grandstanding all the time. Let them work out a problem or deal with a situation by themselves, just let them know you trust they can make the right decision. When they do come through-don't just tell them how proud YOU are of THEM, remind them that they should be proud of themselves.

 

[deb1]

The other posters have given good advice about having self confident daughters. Truth be told, I have no idea what I did with my daughters.

As someone who grew up underconfident I can tell you what doesn't work. Telling someone that they need to stop being shy or have more confidence does not help. It only makes the person feel worse about their failings.

 

[WriterofWords]

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This is SO true!! You can't bully someone out of being shy or under-confident.

 

[horsejody]

My daughter is 22, and she has been confident since the day she was born. She is soft spoken, but never shy. It has never occurred to her that there are things she can't do. She lives on her own, works a full time job, goes to graduate school full time and never asks for money. She is doing it all on her own.