Raising Teen & Tween Girls with Girls Mentorship (pt 1)

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Today on the podcast, I’m joined by Jill and Mary, founders of Girls Mentorship. We had so much to talk about, we had to make it two episodes so you could get ALL the goodness out of our conversation. In this episode, we’re diving into what teen and tween girls need and what they’re going through at this stage of life. Next week, you’ll learn what you, as a parent, can do to support them.

Jill and Mary are the founders of Girls Mentorship. They say, “Everywhere we looked, we saw girls struggling—grappling with confidence issues, battling negative self-talk, wrestling with poor self-image, and navigating the tricky waters of anxiety and depression.  It hit close to home. Hadn’t we been in those exact same shoes 20 years ago?” 

Girls were STILL missing the vital tools to rise about these challenges. So Jill and Mary decided to become the guides they wished they’d had - offering young girls the skills and support to build confidence, resilience, and self-worth. They now teach life and personal development skills to tween and teen girls so that they can become the brightest, most authentic versions of themselves.

Life As A Tween Girl

With all the conversation about kids and anxiety and how much girls are struggling, it’s easy to forget about the beauty of this age. 

Mary shares that girls this age speak their mind. They’re curious. They make you question things, and you get to learn from their questions, too. They’re experiencing all the firsts, and it’s really fun to walk that path with them and see their eyes get really big when they understand a concept for the first time or realize that they're not alone in what they're struggling with.

Jill says they’re also hilarious, creative, and talented. They have access to so much information that if they’re curious about something, they will just go and seek it out. 

And with a lot more awareness of mental health in today’s culture, these girls are genuinely curious about it. When they experience anxiety or other feelings, they now have words to articulate and express themselves, which leads to really rich conversations. 

Mary says that when you’re talking about girls ages 10 through the teen years, the distinction between tween and teen isn’t all that big. She says, “the conversation doesn't really change much, neither does what the girls in particular are struggling with.” The differences come up in their maturity level, experiences, and what topics they’ve been exposed to. 

Challenges for Parents

No matter how old your kids are, you know that each stage comes with it’s own unique challenges. Two that we see come up most often are generational differences in the ways we talk about and deal with emotions and how the way we define success for ourselves can trickle down to our kids…whether we want it to or not.

Expressing Emotion - The Generation Gap

We all agree that we’ve seen a shift in the way people express emotions from our parents’ generations to now. 

Gen X parents wanted to act like everything was fine. Stuff the feelings down, and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. 

Now the pendulum has swung toward being very open and honest in expressing our feelings. But we can see with our kids how this sometimes goes a little too far and becomes hurtful. 

We don’t want our kids to get stuck on the labels of being anxious or depressed. When they identify too closely with these, it can actually hold them back. 

I’ve even noticed what I think of as pathologizing adolescence. We take these normal, hard things that adolescents go through around their identity and try to diagnose the problem.

 Kids aren’t necessarily experiencing more pain these days. They are just expressing it more because we’re allowing them to. When I was an adolescent, I was in so much pain, and I didn't have anywhere to put it. So I developed my own negative coping strategies. Our kids now are more able to talk about their feelings, but that doesn’t mean they necessarily know what to do with them. 

Defining Success

At some point along the line, our culture decided that the way children behave and perform is a direct result of parenting. So, as parents, we feel like we need to check certain boxes and see certain outcomes from our kids in order to show that we’re doing a good job. 

Extracurriculars, good grades, cute outfits, nice manners…the list goes on and on. And we feel like we’re being rated on them all.

But who set those standards? And how much control do we even really have here? Our society has started to overemphasize parenting a bit in this way. It leads to a misunderstanding of the role and what it actually means to be a parent.

Each child’s needs and personality are so vastly different that there truly isn’t one “right” path. And even though all of the millennials who did things “right” -  got good grades, went to college, got a great job, bought a house - are all now sitting here unhappy and complaining about how we can’t afford this life we were “promised”, we’re still putting this same standard on our kids. 

We’re still telling them that they need to go to college and do all these things in order to be successful. And teens are feeling the pressure of that. 

Mary shared a story about one of their clients who is struggling with this herself.

“We're working with a girl right now who is a sophomore in high school, and she's got it all together. It's all buttoned up. Great grades, lives in a great home, two successful parents. Absolutely drop dead gorgeous. She referees for the little league. She's got a job…

She is not happy in any way, shape, or form. It is coming undone for her at a very quick rate. Her family reached out to us because they were scared about what was going on in between her ears. We have told our kids that this is what's important, and we've held them to that standard to their own detriment.”

Tools for Teen & Tween Girls

One of the many things I love about Jill and Mary is that they give girls so many tools so that they don’t have to keep looking for happiness outside of themselves. 

The Words You Use

A big shift can come from simply changing the language we use around our struggles. Sometimes, it almost seems like we introduce ourselves as, “Hi. I am anxiety, and my name is Mary.” 

Subtle shifts can make a big difference. For example, instead of saying, “I am anxious,” or “I have anxiety,” we can say “I feel anxious sometimes.” 

Mary says that this helps separate who we are from the tendencies we have because we can improve our tendencies. 

She also says that we often overthink about the negative things in our lives. You hear people all the time say, I’m anxious,” or “I procrastinate,” but you don’t often hear them say things like, “I’m gritty,” or “I’m so content.” We overanalyze the good and turn it into something negative.

Ultimately, we want to help girls move toward something like, “I might have anxiety every once in a while, but I'm gritty and I'm perseverant, and I can find my way through the problem and feel good on the other side.”

Embrace the Struggle

There is a tendency for millennial parents to unintentionally rob our kids of their self esteem.  Our kids boost their self esteem when they think critically and problem solve, but we’re often too quick to jump in. In some cases, we even take our kids’ self-esteem in order to boost our own.

Here’s how it happens…

Let’s say your kid is working on a science project. They get stuck on something, so you jump in to help. You take over production so that it gets turned in on time and your kid gets a good grade. You feel great about yourself and what you did, but your kid doesn’t get that same self esteem boost and likely misses out on valuable lessons and experiences. 

As parents, Jill says, we need to check ourselves and remember that it’s okay to watch our kids fail in a safe container and environment. In fact, we want them to fail now rather than later when they’re out there in the world by themselves. We can be available when they struggle and be that safe landing place for them.

The truth is that pain is part of the process of growing up (and living as a human on this earth). Sometimes, you just have to wait the pain out. It will pass. 

We can help our kids by normalizing the pain and not trying to create a diagnosis or prognosis for it. Help them talk about feelings as what they are - a stage, a phase, or a moment. Your kid needs to look at you and see that you believe that they can overcome.

Really, the truth to happiness or contentment is knowing that we can be unhappy and figure out how to get back. I am not happy because I have a house, job, car, husband, and kids. I’m happy because I know how to find it inside. I can grapple around in the darkness, and keep pushing myself toward some kind of light. Let’s give our kids the chance to do the same.

A Lifelong Journey of Growth

It’s also important for parents to understand that nothing is a one-and-done. Parents come to Jill and Mary searching for what’s best for their daughter. But there is no quick fix. Growing up to be confident and resilient is a journey for her that she will be on for her entire life. 

Mary says, “You can see a distinct difference between the parents who are at their wits' end in wanting to help their daughter, so they buy into our programs and services, and [the parents who] are on that other level - not just paying us money, but they're on board to help and support. And they see the changes. It's astronomical… The ripple effect of what this work will do - not just for the individual, not just for the family, but for a community - is vast. It's huge.”

An Outside Perspective

Mary says, “I wish I had a recording of every parent who's ever said, ‘Well, she doesn't wanna talk to me because I'm just mom or I'm just dad.’ Every parent child relationship has that period of time where you don't get the answers you want from your child because they're going through their own journey. They're discovering who they are.”

They don’t want to feel judged or shamed or guilted by your response to what they’re telling you. They’re working really hard as an adolescent to prove to you that they are capable and good. 

It can be so scary when we see our kids struggle. A lot of times, teen girls want to get feedback from a parent, but they don't want to tell everything to their parent. They just don't. They want to preserve that mother-daughter or father-daughter relationship and allow there to be a some mystery.  

It is so valuable for tweens and teens to have someone else in their life that they can talk to - tell the truth or say the hard thing - and get feedback.

A Shared Language

Jill says, “It is so crucial to speak your kids' language…That’s all kids want is for their parents to understand and not poke fun at or judge” That means getting involved in what they’re doing and where they’re communicating. Maybe it’s Snapchat or Roblox or joining in a dance party. 

She continues, “They want you to be a part of their lives. So the more that you can see them without judging them or tearing them down, but, really being with them and joining in on their world, the better the chance of that relationship continuing to be solid.

When is the best time to start helping your daughter with their confidence, self-esteem, and emotional health? Right now!

“You can literally never start this work for your kids too early,” says Mary. “Save her the time and the effort and the tears that you experienced. We want our kids to be better than we were, and this work guarantees that they have a head start on that.”

You’ll Learn:

• What makes teen & tween girls so awesome!
• Benefits and pitfalls of greater emotional awareness in this generation of kids
• How small shifts can make a big difference in identity and self-esteem
• 5 ways to support the tween or teen girls in your life 

Connect with Girls Mentorship:

• Learn more about Girls Mentorship programs, including their summer camp, at https://www.girlsmentorship.com
• Follow Jill & Mary on Instagram @girlsmentorship

Resources:

• Permission to Feel by Marc Brackett