Truth telling also teaches girls to be honest with themselves
As well, you can join the Growing Strong Girls movement by using the hashtag #growingstronggirls via Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Snapchat. You can also visit me online at www.LindsaySealey.com, where you will find downloadable materials, videos, podcasts, and blog posts from me. We have an accessible community for further support, advice, ideas, and inspiration. We adults need connection too.
Along the Way
As you explore these discussions and activities, keep two things in mind. First of all, a girl needs to know that although she may not get what she wishes for, she will get what she works for. Being strong, like any skill we desire to develop, takes practice—each and every day. And this takes patience (she won’t always get it right the first time) and perseverance (she will have to be determined in her decision to be strong). Likewise, growing strong girls doesn’t just happen. We need to be intentional about it and committed to our decision.
Second, it is our responsibility to tell girls the truth. Be honest about who they are: what you see as their core strengths, but also the things they can work on. With acceptance of the truth comes the liberty to plan next steps. Truth telling empowers girls and encourages inner strength; truth telling also teaches girls to be honest with themselves.
Sometimes girls need advice, ideas, and help, but more often than not, they need time, presence, undivided attention, and non-judgmental listening. Girls are actually pretty talented at solving their own problems if we provide them with the safe space to do so. What I am proposing in this book is the same thing I do with my company Bold New Girls: merging social and emotional learning with academic success, which is how we empower girls to view and navigate the world through a positive lens and in a positive way. To equip them to make healthy choices that contribute to their sense of fulfillment, belonging, and purpose. Strong girls become strong women when they accept and love who they are, are proud of all they have accomplished and all that they are, embrace ongoing growth and development, and have clarity and life purpose.
Strong girls become strong women
Let’s learn to cultivate connection so you can journey alongside your girl as she connects deeply inward with her true self, healthily outward in relationship with others, and boldly onward in the world. Connection begets connection, so the more time you spend with her, the more supported she will be to make these connections for herself. That’s the key to growing strong girls.
A Note to Readers
GROWING STRONG GIRLS is intended to offer research, experience, and strategies to help you connect with and journey alongside girls. It is not intended to be a replacement for professional medical advice. Anyone who is truly struggling needs and deserves guidance customized to their specific needs.
Holding children in secure connection includes listening to and honouring what makes them unique and what they need as they grow. This book is intended for readers who care for girls ages nine to fourteen, but with some modification, you will find that the ideas and activities facilitate connection with many age groups. Furthermore, everything in this book was conceived for girls with a variety of levels of ability, from different ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds, and who may have non-traditional gender identities. For the purpose of consistency, I use the pronouns “she” and “her” throughout. Language grows and shifts over time—though sometimes not as quickly as the pace of social change. The qualities strong girls possess will one day enable them to lead these evolving conversations about inclusivity.
I present true stories in this book but have changed all names and identifying details to protect the privacy of the individuals and families involved.
Lastly, I want to underline that it is the responsibility of adults to keep the children in their care safe. If you feel any child is in danger, or is endangering another, please take action immediately and seek professional help.
PART ONE
A Girl’s Journey Inward
Growing Strong by Connecting Inward to the True Self
THE MOST IMPORTANT relationship a girl will ever have is the one she develops with herself. When we prioritize making a solid connection with her, she can know, first-hand, what a secure relationship feels like, and she can emulate that security as she looks at her whole self: her emotional, mental, social, physical, psychological, and spiritual aspects.
When a girl knows who she is, she is empowered with the self-knowledge to grow strong; when a girl recognizes how she is feeling in the moment, she is empowered with the self-awareness necessary to be strong.
Think about it: Who knows all her favourite things? Who knows what she fears most? Who knows her deepest, darkest secrets and her magical, adventuresome dreams? Who knows how to love her and be there for her in the exact ways she needs? Who knows how to provide the kindness and self-compassion she needs at exactly the moment she needs it? The answer to all these questions is: she does.
A girl requires courage to connect with her true self. It takes fierce boldness to look inward and to really see all she is with acceptance and love—both the parts she is proud of and the parts she feels tempted to hide. It takes real fortitude and bravery to embrace her uniqueness in a culture that is begging her to conform. A girl’s strong sense of self and her rich inner life become the solid foundation on which she can navigate her journey outward in relationships with others and onward in her life and work, and cultivate a desire to shape the world in which she lives.
We can encourage this growing connection inward by guiding her to spend time figuring out who she is and trusting that everything she needs she already has deep within herself. It is through sitting in stillness that a girl’s greatest source of strength and inner power becomes heightened. We can be the support she seeks by seeing her and hearing her. We can reflect back the worth we see in her, and be the gentle reminder of how valuable she is—valuable not because of how others see her but just as she is.
1 Who I Am
“I KNOW EXACTLY who I am,” said the seven-year-old sitting across the table from me. Maya and I were working on an exercise I call “All about Me,” and she was right: her answers to my questions such as “What are your favourite things?” and “What are you really good at?” came flying out of her mouth so quickly, I had trouble keeping up with her. She was beaming brightly and loving the attention she was garnering from me. I couldn’t help but think, “This is one confident girl!”
A girl’s number one job is to get to know the girl in the mirror and who she is, really. This might be as simple as knowing her favourite breakfast cereal or choosing her own outfits for school, and as complex as her intuitive sense of how she feels each and every day and what makes her feel most happy and authentic. When girls know who they are, they are more confident and clear, which naturally extends to their making healthy choices for themselves. A girl who knows who she is will know what best meets her needs and, at the same time, she will start to learn what doesn’t. She can recognize what feels aligned with her values and what feels out of alignment or wrong. It’s when girls are around the age of nine that I’ve seen many of them slip out of alignment, lose touch with their self-knowledge, and become distracted