Empower Girls With These 10 Phrases (Encore) // by Wendy Snyder

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:00:03

Hi everyone. So it's this height of summer and it's time to relax, reflect and catch up with yourself to take breaks from the routine of school and work. Everyone knows summer feels different. People take family vacations. Maybe you get summer Fridays. Maybe you let yourself stay up a little later as the light lingers in the sky longer. Still when I thought about my podcasting schedule earlier this year, I thought I would want to keep editing and releasing new podcasts weekly all through the summer. Almost like an analyst that pushes out weekly reports, you get used to this routine. So keeping up with it, shouldn't be a big deal. Right? well, I was completely wrong. I underestimated the amount of time and energy that summer schedules would eat up from schlepping, the kids to activities with different start and end times, unexpected summer colds and illness, family events, travel plans. All this time I used to spend recording, editing and promoting that was already broken up between different demands, was now being broken up into even smaller shards of. I also dove into other pursuits in a fit of pre-summer productivity prompted by the promise of a wide open summer. But suddenly several weeks later I realized I was stressed. Like I needed a break from summer break and I suspect I'm not alone. Either. Several listeners who also happen to be friends will say things like I have to catch up on the last few episodes or I'm behind. I haven't had a chance to listen since school. It. so to honor the need for more space and less summertime stress, I've decided to, re-release a few of the top episodes from the first season of know them. Be them, raise them. For you long time and loyal listeners. I suspect you may be grateful for the reminders, after all repetition is key to learning. Plus if you've been putting some of these ideas into practice, You'll find it rewarding to see what progress you've made. And for newer listeners, you may be hearing these fan favorites for the first time. I know it can be hard to dig into the back library of a podcast. So consider this my gift of serving up to you the best and brightest from the last several months. Whatever camp you fall into. I'm so glad you're here. May you have a wonderful glorious middle of the summer, and I'll be returning with new episodes for season two, which will launch in August. And if you haven't done so already, remember to head to knowberaisethem.com or the show notes to sign up for my newsletter. Follow @knowberaisethem on Instagram and on Facebook. Find facebook.com/knowberaisethem. Welcome to know them. Be them, raise them a show about raising tween and teen girls to help mindful progressive growth oriented and busy moms stay informed and inspired so they can show up for themselves and their daughters the way they want to. I'm your host Carmelita too. Today's article 10 important phrases parents can use to empower their daughter. Comes from Wendy Snyder. Wendy is a positive parenting teacher and family coach, helping families, parent with great purpose and intention by creating healthy, respectful, and cooperative relationships. She is a certified parent educator of redirecting children's behavior or RCB and an advocate for families, a mother to two vibrant children. Wendy has been dedicated to the application of positive parenting in her home since 2009. Wendy discovered the work of positive parenting when she was challenged and overwhelmed with the many trials of parenthood early in her motherhood experience through her company, fresh start family. Wendy gives parents the support and tools. They need to raise their children with firmness, kindness, strong limits, compassion, and empathy. Here's her article. Having daughters is such a beautiful combination of gifts and responsibilities. These incredible little women provide us with an opportunity to have the deepest and truest feminine friendship for life and to gift the world with the next generation of strong, compassionate, and driven female souls. But this takes work. There's no doubt about it. Harmony between mothers and daughters and the ability to lead. And have them listen, doesn't just happen. It's a relationship that has to be created and nurtured. Mutual respect can be taught from a young age, empowering both moms and daughters to truly feel like they belong both in our relationship together and in the world. Anchoring this sense of belonging for our girls is one of our most important jobs as a parent teaching our daughters that they belong in a world that often fills them with oppositional messages can be. So empowering them is key. When looking to build our girls up, commit to empowering them, to develop their voice, believe in themselves, stand up for what they believe in lean into their desire to feel powerful, love themselves, trust their gut, chase their dreams. Be firm with their nose. Be respectful and persistent in their stand against injustice. Seek peace in the areas. They see a need, allow their emotions to guide them, trust their heart. That vulnerability is good. Always believe in their innate goodness, allow empathy to guide them, use their hearts, to freely give compassion and have confidence that they can create any kind of life. They. Consider using these phrases with your daughters to empower them to lean into the strength, kindness, vision, and power. They each hold. Number one. I love you. No matter what, take a break from be good today. Or if you're good, you'll get extra hugs tonight. Instead, for example, say, I want you to know that I love you no matter what you will always and forever have my unconditional love no matter what. Unconditional love is at the core of positive parenting and means that our love for our kids does not depend on the level of good behavior they have rooting our parenting in unconditional love is essential to building strong, confident girls, trust that your daughters are good all the time. No matter what mistakes they make or challenges they face each day, feeding this truth into our girls, pours into their need to. Which is a key motivating factor that Dr. Rudolph Dreyer's grandfather of positive parenting helps us understand is underneath kids' behaviors, remove conditions and lean into unconditional love, even amidst, imperfection, and tough days, or stages of life. Number two, you are absolutely beautiful inside and out. Take a break from you. Look so pretty in that. Instead say, I love you in that dress and you are absolutely beautiful inside and out. Your heart is just as pretty as your gown. The world will give our girls plenty of messages that their beauty is all about. What's on the outside. So let's be sure to remind them often how true beauty comes from within confidence, kindness, optimism, compassion, these traits, radiate beauty from the heart in the most powerful. show your girls female role models, such as Malala, Bethany, Hamilton, and the 2018 Olympic women's hockey team. And explain how each of these women represents deep beauty. Number three, you are strong, and you've got this. I'm here to support you. Take a break from I'll talk to that. Girl's mom. It's not okay for her to treat you like that. Instead, for example, say, it sounds like you don't like the way your classmate is treating you. How will you let her know that you'd like her to be kind to you? You're strong and you've got this, I'm here to support you in order for our girls to feel empowered, to solve their own problems. It's essential that we let them try resist the urge to do it for them, rescue them, or always give the answer, allow them to be stretched so that they can find courage and seek to use that courage in their. Support them by being by their side, but allow them to use their voice for peaceful conflict resolution and to initiate change. Number four. How do you feel take a break from, oh, don't cry. It's okay, honey, don't worry about it. Everything's fine. Instead. Say, how did you feel when that happened or I can see your brother has upset you. How are you feeling and how will you take care of yourself to feel better? Feeling and processing emotions fully is essential for our girls to develop emotional strength as parents. It's important to know that emotions are neither right, nor wrong. They just are teacher girls that emotions are good. And that identifying how they're feeling will help them take action to feel better communicating that emotion such as sadness. Anger and hurt, contribute to the wholeness of life is important to help our daughters embrace all emotions, resist the urge to fix when guiding your girls and expect some level of messiness lean into the power of listening, which will guide your daughters to find their own solutions. Number five. Gosh, I love my fill in the name of the body part. What's your favorite part of your body? Take a break from, Ugh, this stomach. I need to lose some weight instead, say, gosh, I love my strong legs and how they were formed from my 15 years of springboard diving. They're my favorite part of my body. What's your favorite part of your body and why do you love it? teaching our girls to focus on one thing they love about their bodies. Instead of telling them they need to love. Every inch of themselves takes the pressure off. Having a quote unquote perfect body image, allow your daughters to express negative emotions about their bodies and resist the urge to make them wrong for their feelings. Instead, guide them to find one thing they love and empower them to put that at the top of their mind. Number six oh. Tell me more, take a break from you should do this, or, well, no wonder that happened. You shouldn't have fill in the blank instead, say, oh yeah. Tell me more. How did you feel? What happened? What did you do when the teacher said that I'm here to listen, developing a strong ability to listen intently to our daughters, empowers them to find and use their. It also allows them to express themselves freely and fully instead of being interrupted or rescued. When our daughters know they have a parent who will listen without always trying to fix them, they'll open up more, learn to trust their voice, express their feelings and communicate effectively, both with us and in the world. Number seven, how can you be a light in this situation? Take a break from stop being mean. I refuse to raise a mean. for example, say friendships with other girls can be really challenging. How can you be a light in this situation and use your kindness to solve the problem? Girl, relationships can get sticky and messy. Take a break from using the term mean, and instead, fill your daughter with the truth about who she really is kind good, loving, funny, resourceful, creative, caring, and. guide her to see creative ways to use those strengths, to solve problems with her friends, her classmates siblings, and you supplementing this phrase with a lesson on peaceful problem solving is always a great idea. Teach kids to take turns using a win-win exercise. Like I feel fill in the blank and I want fill in the blank. Number eight, you have a strong desire to feel powerful and that's good. Take a break from don't be so bossy. No one likes a bossy girl, or why can't you just listen, you always push back on rules. What's wrong with you. Instead say you are gifted with a strong desire to feel powerful, and that will make you an incredible leader. You need to practice expressing yourself with respect though. So let's try that again. Or. You have a strong desire to be in charge and that's a gift. Can you try asking your friends to play the game your way, instead of telling them what to do? Cheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook writes in her book lean in. I want every girl who's told she's bossy to be told instead that she has leadership skills. What a gift it would be to mentor our daughters on how to see this need. They have to seek power. As good instead of something that makes them unattractive or bad, encourage your daughters to find ways to feel powerful in respectful ways and how to lead with integrity. Number nine, how will you be the change you want to see? Take a break from stop complaining about it. It'll never change, or those girls are mean don't be friends with. instead, you could say, I can see that you don't like the way these kids are acting. How will you be the change you wish to see? How can you respond to them in a way that you want them to follow suit? Empowering our daughters on how to influence others with integrity, fills them with the capability to create positive change in their peer groups, schools, community, and even their own families. Teaching our girls, how to continue acting with kindness, compassion, self-confidence grit, determination, and respect. Even when others aren't helps to develop strong character and high self-esteem. Number 10, I am not okay with fill in the blank or I'd like you to fill in the blank, take a break from you. Need to stop that, or you should listen more to what I. instead, for example, say I'm not okay with you using your hands to solve problems with your brother. I need you to take a pause, then use words to peacefully, resolve your problem with him using I statements and taking responsibility for our own emotions and desires teaches our girls to do the same. It also mentors our daughters to ask for what they want versus telling people what they don't want, which increases the rate at which others cooperate with them. Raising daughters who use I statements to own their choices, wishes, dreams, and goals helps to create a future generation of women who blame others less and take control to create the life they want instead of waiting for others or outside circumstances to provide the way there are so many good recommendations in this article. I feel the need to recap them right away. So the 10 phrases are number one. I love you. No matter what, number two, you are absolutely beautiful inside and out. Number three, you are strong and you've got this. I'm here to support you. Number four, how do you feel? Number five. Gosh, I love. And then name the body part, your own body part. What's your favorite part of your body? Number six. Oh yeah. Tell me more. number seven. How can you be a light in this situation? Number eight, you have a strong desire to feel powerful. And that's good. Number nine. How will you be the change you want to see? And 10, I am not okay with fill in the blank or I'd like you to fill in the blank using I statements. all of these resonated on some level either I've lived through situations or there've been other episodes where we've discussed particular aspects. The three that particularly resonated are, gosh, I love my legs or, gosh, I love my, my hands. I, I hadn't really thought about. How trying to speak in generalizations about you should love your body, may overemphasize this desire to be perfect and maybe set them up for unrealistic expectations, which then creates some dissonance with, with the emotions they actually feel. So I, I remember reading this at one point and saying to myself, I'm gonna talk more about like how strong my, my legs are. Especially after working out, you feel just super amped. But where I fell short is asking them what their favorite part of their body is. Uh, and getting that dialogue in place is important as well. The other one, you have a strong desire to feel powerful and that's good. I don't think I've ever spoken that in such a direct way. I certainly encouraged my girls to speak up and to share their opinions, but in moments when it does start to border on perhaps. And a level of assertiveness that I might not be totally comfortable with acknowledging that in that moment, it's not all bad that the desire to feel powerful is good. That is a perspective shift for me. And I'm definitely gonna sit with that and process it a bit to see how I can incorporate that more. I also loved number 10. I am not okay with that. Or I'd like you to fill in the blank, whatever it is that, that you want. I know that. My daughters and I are good at articulating what it is that we'd like to see work out differently. I'm just not sure how often I encourage them to say, I'm not okay with that versus making it this impartial third party thing. That's not fair. That is wrong versus I am not okay with that. It's kind of a nuance that I will be more conscious about. And I like Wendy's encouragement saying how daughters who use I statements to own their choices, et cetera, end up blaming others less and taking more control of creating the life they want instead of waiting for others to step in or waiting for the circumstances to magically align. I hadn't really thought about how the words they use and I statements could really help put that into play. I hope you're excited to talk to your daughter and use these phrases after today's episode. A big, thanks to Wendy Snyder for her insights and setting up these phrases in a succinct and easy to understand way to learn more about Wendy and a fresh start family. Visit www dot fresh start family. online.com. She's also on Instagram at fresh start Wendy, and there's a podcast. The fresh start family show that you can tune into those links are in the show notes, along with the link to her free guide, raising strong willed kids with integrity. There's also a free class. You can take on power struggles, just go to her website, register there and you can attend the next session. Thank you for listening. I really believe that by listening and leaning into learning about ourselves. Parenting and the issues facing women and girls, including our daughters. We are empowering them and changing the world bit by bit. If you found something helpful or insightful in the episode, remember to subscribe to the podcast, tell a friend and follow at know, be, raise them on Instagram. And as always here's to strong women, may we know them? May we be them? And may we raise them?