all have in common is a desire to connect. I have yet to meet a girl who doesn’t want to fit in and feel a sense of belonging and closeness. Yet, despite this yearning to connect, many don’t have the words, tools, or maturity to make it happen.
Girls want to know that you “get” them, but this is hard when they don’t always have the communication skills to articulate the realities of their world or the pressures they feel. One thing all the girls I’ve worked with have been clear about is that they feel misunderstood—“My parents just don’t understand.” Meanwhile, parents tell me they wish for a stronger connection with their daughters and tell me, “I can’t get through to her.” There is a way to understand each other again. My intention in this book is to bridge the gap, to be the interpreter between girls and those who seek to support and champion them, which I’ve been doing in my work as an educator and coach with hundreds of families. I’ve seen it time and again: instead of using the go-to tools of criticizing, blaming, and entering into power struggles, parents learn to listen better, empathize more, and think before responding. With sincere intention and repeated practice, making connection a habit, families do reconnect, and girls can get back on track.
There is a way to understand each other again
Today’s world teaches a girl—explicitly and implicitly—to disconnect from herself and to seek happiness and fulfillment outside herself. Through media messages and their emphasis on beauty, sex, and perfectionism, girls are being told they are not good enough. And they are living in a world of cyberbullying, microcelebrity (creating their own “brand” and the inner experience of being “famous”), hypersexualization, and social media addiction. It’s no wonder their mental health concerns are on the rise and their fragile self-esteem is plummeting. Because the reality is this: girls are feeling less happy, less connected, and less fulfilled than ever.
Even given all these social trials and tribulations, the greatest source of disconnection for a girl is her unhappiness with herself. We are our own worst critic. A girl disconnects from her true self whenever she conforms to the wishes of her peers, when she tries to be someone she is not. Feeling disconnected is detrimental to a growing girl—she becomes susceptible to feeling isolated, different, lost and lonely, even depressed. In extreme cases, it can lead to self-rejection and self-harm. As a model for how she can connect to her true self, give her the example of connection with you.
Neuroscience supports that we are hardwired for connection. Secure attachment is the basis for healthy self-esteem, healthy cognitive and social development, impulse control, and general success in school. We have a need for emotional contact and responsiveness from the significant people in our lives, and that need never disappears.1 This is not a hope; this is biology. The more we connect, the safer and more secure we feel, which contributes to our emotional, physical, mental, social, psychological, and spiritual health. The groundbreaking work on attachment by Mary Ainsworth and John Bowlby has helped us see that attachment is an integral part of human behaviour throughout the whole lifespan, and the more dependent people are on one another, the more independent and daring they become.2
They need you
When children feel a secure connection to and dependence on you, they feel a sense of harmony, belonging, and reciprocal bonding. They get a strong sense that they matter. This need for secure attachment never goes away, even in adults.3 Secure connection is tremendously valuable in increasing confidence and positive moods, as well as decreasing stress, anxiety, and mental health challenges. It is exactly what promotes healthy development and makes growing strong girls possible.
How to Connect
So, I think we can all agree on the importance of growing strong girls. And we now know that cultivating connection is the key. But how exactly do we do that?
As a parent, you may be wondering, “How do I help my daughter connect with herself when she is constantly critiquing and putting herself down, when she is so hard on herself?”
As a teacher you may be wondering, “How do I help the girls in the classroom connect with each other when they are so competitive, when they seem to share so little in common, or when some seem so much more mature than others?”
As a counsellor, mentor, or coach, you may be wondering, “How do I help her see that she is so much more than how her body looks, and that she really can make a difference in the world?”
Girls need your time
When she connects with you, she can relax and come to understand that she can also trust herself and her inner voice of guidance. It’s a vibrant connection with you that creates the conditions necessary for her to develop and maintain a connection with her true self and with others in the world.
In a recent workshop I facilitated with a group of grade-five girls, I handed each girl a blank card and asked her to write down her answer to this question: What do you most need from your parents or an adult in your life? Without hesitation, the girls wrote down their answers. Later, I read the cards. Every single one expressed the identical need: time with you. In other words, they need you. We need to make and take more time for them.
Girls need your time. This is key. They need time to unburden themselves of their worries and fears. They need time to talk out what is happening in their inner world, to figure out who they are. They need time to ask questions when their lives feel confusing or complicated. When a girl trusts you will be there for her, she navigates the world from a place of security and inner strength. She comes to know that no matter how bad her day is, she can come to you to safely express a rainbow of feelings and be heard. All she has to do is explore and express her inner world, and trust that her needs will be met with your loving kindness, acceptance, and empathy. She’ll feel your presence and she’ll feel connected.
You may have doubts at times. I have doubts too. You may wonder, “Am I making a difference? Am I doing this right?” You may feel that your words are falling on deaf ears or that the lessons you are imparting are not being heard. You may have also experienced the “push and pull effect,” where she both pushes you away to create her sense of autonomy and pulls you in to feel a sense of connection with you. I have to confess, there are days when I give advice more than I listen, because I am so eager to “fix” her problem with a three-step plan of action. I fully understand the delicate balance of wanting to “lock down” to keep her close to you and “letting go” to release her to grow in her independence. On those days when you are not sure you are making a difference, when you’re struggling to find that balance, or you wonder if you’re doing too much talking and not enough listening, remember this simple truth: If you’re there, you’re doing it right.
How This Book Is Structured
This book is for parents, teachers, counsellors, mentors, coaches, older siblings, caregivers, and companions . . . anyone who is a champion for girls and is willing to give them their time. Each of the three parts of this book explores an aspect of the kind of connection a girl needs and the ways in which we can help her cultivate that connection.
Part 1 charts a girl’s journey inward. It looks at how you can help a girl cultivate a connection with her true self by leading her to explore, love, and accept her whole self, and to be appreciative of what is happening inside by paying mindful attention to her body and staying grounded in her lived experience.
Part 2 follows a girl’s journey outward as she connects in relationship with others. This section covers how to avoid social comparisons, develop strong interpersonal and communication skills, build a circle
