Being a pre-teen girl is absolutely unique experience in life. In this period, the spark of her potential begins to grow intensively, but different gender norms impend to diminish it. There are numerous aspects because of which she can yield to pressure and hide her authentic self. For instance, those stereotyped expectations might assure her to sacrifice ambition for popularity or depress her for nonconformance to feminine beauty standards.
To secure their daughters against frustration, parents can prepare their beloved kid of being a teen girl by teaching her vital skills in early stages. These pieces of advice are crucial and involves such spheres as honest communication, self-comparison, assertive behavior and creating a positive attitude to her body.
Talking about these themes and other problems, will also help you as a parent find out daughter’s interests and learning about what inspires her. Here is a list of 3 skills to teach you little child by the time she turns thirteen.
• How to express her feelings
Common stereotype represents girls and women in general as naturally good at showing their emotions. However, this idea has harmful consequences: when feelings overcome a girl, she becomes unable to make right decisions. Due to this, it’s crucial to teach a little girl emotional intelligence.
That skill means an ability to describe and impress all human emotions in a proper way. But once the girl is taught to value being loved and happy, she often suppresses or can’t recognize her more difficult experiences. So, parents have to show her how to show off her strength in expressing even the most intensive feelings. For example, they can model their emotions with an expansive vocabulary using words like excited, happy, angry, nervous, confused and frustrated.
• How to feel self-compassion
Little portions of self-criticism is a good thing, but too much can cause stress, self-doubt, and depression. From day to day, girls get a lot of signals that it’s important to please others. That’s why, when she suffers a misfortune, it usually perceives as letting someone else down. That makes her experience negative feelings, which often lead to depression.
To prevent such a negative process, teach your children how to cope with failure without beating themselves up and how to practice self-compassion in the moment of crisis.
• How to treat her body positively
Lost in the ocean of reality-television shows and selfies, where the lines between self-empowerment and self-objectification are almost obliterated, it’s easy for young girls to become unable to make heads or tails of how to view themselves beyond objects of desire.
One of the ways to help her develop a positive relationship with her body is to adopt a habit of doing sports. But even the girls who feel physically confident can be ashamed of their bodies. It’s a question of sexuality, so try to talk to your daughter about her body and how to treat it well from the toddlerhood. Parents have to use right words for genitalia and make every effort to explain that sex is a healthy experience that should be had with consent. In such case, necessary to emphasize that her body belongs to her alone, and nobody have rights to encroach on it.
These significant skills aren’t easy to master, but when a little girl practices them under the guidance of a close adult, it’s more likely that she will feel confident as a teenager.
About the Author: Liz Taylor is a coach and professional blogger who is interested in parenting, career, and healthy lifestyle. Being an expert in these fields, Lisa works as a freelance writer at http://bestessaypro.com. Besides, she is a happy wife and mother of three beautiful kids.