Latest / Raising Daughters / What Wisdom Can Humpty Dumpty Teach Teenage Girls?

Transcript

What Wisdom Can Humpty Dumpty Teach Teenage Girls? · Raising Daughters

0:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to Raising Daughters, the podcast that helps parents learn
0:08
Speaker 1: the best ways to support their daughters as they navigate
0:10
Speaker 1: the high levels of stress, anxiety, pressure, and uncertainties so
0:14
Speaker 1: pervasive in our culture today. Doctor Tim Jordan is a
0:17
Speaker 1: developmental and behavioral pediatrician who has specialized in counseling girls
0:21
Speaker 1: for over thirty years and shed's light on the realities
0:24
Speaker 1: of today's young women in all facets of their lives.
0:27
Speaker 1: This is your opportunity to learn how to better support
0:30
Speaker 1: your daughters, making them feel safe, secure, and truly loved
0:33
Speaker 1: in the midst of life's ups and downs. Here's your host,
0:37
Speaker 1: Doctor Tim.
0:45
Speaker 2: Hello friends, Stutter Tim Jordan back at you today with
0:48
Speaker 2: a brand new podcast, a new topic, and a very
0:52
Speaker 2: important topic. I've been counseling girls that in my counseling
0:56
Speaker 2: practice now for oh gosh, thirty five plus years. I've
1:01
Speaker 2: also been running weekend retreats for thirty six years. I've
1:04
Speaker 2: been running summer camps for thirty five years. I've traveled
1:08
Speaker 2: around and done all kinds of talks and workshops and things,
1:11
Speaker 2: and one of the things that I've learned, especially working
1:15
Speaker 2: with middle school and high school girls, is that it's
1:18
Speaker 2: really hard to get through your childhood and especially middle
1:21
Speaker 2: school and high school, those years unscathed, meaning with your
1:26
Speaker 2: sense of yourself intact. There's so much judgment in the
1:31
Speaker 2: hallways of middle school and high school, so much energy
1:34
Speaker 2: about looks and sexonists and athletic prowess, this intense competition
1:40
Speaker 2: for club teams and being in national our society and
1:43
Speaker 2: getting into a top college. The hallways of school and
1:47
Speaker 2: in the bathrooms, there's a ton of fat shaming. There's
1:51
Speaker 2: this cultural obsession that girls absorb that they have to
1:55
Speaker 2: look a certain way and be a certain weight. Social
1:59
Speaker 2: media has added a whole new thick layer onto that,
2:03
Speaker 2: and also just all the mean girl dramas and relationship
2:06
Speaker 2: aggressions that happened. There's so much that goes on that
2:10
Speaker 2: causes girls sometimes to lose themselves. So I'm going to
2:15
Speaker 2: talk today about some things that I've learned over the years,
2:18
Speaker 2: but especially I got reminded with some week recent weekend
2:22
Speaker 2: retreats with middle school girls and another one with high
2:25
Speaker 2: school girls, and why I learned about them, about the
2:28
Speaker 2: parts of themselves that they have lost along their journey,
2:32
Speaker 2: and also my add at the end, what are some
2:35
Speaker 2: ways that they can learn to reclaim those parts. A
2:41
Speaker 2: recent retreat with high school girls, I told them the
2:44
Speaker 2: old nursery rhyme of Humpty Dumpty, which starts out as
2:47
Speaker 2: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a
2:51
Speaker 2: great fall, and then of course all the king's horses
2:54
Speaker 2: and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again.
2:58
Speaker 2: The great fall for girls is losing themselves. So some
3:03
Speaker 2: of the questions I asked the girls that this past
3:06
Speaker 2: weekend was what pieces of themselves have they lost? What
3:11
Speaker 2: parts of themselves have they split off to protect themselves
3:14
Speaker 2: from judgment, from criticism? What parts have quieted? Are been
3:19
Speaker 2: quieted and hidden for fear of being judged or ridiculed.
3:23
Speaker 2: What are they given up in order to fit in? Oh,
3:27
Speaker 2: that's a big one, right, What parts of themselves have
3:31
Speaker 2: they given up in order to fit in? There are
3:34
Speaker 2: a lot of girls who give up parts of themselves
3:36
Speaker 2: because they're different than their family, and those parts of
3:39
Speaker 2: themselves don't get affirmed. They may be a quiet introverty
3:43
Speaker 2: kid in a family of extroverts, so that part of
3:47
Speaker 2: them they feel has never been appreciated, so they hold
3:49
Speaker 2: it in. There was a girl who I counseled about
3:55
Speaker 2: a month ago, who comes from a very sporty family.
3:59
Speaker 2: Mom and day I had both played in college. An
4:02
Speaker 2: older sister is a top athlete, and this girl is not.
4:06
Speaker 2: She's more interested in the arts, and so she feels
4:08
Speaker 2: like she is not being appreciated for her interests and
4:12
Speaker 2: for who she is, and so she hides that she's
4:16
Speaker 2: embarrassed by it. I think a lot of girls often
4:20
Speaker 2: start changing in middle school because they're trying so hard
4:24
Speaker 2: to make friends, to fit in. They're going through a
4:27
Speaker 2: phase in life where they're learning to find themselves, figure
4:30
Speaker 2: themselves out, they're trying to find connections. They also hear
4:35
Speaker 2: their friends and their peers judging themselves a lot out loud,
4:41
Speaker 2: and those mirror neurons in their brains, which causes us
4:44
Speaker 2: to imitate the things around us, and which causes things
4:48
Speaker 2: to become contagious. Those things get fired up, so oftentimes
4:52
Speaker 2: it's hard not to chime in to do the same yourself,
4:56
Speaker 2: because all of us have been primed for hundreds of
4:58
Speaker 2: thousands of years to want to be part of a group,
5:02
Speaker 2: and one way of doing that is being like the
5:03
Speaker 2: other people. So middle school, I think is one of
5:08
Speaker 2: those ages where I think a lot of this starts.
5:11
Speaker 2: One of the girls at the retreats said that she
5:15
Speaker 2: remembered being in sixth grade in middle school, and she
5:18
Speaker 2: was for some reason, in a group where there's a
5:21
Speaker 2: lot of eighth graders and said, she said, I noticed
5:24
Speaker 2: how sad they all seemed. They didn't smile very much,
5:28
Speaker 2: they all seem so stressed out, so self conscious. And
5:32
Speaker 2: she remembered that this girl is now a junior in
5:34
Speaker 2: high school. She said, it really stunned me to see
5:39
Speaker 2: what was going on for them. When I asked girls,
5:43
Speaker 2: what parts of themselves that they have let go of,
5:46
Speaker 2: are lost, are hidden to fit in, to make friends,
5:50
Speaker 2: to avoid ridicule, et cetera. Let me list some of
5:52
Speaker 2: the ones I've heard a lot. One of the ones
5:55
Speaker 2: that the girls said was they lost their sense of
5:59
Speaker 2: childish wonder, the sense of creativity, the enjoyment of more
6:06
Speaker 2: quote unquote childish activities like playing with dolls or having
6:10
Speaker 2: imaginary friends, feeling care free. That sense of wonder is
6:15
Speaker 2: lost because it's not cool, or they may have acted
6:19
Speaker 2: that way and then somebody made fun of them and
6:22
Speaker 2: told them that they act like a baby, and so
6:24
Speaker 2: they start to hide it, and they lose that sense
6:27
Speaker 2: of wonder. Oh, that's sad. There's some girls who hide
6:31
Speaker 2: their intelligence. They hide their creative ideas, sometimes even their
6:36
Speaker 2: hobbies or interests because they're not valued by their peer group.
6:41
Speaker 2: It's not cool to be smart in some social circles.
6:46
Speaker 2: In middle school and high school, they start hiding some
6:49
Speaker 2: of their interests that they may have had as kids.
6:52
Speaker 2: Give things like legos or coloring, their love of stuffed animals,
6:59
Speaker 2: video games that they play when they're a kid that
7:00
Speaker 2: they still like, but you know what, they're not cool
7:02
Speaker 2: anymore according to the group, so they give them up.
7:08
Speaker 2: One of the other things that I've noticed that girls
7:09
Speaker 2: sometimes lose, maybe oftentimes lose, is the excitement to grow up.
7:17
Speaker 2: Like that girl I mentioned a little bit ago. They
7:19
Speaker 2: look at the older kids around them. It might be siblings,
7:22
Speaker 2: that might be people down the street, it might be
7:25
Speaker 2: the older kids in their school, and they see that
7:29
Speaker 2: they're so stressed out. So they see stressed out about
7:34
Speaker 2: making teams, about act scores, about trying to get into college,
7:39
Speaker 2: all those things, and it doesn't seem very fun. So
7:44
Speaker 2: you start losing some excitement sometimes about growing up. A
7:48
Speaker 2: lot of girls I also work with have a hard
7:52
Speaker 2: time trusting other people. They've lost that trust because their
7:56
Speaker 2: trust has been misplaced because some people in their lives
8:00
Speaker 2: have not been trustworthy along the way, especially friends who
8:04
Speaker 2: your best friends today, the next day you're being left
8:06
Speaker 2: out because the girls in the group have told your
8:10
Speaker 2: old friend that you're not cool enough for them, so
8:13
Speaker 2: that you get ditched, you get excluded. So a lot
8:19
Speaker 2: of girls have a hard time trusting people because they've
8:23
Speaker 2: been burned because they've been hurt. And what starts as
8:28
Speaker 2: I can't trust this one girl becomes I can't trust anybody.
8:33
Speaker 2: And the hallways of school, aren't you know, they're bustling
8:36
Speaker 2: with drama and exclusion and people talking about people behind
8:39
Speaker 2: their backs and rumors and gossip. Of course, it's hard
8:43
Speaker 2: to trust people because so many people are doing it
8:45
Speaker 2: because they're so afraid of being left out, so they
8:49
Speaker 2: lose their ability to trust. Another thing that girls told
8:53
Speaker 2: me that they lose is the ability to look in
8:56
Speaker 2: the mirror and to feel pretty, to feel like they
9:01
Speaker 2: like the way they look. And so much stuff comes
9:05
Speaker 2: their way around that. The fat shaming that happens in
9:09
Speaker 2: school hallways, the fat shaming that happens in our culture.
9:13
Speaker 2: The President of the United States recently didn't like a
9:18
Speaker 2: question that someone a reporter asked him, so he called
9:20
Speaker 2: her piggy. I think she may be overweight. I didn't
9:23
Speaker 2: see a picture of her, but apparently she's overweight. Best
9:27
Speaker 2: stuff is all around girls that they're supposed to look
9:31
Speaker 2: a certain way. There's this one way to look, which
9:34
Speaker 2: is like movie stars, and most movie stars are thin, shape, shapely,
9:40
Speaker 2: and so if they don't look like that, in their minds,
9:43
Speaker 2: it means I'm not pretty. If I don't look like
9:46
Speaker 2: my friends into my peer group or in my peer group,
9:50
Speaker 2: then I also feel like I'm not good enough. I
9:52
Speaker 2: don't measure up. And those things stick, even things like
10:00
Speaker 2: looking forward to things. They start losing their excitement, things
10:05
Speaker 2: like being silly. In our latest weekend retreat, on Saturday night,
10:14
Speaker 2: after dinner, they dine a lot of processing, A lot
10:18
Speaker 2: of emotions were shed during the day, during the morning
10:21
Speaker 2: and the afternoon our little circle times, so we felt
10:24
Speaker 2: like they needed some time to bust out, so we
10:27
Speaker 2: played a game that we usually play with the grade
10:29
Speaker 2: schoolers at camp. It's called carrots. So they lay down
10:33
Speaker 2: the floor in a circle and they lock arms with
10:36
Speaker 2: the person next to them. They're on their stomachs and
10:38
Speaker 2: they lock arms, and so they are the carrots. And
10:43
Speaker 2: there's some farmers quote unquote who walk around behind the
10:47
Speaker 2: circle and try them pull and try and pull them
10:50
Speaker 2: out of the ground like carrots. And they're supposed to
10:52
Speaker 2: resist with all their might, and it is, oh my gosh,
10:56
Speaker 2: the energy is so high because as people start pulling
11:00
Speaker 2: on somebody's ankles, uh, they hold on tier, they're laughing,
11:04
Speaker 2: they're screaming. It is if somebody finally gets pulled out,
11:07
Speaker 2: the other people who are were uh uh hooked to
11:11
Speaker 2: that person hook up together and it is high energy fun.
11:16
Speaker 2: But they lose the ability sometimes to do that, to
11:19
Speaker 2: do silly games, because it's not cool anymore. Quote unquote.
11:24
Speaker 2: I've seen so many girls in my counseling practice, girls
11:28
Speaker 2: that retreats and camps who used to like to dress
11:32
Speaker 2: in a certain way. I had a recent girl recently
11:34
Speaker 2: who told me she she used to like to dress
11:38
Speaker 2: up in bright colors, rainbows, and now in the last
11:43
Speaker 2: year since she started high school, she dresses in black
11:46
Speaker 2: and white and browns because she doesn't want to doesn't
11:49
Speaker 2: want to be seen doesn't want to be noticed because
11:52
Speaker 2: she got teased about it, about being so frilly. Are
11:55
Speaker 2: so much into rainbows, that's that's like a little kid thing.
11:58
Speaker 2: So now she gave that up and she dresses like
12:02
Speaker 2: everybody else. The last time I saw her a couple
12:09
Speaker 2: weeks ago, she promised me she was going to start
12:12
Speaker 2: dressing like she wanted to dress and to not care
12:14
Speaker 2: so much. And she promised me when she comes into
12:17
Speaker 2: my next visit, she's going to be dressed in rainbows.
12:19
Speaker 2: I cannot wait. Things like ah awe, that sense of wonder,
12:28
Speaker 2: excitement for the little things. They get so stressed out,
12:32
Speaker 2: they're so busy today. They're not in the present moment.
12:36
Speaker 2: That's the other thing that they've lost is the ability
12:38
Speaker 2: to be in and enjoy the present moment because so
12:41
Speaker 2: much is about their futures. They don't play soccer because
12:45
Speaker 2: it's fun. You play soccer on the club team because
12:48
Speaker 2: then you might get a college scholarship. You get a
12:49
Speaker 2: college scholarship, then you get to go to a good college.
12:52
Speaker 2: It's all about the future. So much of their lives
12:55
Speaker 2: are wrapped up in doing things for this thing down
12:59
Speaker 2: the road, so it's hard to just enjoy things in
13:02
Speaker 2: the moment, the joy of the present moment. They're so
13:07
Speaker 2: afraid of losing friends, they're so afraid of dating partners
13:12
Speaker 2: leaving them. They're so afraid of so much that that
13:15
Speaker 2: fear causes them to not be in the moment. They're
13:18
Speaker 2: worried about what could happen, what might happen, or they're
13:22
Speaker 2: back in the past worrying about what has happened. Now.
13:27
Speaker 2: There's more things, but these are the ones I hear
13:29
Speaker 2: the most. Girls never really lose these parts. They're just hidden,
13:37
Speaker 2: they're covered over. They deny them. And one of the
13:41
Speaker 2: things I've noticed over the many years I've been counseling
13:44
Speaker 2: girls is that over time those things that they have
13:48
Speaker 2: covered up become harder and harder to remember and to
13:52
Speaker 2: recover because they layer so much other stuff on top.
13:56
Speaker 2: If that makes sense. The second half of Humpty Dumpty
14:01
Speaker 2: goes all the King's horses and all the King's men
14:04
Speaker 2: couldn't put Humpty together again. So these girls who have
14:09
Speaker 2: learned to hide themselves and hide parts of themselves, they've
14:12
Speaker 2: got some work to do if they want to reclaim
14:14
Speaker 2: those parts of themselves, if they want to reclaim those
14:18
Speaker 2: parts that are important to them. They were and they
14:20
Speaker 2: might still be to be their true authentic self. That
14:26
Speaker 2: means they have to focus on what they do have
14:28
Speaker 2: control over because they so often look outside themselves to
14:33
Speaker 2: try and control everything else except themselves. So we talked
14:38
Speaker 2: this last weekend about what do they have control over?
14:43
Speaker 2: So let me list some of those things, because this
14:46
Speaker 2: is a process they have to go through. One of
14:49
Speaker 2: the most important things that girls do have control over
14:52
Speaker 2: is the stories that they make up about past situations,
14:56
Speaker 2: past adversities. I saw a girl a few months ago
15:01
Speaker 2: who was adopted at birth, and because she was adopted,
15:06
Speaker 2: she has a belief system that says that she's unlovable,
15:10
Speaker 2: she was unwanted, and therefore, in the present day and
15:14
Speaker 2: she's in high school, she has to be perfect in
15:17
Speaker 2: everything in order to be loved and for her adoptive
15:21
Speaker 2: parents to not give her up, she still has that fear.
15:26
Speaker 2: Fifteen years later. She has a belief that says, I
15:30
Speaker 2: can't trust people to be there for me. So she
15:35
Speaker 2: may need to reframe that may not need to, she
15:39
Speaker 2: does need to learn to reframe that to something like
15:44
Speaker 2: her parents loved her so much. Her biological parents, they
15:48
Speaker 2: loved her so much that they want her to have
15:49
Speaker 2: better because they couldn't provide that for her, so they
15:53
Speaker 2: gave her an opportunity for a much better life. Another
15:58
Speaker 2: girl who who has a belief system that says that
16:01
Speaker 2: people aren't there for me, because she said problems with
16:03
Speaker 2: her family being there for her. She's also lost friends,
16:06
Speaker 2: she's been excluded, her parents are divorced, doesn't see her dad.
16:12
Speaker 2: She was the lead in a play and she got
16:15
Speaker 2: two tickets in the front row for her mom and
16:20
Speaker 2: her stepdad, and on opening night she was all jack
16:24
Speaker 2: to Huppler and she looked when she went on the
16:27
Speaker 2: stage and she looked out the two chairs were empty.
16:32
Speaker 2: So obviously that I can see why that's hurtful. And
16:39
Speaker 2: she was having a hard time letting it go, and
16:42
Speaker 2: she went right back to her old belief that said,
16:44
Speaker 2: no one is there for me, I can't trust anybody,
16:47
Speaker 2: I'm unlovable, all those things. So one of the things
16:52
Speaker 2: I did for her in that day in the office
16:55
Speaker 2: when she told me her story, was to say, we
16:58
Speaker 2: was there anybody there for you? Your mama and your
17:02
Speaker 2: stepdad were not, But who was there for you? And
17:05
Speaker 2: she said, well, there's an old family friend of her
17:10
Speaker 2: mom's who has been really close to this girl her
17:13
Speaker 2: whole life. They actually talk to each other every day
17:15
Speaker 2: or two. And there he was in the audience in
17:19
Speaker 2: the second row. Her boyfriend was there, her boyfriend's parents
17:25
Speaker 2: were there just for her. And there are a couple
17:28
Speaker 2: of school counselors who know her and think she's amazing
17:32
Speaker 2: who are there for her. So she has a choice
17:36
Speaker 2: of do I focus on who's not there or focus
17:39
Speaker 2: on who is there? And also to not let that
17:42
Speaker 2: old belief come up and say, here we go again,
17:44
Speaker 2: because it's not true that she can't trust anybody. It's
17:48
Speaker 2: not true that nobody is there for her. A couple
17:51
Speaker 2: of people are having a hard time with that, but
17:53
Speaker 2: not everybody. So reframing old beliefs limiting beliefs is huge
18:00
Speaker 2: because those limiting beliefs will keep kids stuck. I saw
18:06
Speaker 2: a girl one time who was excluded in seventh grade
18:08
Speaker 2: for her best friend group. So she started to believe
18:11
Speaker 2: that she wasn't good enough, that she wasn't cool, she
18:14
Speaker 2: wasn't lovable, she wasn't important, that what she has to
18:18
Speaker 2: say isn't important, and so she kind of walks around
18:24
Speaker 2: the school with a scowl, in her face, that resting
18:26
Speaker 2: be face to keep people away because she doesn't want
18:30
Speaker 2: to get hurt again. So she is hidden herself. She's
18:36
Speaker 2: lost herself. So one of the things I helped her
18:40
Speaker 2: do was to kind of think about, what are some
18:43
Speaker 2: other reasons why maybe those girls stopped talking to you
18:47
Speaker 2: or started to exclude you. Besides that you're not good enough,
18:50
Speaker 2: and you're not lovable, and you're not cool, you're not important,
18:53
Speaker 2: what else could it mean? And so one of the
18:55
Speaker 2: things that she came up with was she said, you know,
18:57
Speaker 2: a lot of people in my grade are insecure and immature.
19:02
Speaker 2: I also talked to her about how the queen bees
19:05
Speaker 2: of the world love it when they can make fun
19:08
Speaker 2: of people leave people out because they get a tremendous
19:10
Speaker 2: sense of power from that. Totally inappropriate, but they get
19:14
Speaker 2: a sense of power and when people go along with them,
19:17
Speaker 2: they get even more shots of power. And this girl,
19:21
Speaker 2: by the way, in seventh grade, when that group was
19:27
Speaker 2: shaming somebody and spreading untrue rumors about somebody, she stood
19:32
Speaker 2: up to them and was unwilling to do it, and
19:34
Speaker 2: that's the main reason why she got excluded. So if
19:39
Speaker 2: she starts to believe that that's the reason. It's not
19:41
Speaker 2: because there's something wrong with me, it's because of those
19:43
Speaker 2: other things. Then she can reclaim herself. She can be
19:48
Speaker 2: more wholesome. Humpty dumpty, if you will. I also encourage
19:54
Speaker 2: girls to find friends who don't judge them for her
19:57
Speaker 2: interests and so she'll be able to share those instead
20:02
Speaker 2: of hiding them. I remember years ago there was a
20:06
Speaker 2: high school senior and she and her friends got kind
20:11
Speaker 2: of done with the party scene. So what they would
20:13
Speaker 2: do is they would go to her house on Saturday
20:15
Speaker 2: nights and they would play old board games like Candyland,
20:20
Speaker 2: and I think kids of school would have made fun
20:22
Speaker 2: of them, but they didn't care if they were kind
20:24
Speaker 2: of having a blast. They were just trying to be
20:26
Speaker 2: kids again. They were tired of all this serious stuff
20:28
Speaker 2: going on in their senior in high school lives. I
20:32
Speaker 2: was so proud of them. Interests like legos, interests like coloring,
20:40
Speaker 2: loving stuffed animals, cartoons, whatever it may be. It's a
20:44
Speaker 2: story that I read years ago. This is a true
20:46
Speaker 2: story about a guy named Nathan Sowoya, and when he
20:51
Speaker 2: was a kid, he loved building with legos. When he
20:57
Speaker 2: was nine years old, he really wanted a dog, and
20:59
Speaker 2: he kept asking. His parents said no, no, no, and
21:02
Speaker 2: finally he got frustrated. He realized they're not going to
21:05
Speaker 2: get me a dog. So he channeled his disappointment by
21:08
Speaker 2: building a life sized dog with his legos, and he
21:13
Speaker 2: said it was an Aha moan for him because he
21:15
Speaker 2: realized he could build anything he wanted from his imagination
21:19
Speaker 2: instead of just following some prescribed design. From that day forward,
21:24
Speaker 2: if he thought about becoming an astronaut, he would build
21:26
Speaker 2: himself a Lego rocket ship. If he changed into wanting
21:30
Speaker 2: to be a rock starre he built one time a
21:33
Speaker 2: Lego guitar. When he graduated from high school and went
21:37
Speaker 2: off to college and then to law school, he kept
21:40
Speaker 2: a big box of Legos hidden under his bed that
21:43
Speaker 2: he would periodically bring out to play with until his
21:47
Speaker 2: friend saw it and they got jacked up and they
21:48
Speaker 2: all started playing them. He moved on to become a
21:52
Speaker 2: very successful lawyer, a merger and acquisitions attorney, apparently, but
21:57
Speaker 2: he kept creating things with his legos, and he got
22:02
Speaker 2: a commission one time time for one of his Lego
22:05
Speaker 2: sculptures that someone saw when they were in this apartment,
22:08
Speaker 2: and so then he created a website and started doing
22:10
Speaker 2: more and more of those commission works, and he had
22:14
Speaker 2: so many that on his website. One day it crashed
22:18
Speaker 2: from all the excessive traffic because so many people want
22:21
Speaker 2: his lego sculptures. And that's when he decided to make
22:24
Speaker 2: a change. He walked into his mergers and acquisition acquisitions
22:28
Speaker 2: boss's office the next day after the traffic blew up
22:33
Speaker 2: his website, and he told his boss, I'm going to
22:37
Speaker 2: hand in my resignation because I'm going to play with
22:40
Speaker 2: toys full time for the rest of my life. And
22:43
Speaker 2: since then, he has traveled all over the world displaying
22:46
Speaker 2: and selling his Lego pieces. He typically has around one
22:50
Speaker 2: point five million legos in his design studio. He refound
22:55
Speaker 2: his passion. I want that for all all the girls
22:59
Speaker 2: who I work with, who lose parts of themselves because
23:02
Speaker 2: it's not appreciated, it's not affirmed wherever it might be.
23:10
Speaker 2: I also encourage girls who are looking for good friends.
23:14
Speaker 2: I encourage them to show up to school as their
23:17
Speaker 2: authentic self. So if you like wearing bright colored clothes,
23:20
Speaker 2: do that. If you like a certain interest, show that,
23:23
Speaker 2: because if you attract friends when you're being yourself, those
23:28
Speaker 2: are going to be true, real friends, because they like
23:32
Speaker 2: you for you, not some facade of you, not for
23:35
Speaker 2: some change you who's trying to fit in. I also
23:41
Speaker 2: encourage girls, as part of their humpty dumptyut being back
23:44
Speaker 2: together again, to learn to focus on the journey and
23:47
Speaker 2: not the destination. I have so many athletes who get
23:52
Speaker 2: burned out because there's you know, five six days a
23:56
Speaker 2: week of practice, tournaments out of town, so stressful, so
24:00
Speaker 2: much focus on scholarships and college, and not enough on
24:03
Speaker 2: just enjoy what you're doing. You're doing this because you
24:08
Speaker 2: used to at least love swimming. And what happens to
24:12
Speaker 2: those girls a lot times is they get burned out.
24:15
Speaker 2: They'll tell me, I go to practice, but I don't
24:16
Speaker 2: even enjoy it anymore. I'm fried. So I encourage them
24:21
Speaker 2: to do things because of the joy and fulfillment it
24:24
Speaker 2: brings them. Instead of focusing on the future and college applications,
24:28
Speaker 2: whatever it might be, Focus on the journey. Focus on
24:31
Speaker 2: what you love about swimming as opposed to what it
24:34
Speaker 2: might bring you down the road someday. I also encourage
24:39
Speaker 2: girls who are trying to get their humpty dumpty parts
24:41
Speaker 2: back to hang out with peers who who value things
24:45
Speaker 2: that they value. I've seen a lot of girls who
24:48
Speaker 2: who dumb down because it's not cool to be smart,
24:51
Speaker 2: are to be in ap classes in some places it
24:54
Speaker 2: has been some schools is not. But if they start
24:58
Speaker 2: hanging around with hanging out with people who also value school,
25:01
Speaker 2: who like to read, who are into applying themselves, that
25:05
Speaker 2: kind of thing becomes contagious because of their mirror neurons.
25:10
Speaker 2: So being lazy and acting like school as stupid as contagious,
25:14
Speaker 2: and so is applying yourself in school and valuing things
25:18
Speaker 2: like your education. I also like to help girls figure
25:24
Speaker 2: out when they started judging themselves, especially their appearance, and
25:29
Speaker 2: why because of all the fat shaming and the judging
25:32
Speaker 2: themselves looking in the mirror and thinking that they're awful
25:35
Speaker 2: and ugly, in order for them to learn to accept
25:40
Speaker 2: themselves and their looks and their body builds and their
25:43
Speaker 2: body type, a lot of those things, most of those
25:45
Speaker 2: things they have no control over, right surprocessed to learn
25:48
Speaker 2: to accept those things. I had a girl years ago
25:52
Speaker 2: who was struggling with her self concept to her self esteem,
25:57
Speaker 2: and she thought she was ugly and fat. She was
26:01
Speaker 2: was not ugly and fat. What she was was the
26:03
Speaker 2: first girl in her grade, in fifth grade, as a
26:07
Speaker 2: matter of fact, who started going through puberty, and so
26:11
Speaker 2: she started getting breast buds, she started getting curves, and
26:14
Speaker 2: so she started getting teased about that, especially by the boys,
26:18
Speaker 2: but also from girls. And so she started to equate
26:21
Speaker 2: her curves with unfat. And because she got teased by
26:25
Speaker 2: the boys, she thought she was ugly also, so I
26:29
Speaker 2: helped her to reframe that, to reframe that that meant
26:33
Speaker 2: about her. I've seen a lot of athletes who started
26:36
Speaker 2: to think that they're fat. I'll never forget. One day
26:39
Speaker 2: I had a girl who was sitting this is a
26:43
Speaker 2: camp a long time ago, and she on shorts and
26:46
Speaker 2: she said, and she had talked about feeling fat because
26:49
Speaker 2: her thighs were so fat. Now, this girl was a
26:52
Speaker 2: high level swimmer and she was muscular, but she equated
26:56
Speaker 2: that her muscular thighs with being fat and ugly. So
27:01
Speaker 2: I helped her to reclaim that part of herself because
27:05
Speaker 2: those those muscular thighs are helping her in the water,
27:10
Speaker 2: helping her to swim and to be a good swimmer,
27:12
Speaker 2: to be a powerful swimmer, if you will. But also
27:16
Speaker 2: I also like to discuss with girls other places where
27:19
Speaker 2: they've picked up unhealthy decisions about how they look. I e.
27:26
Speaker 2: Things like social media. Looking at any kind of media,
27:31
Speaker 2: I have girls look at those website said before and
27:34
Speaker 2: after photographs of famous, famous women usual your actresses or
27:39
Speaker 2: rock stars, and who are brave enough to say, here's
27:42
Speaker 2: what I look like when I've had six hours of
27:44
Speaker 2: makeup and people below drying my hair and photo shopping,
27:49
Speaker 2: and this is what I look like when I'm like you,
27:51
Speaker 2: just hanging out with no makeup on. They look so
27:54
Speaker 2: much different. They look like regular people. But girls don't
27:58
Speaker 2: know that unless we help them understand that. We need
28:02
Speaker 2: to educate girls a lot better about becoming more image
28:05
Speaker 2: and media savvy. I think I've talked about that in
28:08
Speaker 2: a previous podcast. I'll look back. If not, I'm gonna
28:10
Speaker 2: do one just on that. I also want girls to
28:13
Speaker 2: reclaim their excitement about the future. Do you need to
28:18
Speaker 2: understand that with any new part of your future, any
28:21
Speaker 2: new change, like going from middle school to high school,
28:23
Speaker 2: high school to college, things of that sort, are from
28:26
Speaker 2: college out into the workforce. With some of the women
28:29
Speaker 2: in college who I work with, of course, there's going
28:31
Speaker 2: to be some anxiety. There's going to be a lot
28:34
Speaker 2: of uncertainty. That's normal. That doesn't mean you have a disorder.
28:39
Speaker 2: It just means that that comes with any transition, any
28:42
Speaker 2: life change. So I help them to not over focus
28:47
Speaker 2: on the negative feelings. Instead normalize the feelings and also
28:51
Speaker 2: what's the positive? What are you excited about? As usual,
28:54
Speaker 2: a whole mix of fear and uncertainty with excitement. I
29:00
Speaker 2: had them focused more on that than the uncertainty part.
29:05
Speaker 2: It's important for us as parents and us as adults
29:08
Speaker 2: to help our daughters find spaces where she can let
29:11
Speaker 2: her hair down and feel more free, to be herself,
29:15
Speaker 2: more free, to just be free. I told you about
29:19
Speaker 2: playing carrots on Saturday night in our latest high school weekend.
29:24
Speaker 2: I also did the thought pops my head that about
29:28
Speaker 2: four or five years ago. It was the summer of COVID,
29:32
Speaker 2: So I guess what's twenty twenty? That A lot of
29:36
Speaker 2: camps did not have camp that summer. So we thought
29:40
Speaker 2: long and hard, so we decided to do it. We
29:42
Speaker 2: thought that kids needed a break, and so we we
29:47
Speaker 2: pared down the size of our camp. We spread them
29:49
Speaker 2: out in the in the bunks. We did you know
29:52
Speaker 2: we had We had them show us a within a
29:56
Speaker 2: few days negative test. Their parents weren't even allowed to
30:01
Speaker 2: get out of their cars because we wanted to create
30:03
Speaker 2: a bubble, just like people said it's okay to be
30:08
Speaker 2: in your home, to create a bubble in your home
30:09
Speaker 2: all that. So we created what we thought was a
30:11
Speaker 2: safe bubble and ended up being saved. Nobody got sick
30:14
Speaker 2: that summer, thank goodness. But what I wanted to say
30:17
Speaker 2: about that was because they had been so cooped up,
30:20
Speaker 2: not in school for months, not seeing their friends, and
30:25
Speaker 2: not going out. Once their parents dropped them off and
30:28
Speaker 2: we started camp, oh my god, they just went crazy.
30:31
Speaker 2: They were so happy. I'll never forget just them running
30:36
Speaker 2: around like little kids because they just needed to be
30:39
Speaker 2: able to bust out and be free and to be themselves.
30:43
Speaker 2: I think our camps are good at that anyway, but
30:46
Speaker 2: COVID added another huge layer. So they need spaces where
30:50
Speaker 2: they can do that, where the reason to be together
30:52
Speaker 2: is not looking good or being pretty, or being popular,
30:55
Speaker 2: or being smart or being the best. The reason to
30:58
Speaker 2: get together is just to have fun. So define spaces
31:03
Speaker 2: to create opportunities for them to do that is so important.
31:08
Speaker 2: It's a process for girls to become aware of what
31:12
Speaker 2: parts of themselves that they have lost, hidden put away
31:16
Speaker 2: because of all the reasons we've talked about. So what
31:20
Speaker 2: we did last weekend was we had each girl pick
31:25
Speaker 2: one or two of those parts that they really want
31:28
Speaker 2: to reclaim, that they wanted back, they were tired of
31:30
Speaker 2: hiding that part of themselves, and then they created a
31:34
Speaker 2: plan about how they were going to do that, how
31:35
Speaker 2: they were going to bring that back into their lives.
31:39
Speaker 2: And we told them, once you do that, notice how
31:42
Speaker 2: different you feel when you're more true to yourself when
31:45
Speaker 2: you have reclaimed those parts. Because that good feeling, that
31:50
Speaker 2: feeling of freedom, that that feeling of being authentic, that
31:55
Speaker 2: will motivate them to keep going and reclaim more parts.
32:01
Speaker 2: So I think it'd be good for your daughters to
32:04
Speaker 2: become aware of parts of themselves that they have hidden
32:08
Speaker 2: put away. They start to not show because of all
32:13
Speaker 2: the reasons I explained about fear of judgment and ridicule,
32:17
Speaker 2: trying to protect themselves, trying to fit in, become aware
32:21
Speaker 2: of the cost of them when they do that, and
32:24
Speaker 2: then to help them encourage them to reclaim those parts,
32:28
Speaker 2: maybe just one at a time, and to notice the
32:31
Speaker 2: difference in them how they feel about themselves, their place,
32:37
Speaker 2: and to focus on that feeling I feel like of
32:40
Speaker 2: being who they really are, of being authentic and being
32:43
Speaker 2: in the moment. Hope this helps. This might be an
32:48
Speaker 2: interesting podcast to listen to with your daughter. If you
32:52
Speaker 2: have comments, questions, send emails to me at d R
32:59
Speaker 2: Tim at deal Tim Jordan dot com. Also look at
33:04
Speaker 2: our website at www dot dr Tim Jordan dot com
33:09
Speaker 2: and you'll see all kinds of information about all the
33:12
Speaker 2: things I do, my seven books I've written, all there's
33:15
Speaker 2: a whole list of the three hundred and fifty something
33:17
Speaker 2: podcasts dot done, so there's lots of information on there
33:21
Speaker 2: for you and resources. Also, the weeks for our weekend
33:23
Speaker 2: retreats are summer camps, all those things, so check it out.
33:27
Speaker 2: They're good resources, they're good things I think for your daughters.
33:30
Speaker 2: I appreciate you coming by here every week and listening in,
33:33
Speaker 2: and I also appreciate when you passes on to your friends.
33:37
Speaker 2: I'll be back next week with a brand new topic
33:39
Speaker 2: and brand new podcast. Thank you so much as always
33:42
Speaker 2: for stopping by.
33:51
Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Raising Daughters.
33:54
Speaker 1: Hopefully you've learned something useful about girls and young women
33:58
Speaker 1: and how to help them navigate the pressures, challenges, and
34:00
Speaker 1: opportunities of modern life. If you want to become a
34:03
Speaker 1: more effective parent, keep listening to the show at doctor
34:06
Speaker 1: tim Jordan dot com and let the conversations shape you.
34:10
Speaker 1: Build that one of a kind connection with your daughters
34:13
Speaker 1: in the most profound and meaningful ways possible, shaping them
34:16
Speaker 1: into strong, confident women of the future. That's all for now.
34:20
Speaker 1: See you next week for another episode of Raising Daughters.