All the expressions of love and praise in the world won’t build self-esteem in a girl like supporting her to overcome her fears and struggles, says American psychologist JoAnn Deak.
“Your love and words alone won’t change self-esteem but will help them hang in there while they build it alone,” Deak said.
The answer to the million-dollar question on how to improve girls’ self-esteem is to help them develop their sense of confidence, competence and connectedness in close to equal measure, according to Deak.
In trying to build grit and resilience in girls, the “razor’s edge of parenting” is figuring out “how much is enough and how much is too much” when encouraging children to push through meaningful fears and struggles.
Raising Confident And Courageous Daughters was the subject of a recent free public education forum given by Deak at St. Margaret’s School in Saanich.
About 200 parents sat rapt for about two hours in the school’s gymnasium, taking in information on the latest brain research and how to apply it.
“The research is very clear that self-esteem is one of the most important predictors of a girl’s happiness and success in life,” Deak said.
Deak, 67, is an American educator and psychologist focused on helping children develop into confident and competent adults.
She has written four books, contributed to and co-written others, and has more on the way.
“I’ve spent 45 years studying human beings, the brain and doing this work across the world,” Deak said.
The latter half of Deak’s career has focused on helping adults, parents and teachers in becoming “brain sculptors” in guiding children.
Words of praise won’t build self-esteem like the “after-feeling” of accomplishment derived from conquering a fear, learning through trial and error and becoming competent at a difficult skill, she said.
Conversely, however, if a parent shows “contempt” toward a child or adolescent in the form of a put-down or saying (What is wrong with you? or I am ashamed of you) “it is more corrosive to their emotional well being than any emotion we know.”
That goes doubly for fathers, whose words can have more effect on a daughter than a mother’s words, Deak said.
The trick in encouraging children to challenge themselves is to explain to them that their brains are like plastic and elastic muscles, and that they have the first 18 to 20 years of their life to stretch the parts that aren’t as strong as other parts, Deak said.
“You don’t get to choose whether you’re [born] shy or outgoing or good at spelling,” but you can choose to strengthen your core characteristics and abilities, Deak said.
The noted psychologist tells kids to “hug the monster.”
If your daughter is afraid of swimming, encourage her to learn to swim. If she is afraid of raising her hand in class, enrol her in a dramatic arts or a speaking group. If she doesn’t like math but excels in spelling, encourage her to push on in math.
“Whether you have a boy or a girl, coddling them, spoonfeeding them, overprotecting them, is one of the worst things you can do because you make a person weaker, not stronger,” Deak said. “Pushing them too hard on the other hand “can lead to burnout, overload or too much stress.”
Self-esteem is built from confidence, competence and connectedness (how children value themselves because of the sympathy and empathy they show and how they contribute to society), Deak said.
Those parts must be close to equal in measure. “If it’s lopsided it’s a problem.” Having connectedness “is the icing on the self-esteem cake.”
However, most girls have a natural predisposition toward being more connected (showing empathy, for instance) and are less confident.
Deak said in the first 10 years, there is dramatic brain development potential. Learning an instrument early on, for example, will help with complex thinking later in life.
There’s also great growth potential between ages 10 to 20, but for “most girls” it is between the ages of 10 and 18 that researchers also see a drop in self-esteem, said Deak.
During adolescence, because of society and neurobiology and hormones (oxytocin for girls and testosterone for boys) and other factors, girls become more hesitant to take risks or make mistakes, and more prone to worry and become concerned about what others think of them, Deak said.
She quoted Eleanor Roosevelt: “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
Moreover, if during the first 20 years of life you avoid and quit the meaningful things that are hard, your brain after time will think that area of development is not important and will “fossilize,” Deak said. “It has lifetime implications.”
“What happens in these first 20 years of life affects your children forever,” Deak said.
“Having said that, the research shows parents can make big bad mistakes frequently and not have devastating effects on their children if their children believe their parents love them down to their toes.”
On the web: deakgroup.com
