Girls and risk-taking

And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight in the bud was greater than the risk it took to blossom…’ Anais Nin

Girls are not natural risk-takers. Often they worry far too much about ‘getting it wrong’ and they play safe. Responsible parents and good schools encourage girls to take risks within a safe and structured environment and to see that no one will think any the less of them if they make a mistake.

The message needs to be ‘come on in – the water is warm.’

We all recognise that healthy self-esteem is the key to confidence and success and want our children to feel good about themselves. The key to healthy self esteem is that you should feel both capable and loveable.

Girls tend to undersell themselves and be overly self-critical. Boys, conversely, can have a tendency to overestimate their abilities. Girls who are bright, talented and attractive can still have a negative self image. A perfectionist tendency can cause girls to judge themselves harshly and to see anything less than perfection as unacceptable.

You can encourage your daughter to recognise this tendency and to resist the urge constantly to aim for perfection and to beat herself up if she doesn’t attain it. Encourage her to be brave, resilient and realistic.

You can foster healthy self-esteem in your daughter, but praise and reassurance alone won’t achieve this. In particular, empty praise will achieve nothing except cynicism and distrust. In order to boost her self-esteem you need to help her to see her strengths and positive qualities, which may be social and emotional rather than narrowly academic..

Having identified her strengths (and she needs to be the one to make this identification, rather than you doing it for her) you can encourage her to develop her talents, to set challenges for herself, to take risks. When she meets a challenge which is realistic but demanding she will feel better about herself and her self-esteem will increase.. Show faith in her, stand by her, and listen to her.

Help her to face and deal with disappointment and share in her joy when she achieves something she didn’t think she could.

If we don’t risk failure we never achieve success.

Failure lies not in falling down but in not getting up

Encourage your daughter to take a risk – and watch her blossom.