How to raise a strong daughter

Can you see that Amy’s crying? I think she was enjoying that truck. What could we do to make her happy?”

That's ever so wordy for nearly 2, but aside from that, maybe just something like "let's give Amy back the truck now, you've had a turn". So fairness rather than making other people happy.

I would absolutely not keep telling a child she is beautiful.
My DD doesn't have blonde hair, white skin, and blue eyes so I must, must, must keep telling her she is beautiful. This doesn't prevent me from telling her she's strong, fearless, and clever too.

And in terms of body, we say things like, "X is really good at gymnastics because they're short and bendy, whereas you're really good at swimming because you're tall and strong", we talk about what the body can do, rather than what it looks like.

Yes, I see what you mean, but she also knows that we value all the other stuff more.

Definitely sports and music. Art, volunteering, debating.
These things were influential in developing friendships and have probably been a big factor in the total lack of interest in clubbing, drinking and similar stuff.

Yes - ultimately IMO it doesn't matter WHAT hobbies, but they should have things outside school and ideally something that helps them build a non-school peer group. And something where they start off rubbish and learn to be good through practice. Give them lots of opportunities to try different things and see what sticks.

I would absolutely not keep telling a child she is beautiful. She will grow up thinking that is what you value in her.
I read about some research once that said the girls who grew up with the best body image weren't the ones who had been told they were beautiful, they were the ones for whom physical appearance had hardly been mentioned.
That chimes with my own experience - my mother seldom mentioned appearance and I am pretty body-confident.

Definitely sports and music. Art, volunteering, debating.
These things were influential in developing friendships and have probably been a big factor in the total lack of interest in clubbing, drinking and similar stuff.

I think the best possible way of teaching a child is the role model approach.

I believe that am a strong woman, and my brother is also a feminist (and openly describes himself as such). I think this is because my parents modelled a relationship in which my mother was not a subservient little woman. Both my parents worked full time, my Dad was equally involved in childcare (although my Mum did more of the housework and cooking, but hey this was the 1970s and she did work shorter hours than Dad) and the important family decisions were made by both of them.

We tell DD she is beautiful all the time, and compliment her on her tall, strong (not big!) physique, but try not to say things like, "You look really pretty in that dress". Telling her she looks intelligent and capable in that dress is of course acceptable.

YY to not making a big deal about being cute.

Also read to her bedtime stories about high achieving female role models.

And stay clear from Disney cartoons !!! Toxic lol

I don’t have a Dd but marking my spot.

I would say just be a role model at this stage. Be kind to her father but not a doormat.

Don’t let her rely on her cuteness to build relations and encourage those around her to encourage things about her that aren’t the superficial.

I mean i do spend a lot of times telling my DS how cute he is and perhaps I should stop hehe.

But perhaps the balance is to try build her confidence in things other than looks much more.

Let her build good relationships with your female friends who have a lot of ambition and self respect. A sense of autonomy.

I would steer away from any gender talks or taking her to marches, I think she is too young to expose her to the unfairness in this world it will only make her feel inferior. I don’t know

I don't know-and we're fighting a battle against societal expectations all the time anyway. Have you read Jean Liedloff's The Continuum Concept? I found that a lot of what she says makes a huge amount of sense to me-not just for girls.

I would steer clear of "What could we do to make her happy?" as it's teaching her to be a people pleaser.

DD is 8 now, so it's a while ago since the toy stealing stage, but I remember reading on MN that kids of that age don't understand sharing but do understand turn taking, so we always talked about that instead.

On the subject of raising a strong daughter, we've always talked about how important it is to try hard at things, and that some things that are worthwhile doing may be difficult to achieve. We've always put 'strong' up there with clever, kind, brave and fair as aspirational attributes.

All these things of course are equally appealing traits in boys.

No traditional Disney in our house either, none of that hanging about waiting to be rescued nonsense!

Activity-wise, DD does swimming, music lessons and gymnastics, and does one off things like Coder Dojo and kids film workshops.

Can you see that Amy’s crying? I think she was enjoying that truck. What could we do to make her happy

I'm going to have to give this some thought but it strikes me that your approach could be teaching your DD that she is responsible for other people's happiness. I don't know if that's the message I want to give to my daughter.

I think a lot of it is about building confidence and self belief.
Also, accepting that they will go through some difficult times and being supportive, acknowledging sadness, allowing them to cry and loads of love and trust.
My dd is amazing. I am in awe of her. I had a difficult childhood and experienced emotionally neglectful/ abusive parenting. I tried very hard to do everything differently.
But we can only do our best.

Interesting.
I don't know.
But do take her to feminist things. I have brought dd to feminist marches as soon as she could shout (though I did lie to her at Million Women Rise the first time and say we were shouting '2,4,6,8, No more violence, no more hate' when it was actually 'no more rape'.)
A lot of MNers tend to go to that with kids, and kids love it because it's not often you're positively encouraged to make as much noise as possible, and since the march is about violence against women and girls, it seems highly appropriate that girls should be there.
She also comes along to my feminist group when I go, and takes a book to read so she can join in as and when the topic under discussion is relevant.
I do believe that a lot of parenting is about what you model rather than what you tell them. So if she sees you sticking up for yourself or other women she will learn that it's ok to do so.
The message I try to convey to my children is that 'we look after each other', which doesn't mean anyone has to be a pushover, it has to go all ways within the family.

I’ve got a DS who’s almost 2 and I think unfortunately some parents are just not very interested in teaching their children to be kind or to share. I’ve not noticed it particularly being parents of boys who are more lenient though, perhaps I’m not looking hard enough!

One thing I do with DS is that if a child snatches something off him that he’s just picked up I will go over and ask the other child to give it back and they can have a turn next. I think it’s important to be fair and make sure you’re child knows you will stand up for them when it’s fair to do that. If DS snatches, I get him to give it back, again explaining about taking turns. I think children tend to have a very highly developed sense of what is and isn’t fair, so I think you could explore that with your DD and teach her about fairness and taking turns rather than always having to empathise. I sometimes think with empathy you are teaching her that she is responsible for someone else’s feelings. I’m no expert though!