How to raise a strong daughter

[AsMuchUseAsAMarzipanDildo]

Long time lurker on this board and reading the thread on pathological altruism got me thinking about DD.

Daughter is nearly 2 and I tend to follow an Alfie Kohn “unconditional parenting” approach. I realise it sounds ridiculous learning how to parent from a book, but abusive parents, no role models etc.

Anyway, a lot of it is about teaching empathy. So instead of barking “share” at her when her and other children fight over toys, I’ll say “Can you see that Amy’s crying? I think she was enjoying that truck. What could we do to make her happy?” and DD is so kind that she’ll go and give the truck to Amy.

But I also worry that it’s teaching her to be a pushover and notice that it’s always her sharing, never other kids. I’ve also noticed that boys seem to definitely get a lot more acceptance and less discipline from their parents when they snatch her toy or barge her off the slide.

How do I teach her to be kind but not submissive?

I’ve got a few books suggested on the Mighty Girl website. Obviously her comprehension isn’t at the stage to fully engage with them but we’ll chat about female explorers and scientists. She has what I think is a fairly ungendered selection of toys and recently we’ve been watching programmes like “Catie’s Amazing Machines” together.

Has anyone here had any experience with this? Also suggestions for clubs, activities etc for her when she’s older? I'd love to take her to feminist talks etc when she’s older.

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!

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 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.

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 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.

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 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

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

And stay clear from Disney cartoons !!! Toxic lol

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

What @ElfinStardust said, I am personally not sure about the "what can we do to make X happy" approach.

""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."

I think that's brilliant. It doesn't only teach her to feel good about herself, it also teaches her that no one way is best.

As @drspouse says, absolutely nothing wrong with telling a child she is beautiful, amongst other qualities. I say he is beautiful, flowers are beautiful, that made me smile so it is beautiful. Things can be beautiful without being just looks, it can be a sunrise or after they do something kind.
I do, however, don't say to a child I just met that, I use beautiful as something you realise after a while, and not the first impression of something or someone

I tend to encourage turn taking with DD (18 months). Rather than having to hand over whatever she has, the other child waits their turn. And vice versa, if another child has something she wants, she has to wait her turn.

I also always tell her how proud I am of her for how hard she tries at everything. Thinking about it I actually never tell her she is beautiful (although she is!), I tend to just tell her how much I love being her mum.

Not sure if she understands any of the above though!

Gosh dump the book. At age 2 they aren't nor should they be thinking about other kids feelings in a way that makes them responsible for ensuring the other child happiness negating their own.
At this age they are supposed to be selfish and self envolved they are simply too young.
They can't control their bowels let alone feelings.
If you want to raise a strong person parent with humour, integrity and give them time lots of time.
Strong people have good self esteem and believe.
If you make them a priority they value themselves, if you give them your time they feel valued. If you talk to them, share your experiences and above all love them unconditionally they grow very strong.
Girls and boys need exactly the same things to thrive in life.

I leave them to it. They learn for themselves. Dd was 1 and a little boy and his Mum (a good friend) came over to visit. The little boy was 2, and he kept trying to hug my dd. DD slapped him and said NO. I didn't intervene. Neither did my friend. She was handling it perfectly herself at the ripe old age of 1.
Parents intervene too much. They find their own balance when left to it.

Also agree with JagBlue. Praise, praise, praise and then praise some more. Once they have self confidence, they can figure out their own shit.

Make sure that she spends time in the company of women, away from men. When I look back on my childhood now, I'm sure that all the time I spent with my mum, my nan and my aunties and (female) older cousins gave me a solid grounding in not worrying too much about being outspoken or what da menz thought and all the rest of it. Female-only time, I think, is the most precious gift any mother could give her daughter.

I don't tell my son he is beautiful or handsome and I don't understand why most Mum's of girls do.
I do tell him how much I love him and how much I enjoy his company.
Beauty is subjective and I don't want my son to value looks over personality. He is 13 now and good looking but by next week he can be a giant walking pimple who knows.