Ep 186: Empowering Our Daughters

Jo Wimble Groves, author of Rise of the Girl, shines light on how
we can encourage teen girls to chase their dreams. Plus, she
shares how to help all teens to find their passions, take risks
and learn from failure—no matter their gender.


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Full show notes


Our hope is that kids will shoot for the stars, dream big, and
believe they can do anything they put their mind to. We encourage
them to be ambitious, hardworking, and self assured. But
sometimes, even when we act as their biggest cheerleaders,
teenagers–especially teenage girls–can struggle with confidence!
Kids are up against a lot these days, and young women face extra
barriers despite years of fighting for equality. 





In many ways, these barriers are subtle, small forces within our
culture. They aren’t written into our laws or taught in school
curriculum, but they’re working against the ability of our teen
girls to grow into the powerful individuals they were destined to
be. It’s in the way adults tell young girls to be quiet and
polite while letting boys run wild, or how we might comment a
little more on the way our daughters look than our sons. But it
doesn't have to be that way! If we can learn to inspire our girls
instead of inhibiting them, we can encourage all our teens to
follow their dreams.





This week, we’re joined by Jo Wimble Groves, author of Rise of
the Girl: Seven Empowering Conversations To Have With Your
Daughter. On top of being a mom of three, Jo is also a successful
tech entrepreneur as the co-owner of the global mobile
communications company Active Digital. As she climbed the ladder
to success, Jo felt that she didn’t always have the right role
models or encouragement. Now, her goal is for today’s teens to
feel like they can do anything they aspire to do, no matter their
gender.





In our interview, Jo and I are discussing why we still have to
fight for our daughters to have an equal chance at success! We’re
also talking about how you can help any teenager find their
passion, and how we can encourage teens to be comfortable with
failure while on the road to figuring out their life’s purpose.


Why Our Girls Need a Confidence Boost


Teen girls today aren’t always encouraged to be the confident,
outspoken people we know they can be–and it shows. In the
episode, Jo and I talk about how boys are willing to raise their
hand in class, even when they’re only sixty percent sure they
know what they’re talking about. Meanwhile, on average, girls
won’t raise their hands at all unless they are 100% they have the
answer–and even then they’re reluctant! Girls often feel an
overwhelming pressure to be perfect, or have a fear of judgment
so powerful that they stay quiet, says Jo.





Jo explains that this might be due to our tendency to encourage
young women to be “good girls”. While we often tell boys to run
free and play, we’re more cautious with letting our daughters do
the same thing. We might view them as more fragile or naive,
praise them for being quiet and unobtrusive. And while it’s
important to protect and praise our kids, Jo believes that the
way we speak to our daughters might be doing more harm than good.





As kids grow older, this double standard often doesn’t change.
Girls are told to be careful what they post online, how they
dress, and how or express themselves, because we fear they’ll
send the wrong message to predatory men or boys. But we often
don’t have conversations with young men about how to be
respectful towards women, says Jo. If we want to work towards a
more equal and just society, we have to have conversations with
young men too. In the episode, Jo and I talk about how we can
have these kinds of talks with our sons.





Whether we’re talking to our sons or our daughters, we hope to
guide them to not only impart values, but also help them find
their passion. 





Helping Teens Find their Spark


Jo is an incredibly successful business woman, but before
entering the professional world, she often struggled in school.
For a long time, Jo felt that perhaps she lacked intelligence…but
eventually discovered that her brilliance lay outside of
academics! Every teen has something they’re naturally talented
at, but it might not always be obvious right away. That’s why Jo
encourages parents to sign their kids up for anything and
everything. 





In our interview, Jo and I talk about how the teenage years are a
time to explore and experiment! The stakes are pretty low, and if
a teen doesn’t like something, they can easily try something else
instead! If teens are lucky, all this experimenting will lead
them to find what Jo describes as a “spark”: something that they
love, that excites them endlessly and propels them into making
the world a better place. Jo stresses that if we don’t encourage
our teens, especially our daughters, to take risks, they may
never find this spark!





When kids are in the process of discovering what they’re meant to
do, they tend to quit a lot of things. It can be frustrating when
they commit to the swim team for the whole year and even drag you
to the store to buy a new racing swimsuit…but then suddenly don’t
want to go to practices.  However, if teens are forced to
keep doing something they don’t love, it might be holding them
back from discovering what they do love. As Jo says in the
episode, putting this kind of pressure makes teens “dreadfully
unhappy”, and can put some serious strain on your relationship.





For teens and parents still figuring it all out, there’s bound to
be some failure along the way. However, Jo and I talk about how
failure is one of the best ways to get to success!





How Failure Leads to Progress


In our interview, Jo shares an interesting idea about how we can
address failure in a productive way. When kids are trying over
and over again to get something right, they might get frustrated.
But Jo suggests we frame their fumbled attempts not as one-off
failures, but as steps in the right direction! Instead of telling
them they’ve gotten it wrong, Jo says, we should suggest that
they just haven't gotten it right yet. This helps them see why
they shouldn’t give up after being met with obstacles, but
instead persevere until they get the result they desire!





Jo explains that this can be shown through example, with parents
being vulnerable enough to show kids that they too, make
mistakes. It’s not always easy, especially when we're trying to
be the perfect parent–but the perfect parent doesn’t exist, says
Jo. Showing kids that we can bounce back when we get knocked down
can be a totally critical part of teaching them the skills to
survive life. Plus, putting up a flawless facade isn’t going to
make you a better parent, says Jo…..it’ll just make you more
stressed out!





For young women, this kind of encouragement can be especially
important. Women are constantly faced with the challenge of
smashing stereotypes in male-dominated subjects and
activities–meaning they’re expected never to mess up! If we can
help them see the value in failing as a part of the road to
success, they might feel more comfortable trying new things,
messing up and im...