Mums Unstuck

I remember sitting in one of my daughter’s parents’ evenings and her teacher saying to me, “She just needs to have more confidence.” It was something she told my daughter in front of me every year and I remember thinking, you really don't get it. That statement "just have more confidence" is a complete and total cop-out! How does a teenage girl simply “have more confidence” because you tell her to? It’s one of those statements I’ve come to really dislike and actually, really irks me because confidence isn’t something we can tell a teenager to have and expect her to wake up the next morning suddenly feeling differently about herself. If only it were that simple! When a teenage girl appears to lack confidence, we have to look beyond what we can see. If you're seeing the girl who doesn’t put her hand up in class, even when she knows the answer. Or the girl who has something to say but waits for someone else to speak first. Or the girl who constantly compares herself to her friends or picks herself apart whenever she looks in the mirror. You have to look deeper. Because what you're not doing is looking at what’s happening inside her and STOPPING confidence forming. Confidence doesn’t begin with telling her to just "be more confident" and “just believe in yourself” What does that even mean anyway???? I'll tell you where it begins, it begins with helping her understand what is going on inside her. It begins with teaching her to notice the critical thoughts (AKA waswas) that's making her question her own worth and be able to positively challenge them It begins with teaching her to notice her BIG feelings and crucially what to do with them It begins with teaching her how she can find safety to communicate with someone she trusts what help and support she needs. If you're a muma who can see the value in these skills and want to help equip your teenage daughter with them, enrolment is open on the summer program I'm running next month insha'Allah The goal behind this LIVE group-supported program is NOT to show girls how to never feel stressed, worried, upset or overwhelmed about stuff happening... That's impossible! The goal is to show girls how to understand what is happening inside her from her thoughts to her feelings and have the tools to handle it well If we want confident teenage girls, we can’t simply keep telling them to be confident. We have to actually give them the tools to build that confidence from the inside. We have just 11 spaces left! https://mumsunstuck.com/teens-page