Life is a game of inches: introduce lifetime sports to raise confident daughters
Posted on: Tuesday, February 14th, 2006Comments: 0
Motivational Children’s Books for Girls: A Girl Named Pants
I cannot emphasize enough how important confidence is to girls…especially during their formative years. And every little bit helps. Life is a game of inches. A jolt of confidence during a critical moment in a child’s life can mean the difference between "just saying no" and a teen pregnancy. It can begin a trend of success and avoid one of failure. And none of us know when those critical moments will occur. The only thing we can predict with some level of certainty is that the critical moments will occur when we’re not around. They will occur when they’re with friends or strangers. Their self confidence could be their only shield against mistakes they can’t take back.
If I’m right, then helping to grow confidence in our girls is extremely important. One idea is to build skills in life sports. The kind of sports that every kid plays. The kind of sports that all children are subconsciously judged on. The kind of sports which can build or destroy confidence. Sports like swimming, skiing, throwing a ball, kicking a ball, hitting a ball, and running. Whether it’s gym class, intramurals, going to the beach, pool parties, ski club, or whatever. Childhood is in many ways a jungle. Physicality is very important to self esteem. My nephew came home crying one day because he was the slowest runner in his class.
In my experience, skills in all of these life-sports can be grown with practice. I spent a full afternoon with my daughters throwing a nerf football. At the beginning of the day, none of them could catch. By the end of the day, they could all throw and catch. They were excited. They wanted to show off to their friends. Above all, they gained a little confidence. Same for skiing. Same for swimming. It takes a bit of time and patience, but an investment of a little of each goes a long way.
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