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Speaker 2Hello and welcome to the How Not to Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So, voice up a cuppa, find a comfy seat, and enjoy the conversation. This episode, Raising Resilient Women, I am joined by founder of Girls' Rights, Kim McCabe. As we discuss the unique challenges our girls face growing up and how we can best support them to become the resilient women we know they can be. Kim McCabe is the founder and director of Rights for Girls, author of From Daughter to Woman and Mother of Three. Kim studied child psychology at Cambridge University, was a counsellor to young people, and taught sex education, in schools and youth groups. In her early 20s, she worked as a counsellor to distressed teenagers. Girls were harming themselves physically and mentally, and Kim promised herself that she'd find a way to equip girls so they wouldn't end up endangering their well-being. After 35 years of working with young people, Kim found a way to give girls the robust support they need to see them through their teenage years. She was also the founder and director of the Girls' Rights Foundation, which is a non-profit organisation that supports girls in their teens' rights for girls. So, if you enjoy this podcast episode, I would be eternally grateful if you could rate, review and follow this podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love. So until next time, here's Kim. Hello and welcome. Well, today I am joined by Kim McCabe. Now, I'm just going to tell you a bit of a story. I have been desperate to get Kim on this podcast, probably for over two years. I've been desperate to get her on this podcast, so I am genuinely, supremely excited to have her here and you are in for an absolute treat. Welcome, Kim. Thank you.
Speaker 3It's my real pleasure to be here.
Speaker 2Thank you very much. I think what's probably a good thing to start with, Kim, is to tell everyone just a little bit about what it is you do and how you ended up there. I'm going to try and keep this short
Speaker 3because this is my passion project. I could talk for hours. But basically what we do is we train women to run girls' groups. And those girls' groups are either in person or online. How I got here, oh my goodness, you know, how far back do I go? So I didn't have an easy time as a teenager myself. And I do remember that when I gave birth to our third child, who was a girl after two boys, I remember looking down at her and kind of suddenly thinking, I have to change the world. I have to change the world so that this girl growing up and all the other girls growing up right now have an easier time. A time of it, better supported, kinder, and just happier, a happy time of it. So that's when the seed was first planted. But of course, I was then raising three children, home educating them actually for some of that time and not really thinking about how I might go about doing that. I did train. I studied at Cambridge University, child psychology and women's studies and criminology. And then I trained to be a counsellor for distressed teenagers. And I remember then too, barely a young adult, myself, kind of thinking, how do we allow our young people to become so distressed and unsupported? And I knew that what I was doing in counselling once a week was making a difference. But by the time that the boys and the girls that I was working with had arrived at the service, they were self-harming. They were doing things they didn't really want to do. They were really struggling. And it was taking a lot to turn that around. And so I began to think about how could we work preventatively? What could we do? What could we do for particularly girls? Because I'm a woman and I was a girl. What could we do for them to work preventatively so that we go against the statistic, the scary statistic in the West of one in three 14-year-old girls self-harming? One in four mid-teen girls being clinically depressed. That's not a little bit down. That's clinically depressed. That's hundreds of thousands of girls. And what do we do and who should do it? Well, if not me, then who?
Speaker 2My God, that is just. So it really is a major passion project. And we see it borne out in so many of the statistics, which are just scary to see the number, the large proportion of girls that are having these issues. Why do you think that the numbers are so heavily weighted in terms of the issues around self-harm and the issues around depression amongst a whole host with girls more so than boys?
Speaker 3It's a great question. And it's one that I think is really important. It's one that I ask myself a lot. I think the big difference between girls and boys is that around the mental health issue is that they come into puberty a couple of years before boys do. And so they are having to deal with the massive transition and the changes and the challenges of puberty, whether that be the physical changes and all the pressures that girls feel for how they should look and seem and behave, coupled with the fact that their brains start to change. So they. They become less able to assess risk, to think clearly, to manage themselves at a younger age than it happens to boys. So they have fewer tools. They have less life experience. And so then couple that with the fact that this often coincides with the transition from primary to secondary school. So at the time that they're really managing all those changes of puberty, they're also needing to move from little school to big school. And often what coincides with that also is that they. They are allowed a smartphone. So we've got a kind of collision of things that make. That just increase the pressures for girls at that time. Now boys, I think, because they enter puberty a couple of years later, they encounter some of those difficulties a little bit later on in their teens. So it's not that we aren't seeing increase in depression and self-harm type behaviour in boys and girls. And I would say I'm seeing over the 30 years or more that I've been working with young people, I'm seeing an increase in pressure on. both boys and girls, whether that be an increase in academic pressure, social pressures, which has got a lot to do with social media, the financial pressures because of what we're going through. And, you know, also parents are around less. That links in with the social. the financial pressures. So there is less support around for our young people, boys and girls. The difficulty for girls is that they have this additional kind of collision of things that happens around the age of sort of 10 and 11 when they go into puberty. They're moving around. They're leaving school and they're first introduced to social media in a big way.
Speaker 2And of course, we know that that, you know, we're not going to necessarily go in depth around social media, but we know that social media is a place where society portrays women in not always the best way and young vulnerable children. And we're not just talking about vulnerable in terms of mental health, but they're vulnerable because they're these formative years that they're creating this mental model and blueprint about what it means to be a woman. Can then create this sort of catastrophic impact of how they view themselves and how they should be.
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely. And social media isn't all bad. We actually need to learn work with it, with our children. But it was interesting. We had a woman on our training course a couple of years ago who was a GP and we were talking about this and she said all GPs have a list of those people who are at risk of mental distress and mental illness. And on that list is teenage girl. Just being a teenage girl makes them vulnerable and puts them at risk the way the world is as it is now.
Speaker 2Goodness me, isn't that scary to know that as you birth these beautiful, gorgeous baby girls that this is what's, that they're then going to be on a risk factor. Do we know generally, statistically, what the increased probability or likelihood is when we are raising a girl that they are going to struggle either with a mental health issue or just general self, their self-esteem and their confidence compared to boys?
Speaker 3It is higher with girls. I would say, tragically, suicide rates are higher with boys than with girls. But the self-harm and the different, and it's not just the cutting type of self-harm, but it's the, it's the eating, disordered eating. It's the having sex they don't want to have or doing things they don't want to be doing. Drinking, drugs. There's lots of ways in which young people are not coping. And the coping mechanisms that they use, which we call self-harm, are actually their best attempts at managing in a world that isn't really set up to support our young people. It's not really very well set up to support them as they're transitioning from being a young child into being a young adult. And there's that patch in the middle where so much change is going on, physically, emotionally, mentally, where we could do a lot more to support them.
Speaker 2And that's a really, really important thing. really interesting comment you've made around this cope the coping mechanisms and self-harm. Would you mind just unpicking that a little bit? Because I would imagine that most people listening to this, when they think of self-harm, will be thinking very specifically either about cutting, and obviously often the assumption is it's on their arms, but we know it now happens on legs and other areas, but actually that there are other things that they can be doing, which is also self-harm.
Speaker 3Absolutely. And the thing we need to remember beneath this is what we look as being problematic behaviour or self-harming behaviour is actually that young person's best way of coping through a time of real challenge and distress. Because where it stems from is an overwhelm of feelings. It's when the world, the pressures that they're feeling, it could be around specific things that are also happening. There's a lot of abuse, bullying. We've talked already a little bit about social media, the pressures of that, when that all gets too much, it's a way of actually coping, either numbing out, which is where the drugs and the alcohol come in, and sometimes the sex, or as a way of being in control of the pain. So creating a source of pain that actually distracts them from the internal emotional pain. So when I see that behaviour, I always actually really respect and admire that young person for having found a way of just surviving. And once they have better tools and better support in place to help them manage their overwhelming feelings, then the need for the coping mechanism, whatever it is that they've chosen, does drop away. It is habit forming though, so they might need a little help out of that behaviour. But we have to remember that the teenage brain is under reconstruction. So whilst they're going through puberty, their prefrontal cortex is changing, and it means that they feel things more than we do. So it's a very important thing to remember. And I think it's important to remember that they feel things more than we do, and feel things more than they used to. But it comes at a time when they don't necessarily have as many tools as we do as adults to know how to manage that overwhelm of feelings. So any of us who've got a teen will recognise that not having the right thing to wear to the party feels like you can't go to the party, or a breakup in a friendship group can feel like the end of the world. And as adults, we can look at it and just think it might seem ridiculous or trivialise it. But actually, experience is that it is that big and that significant and that serious.
Speaker 2And that's such an important thing for us to remember as parents, that actually sometimes we, and it doesn't come from a place of unkindness, but we tend to minimise or try and sort of, why are you worrying? It's really not important. Why don't you just wear this? Or why is it such a big deal? For the teen, it's often the case of them feeling that we don't understand, we don't get that, we don't get it. And that can actually, in your experience, Kim, can that end up creating a bit of a wedge? And so our teens are less likely to go back to us about the challenges that they're going through, and then creates more of this vulnerability for them to feel that they have to cope with things on their own.
Speaker 3Yes, absolutely. And this is true of teens, but it's true of children of any age. As parents, I mean, I'm a parent of three. I know how distressing it can be when your child is struggling. You just want to pile in there and fix it. But that's the, that's not, we're not doing them a service if we do that, because not only is it not what they want and need, and they end up feeling misunderstood and not listened to, but also it doesn't equip them with the tools to be able to think through problems and figure things out, not on their own, but with the support of caring adults.
Speaker 2I guess you're talking about the idea about what we could be doing instead, rather than either trying to diminish it or dumb it down. Yes, thank you.
Speaker 3So yes, absolutely. We want to go in and fix it, but much better is to listen, to listen and trust the pauses, trust the silences, because even if a child's not talking, their mind is thinking. And actually, in asking questions like, what do you think is needed here? Or what would you say to a good friend if they were in your situation? Or if you were to put it into words, how are you feeling right now? It helps them to bring it into a part of their. brain which can start to think these things through, to take it from that kind of mess and chaos of overwhelming feeling into starting to formulate it into something that's a bit
Speaker 2more manageable. I love those questions. And I tell you what I love, Kim, it's this trust the pauses, trust the silences. Because I think sometimes, I think, you know, I'm very open about the fact that I'm a slightly reformed control enthusiast. So I have been very guilty in my parenting of kind of doing things that I don't want to do. And I've been very guilty of jumping in and solution orientated. What you need to do is, and actually, the magic happens in those subtle questions, and then the silence.
Speaker 3Yes, and the silence may actually last a few weeks. We've planted the idea that, you know, what do you need in that situation? I don't know. Well, yes, they may not know. But the fact that you've asked the question might mean that next time they find themselves in their situation, they start to think, what do I need here? What would help? And the fact that you've put it back in their court, it shows an enormous amount of trust and belief in them and their capacity. Because we're not going to always be there. So let's equip them for when we're not.
Speaker 2I love that. And what would you say, Kim, because I would imagine there are a lot of people listening thinking, oh my goodness, that is exactly what I need to do. But they're probably struggling and having that initial contact. Maybe they've got a teen that just won't engage. in a conversation. Maybe they're holed up in their bedroom, curtains closed a lot of the time. How do they begin to take those, and I'm guessing small steps, to get that started?
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely. Small starts and start with where you're at. So actually, the whole of the first chapter of my book is dedicated to this. The idea of, well, I call it the mother-daughter date, but it can be father-daughter, father-son, grandparent, auntie, godmother, whatever. But it's what children need is our full attention. It was actually my daughter who taught me this, because she's the youngest of three, and I was working from home. So I considered myself to be a really attentive mother. And she would come up to me lots of times during the day, just asking for a cuddle. And I would kind of have one hand finishing typing, and the other hand would go around her. Or one hand kind of stirring the pot, and the other hand around her. And this little face would look up at me, this scowl, and she'd cross her arms. And she'd look at me, and she goes, no, mummy, I want a full attention. And I'd say, no, mummy, I want a full attention. And she'd cuddle. And what I learned is that actually a little goes a long way. But actually, if I put everything down, including what was going through my mind, and just gave her my full attention, then she got what she needed. And she then took it to another level. She kind of goes, well, now I want that outside the house regularly. So what we started was the mother-daughter date. And this is a great thing to start whatever the age of your child. But if you've got it established before the teen years, it gives you a vehicle that they know that once a month, you're going to have special time together. But time that's sort of outside of ordinary life, time that you have planned together. And it just keeps the lines of communication open. So even when you think they don't deserve it, even when you think that their behavior and what they've either done or not done means that they don't deserve it, that's especially the time when they need our loving connection. It doesn't have to be that each time we get together, we're going to have a special time together. It doesn't have to be on those special dates that it's a deep and meaningful. It's actually by joining them with where they are. And for our teens, especially if that feels like an impossible thing to start off, go sit down with when they're on their phone. And rather than kind of challenging them saying, oh God, what are you, you know, not on your phone again. It's like, what are you looking at? Show me, teach me about TikTok or show me what's interesting you. And we pay interest. And then we say, well, can you help me post on TikTok? So you join those, join them where they are. Or it could be that you buy their favorite food and you kind of organize it for everyone else to be out of the house and you kind of go, right, your choice of Netflix. And here's some popcorn. So we start small, start with where they are. And actually, I refer to it in the book, if it's even more broken than that, even then, just know that children always want our time and attention, even if they wouldn't dream of letting you know that just because of how the relationship has perhaps crumbled. Just know that there's nothing like an adult choosing to spend their spare time with a child to make them feel good about themselves and an adult choosing to really listen and not jump in with their thoughts and ideas and suggestions to make a child feel not only good about themselves, but respected and heard and perhaps also resourced that maybe they're being trusted that they've got the solutions to the challenges in their lives.
Speaker 2Yeah, you're so right. And in lots of ways, in our children and learn that actually, they've got the tools within them, they've got the resources, they've got the answers, they just need the opportunity to think it through. And then come up with their own solutions.
Speaker 3Yes. And we see in the girls group that we girls groups that we run, whether it be the girls net group online, which is just six weeks online, or the year long program girls joining together, that the other way that girls realize this is when they help each other. Whilst they might feel really stuck and they can't figure out what to do about a bullying situation in school or something that's going on with a sibling or a parent, when they hear another girl talking about it, suddenly they feel quite resourced and they've got ideas and they say, oh, well, I tried this. And suddenly they realize that they've got a lot of resources within them, but sometimes it's easier to tap into them when it's on behalf of someone else.
Speaker 2Yeah. Talk to us, Kim, because I know that you have.
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Speaker 2The power of the group in what you do. As part of the rights for girls, and I know that you do, you, you, there are different formats. Why have you chosen group, group work? And what have you seen as the impact of doing it that way?
Speaker 3Great question. So this is really important. So whether it be the parenting group that I run or the groups with the girls that we run, first of all, there's that power of not feeling alone and isolated. And we all kind of fall into that trap of imagining that everyone else is doing better than we are. And we all kind of fall into that trap of imagining that everyone else is doing When you create a group where the people feel safe enough to share what they're really thinking and feeling. And we do that at rights for girls by creating a safe place where people don't have to change anything about themselves to fit in because they belong already just exactly as they are. And this is particularly potent for our neurodiverse girls. They start to open up and share in a way that they hear each other and kind of go, Oh my God, I'm like that. And suddenly they realize that there's a difference. And they're like, Oh my God, I'm like that. And suddenly they nothing wrong with them. And it's actually quite normal and natural at that stage in life, whatever stage it is, to be thinking and feeling some of those things. And for parents to start realizing that if they're having children who are having challenges, that's not necessarily a reflection of their parenting. And there are many, many other parents out there who are probably not feeling like they know where to go to talk about it, but are feeling similar things. So the power of the group is partly just literally in the identity of the group. And that's what we're trying to do. Identifying with each other and realizing that you're not alone, that there actually isn't anything wrong with you or anything that needs fixing. And that together, when we pool our resources, we've got a lot of wisdom and solutions amongst us. So it's partly just that feeling of not being alone, but then parents, children, they know a lot. They know a lot from their life experience. And when they're given the opportunity to start linking what they already know with the challenge, being challenged by now, they start to feel really well resourced. And I would say that the girls, it doesn't matter, even if they're girls net and eight years old, we underestimate how much they know both to help themselves and to help each other.
Speaker 2There is so much power in being in that collective and also knowing that others feel the same. I've, you know, I've seen it time and time again, when, when not just girls, when, when children and parents simply make a statement and then others go, oh my goodness me, that's exactly the same for me. And then suddenly that weight's been lifted. How do we bridge that, whether that's societal stigma or whatever that we feel around this idea that maybe if we join a group like this, that we're, our parenting is somehow going to be judged. There's something that I felt that in lots of ways, parenting can be collaborative, but it can also be incredibly competitive. How do we shed that and really open ourselves up to the vulnerability and that real belief that it does take a tribe. It does take a village to raise a child.
Speaker 3Yeah. Children weren't supposed to be raised by just one or two adults who are their parents. They need the elders. They need the grandparents. They need the older parents who've seen it all before because they've taken their children through that phase. They need the parents of the children who are the same age and stage that they're at. They need the aunties who are the same age and stage that they're at. They need who aren't parents at all and therefore aren't bringing that kind of flavor into the adult input. So there is no shame in needing a village, but I absolutely agree with you. We've got a culture a bit of where we celebrate independence and we kind of imagine there are prizes for coping on our own. There really are no prizes for coping on our own. It's one of the things that we work with the girls on. Even at that young age, they're already trying to manage on their own. So how do we help parents to support each other? Well, we have to be the brave parent who risks the vulnerability of being a little bit more honest and saying, actually, this bit, I'm really struggling with it. And I'm shouting at my kids and I'm failing and I need help. And it's incredible actually how when we do that, we do have to choose the right people though, because there will be some people who won't respond in the way that we need and we will feel shamed and silenced. But we know that those people are going to be. We pick the right people and then we share with them as openly and honestly as we feel able to. And generally what that does is it opens the door. It means that other people then feel able to kind of go, oh, actually, yeah, I'm not like that now, but you should have seen me three years ago with my older boy. So it's about risking our vulnerability to be honest, to be more honest with each other when we are struggling. And then also to reach out to the professional services. Now, I know that there are a lot of people who know that they are inundated at the moment and the waiting lists are long. So it's not just the kind of the big international, you know, the GP and the CAMHS and the kind of local authority. Sometimes it's, you'll find, you know, there's an older woman in your village or who kind of hangs out and is willing to do kind of sewing with the kids or, you know, and that too can be a way of getting some of the support that you need as a parent.
Speaker 2That is such an important thing that we forget, isn't it? When we talk about, I often talk about this notion of it takes a village to raise a resilient adult. And we forget that within the communities that we live in, there are elders who are really keen to engage with young people. We've seen it, haven't we? When we've looked at, you know, intergenerational living spaces where young people are living with much older and how it's worked really well, or they've got a 23-year-old has got a room in a 76-year-old's house and how there's been so much transfer of knowledge and skills from that. And yet, it's not something I think that we even think about.
Speaker 3We've actually got it integrated in our Girls Journeying Together programme that at the same time as the girls meet, all of the mothers meet. So they form a circle of mothers around the girls. And that way the mothers get support through that time of parenting. We also bring in older women to work with the girls because they have a slower pace of life. They've got more time, more experience, not necessarily wisdom, not everyone gets wiser as they get older, but often they do. And exactly as you say, it's a good match when children are with someone who isn't needing to get the tea on and finish that email that they should have done yesterday, and also get the other kids ready for school, and do all the other things that we have to do. Someone who can just pause and slow down and give the time and space. that our young people need. They're at a life stage better able to do that.
Speaker 2And it just enriches the lives of everybody involved in raising that girl. Yeah. Can I ask you, I often talk about this idea that girls have a superpower, but that superpower can also be their nemesis. And I believe that as women and girls, our superpower is our empathy and our bringing people in and our desire to build communities and collectives. But I think that can come a bit of a, it can be a nemesis, because the flip side is that we then are quite keen to be liked, we're quite keen to fit in. We tend to be a little bit people pleasing. How do you feel that as parents, we can help our children, our girls find their voice so that they don't end up getting sucked into being someone that they're not, and really can be true to the who they really are at
Speaker 3their core? Be that woman. Be a good role model. Show them by doing it yourself. It's really easy to watch our girls kind of being people pleasers and placating their friends and just wishing that they'd stand up for themselves more in their friendship groups and speak up for themselves. But who's their role model? Well, we are. We're one of them, one of the most potent ones. So taking a look at our own relationships and our own friendships and how we are, that is one of the most powerful ways that we can help and support our girls and show them how you can find your voice, but find it in a way that, isn't aggressive or rude, but is standing up for yourself and is saying what you think and feel. We have a whole session actually in Girls Journeying Together where we look at this and how do we kind of be ourselves, but also fit in? Because we all want to be liked. Of course we do. There's nothing wrong with that. But how do we not lose ourselves or lose our voice? So it's a balancing act. How can we find the right words to say what it is we want to say, but in a way that's not going to alienate people? But then how do we also remember to put ourselves first. rather than putting others first. And it's partly an exercise, a muscle that we need to exercise. Now, if a child is growing up with a lot of women around them who doesn't have that as a strength, then that's what they're going to copy. So, if we really want to make the biggest difference to the girls around us, we just need to show them. We need to be good adverts for womanhood. And then when they're struggling, don't leap in and fix it, but actually trust them and believe that they have the answers. So, they start to exercise that muscle themselves. They start to feel their own inner resourcefulness and their own inner resilience. And of course, that actually does take time, listening. So, giving them our time and listening, because often we always need to practice. So, when we're struggling to find our voice, if we've got someone safe, who's willing to give us a bit of time and go, well, how do you think you'd say it? What would be the best way of raising that? Tackling that. And they have a go, talking with you. And you can maybe kind of go, yeah, that was really good, but your voice sounded really quiet. I had to really strain to hear you. Can you say it louder? And actually, let's make it a game. Shout it across the room so everyone across the field can hear you. Right, okay, now let's pull it back a bit. I mean, it can be fun. All of these things do not have to be heavy and serious. It can be fun finding our voice, whatever age we are. I love that.
Speaker 2And that idea of just sort of almost amplifying it. And then making it smaller again. And then just say, what words do you think that you would use? In those scenarios, because quite often what will happen is parents will say, you know, I desperately want my daughter to be more confident. And a lot of the time, I feel, I don't know what you feel, Kim, is that often it comes from the context of as the mother, the mother doesn't feel that they were as confident as they'd like to have been. And they would love their child not to struggle with friendships or to be able to use their voice or to be less people. Amazing. Is there a way that mothers can work together with their daughters in terms of finding that the mother finding her voice at the same time? Or do we need to be this, you know, fabulous role model and not showing them that we're struggling ourselves to be able to stand up for ourselves?
Speaker 3Oh, I think it's great that we are as real as we are. We're all on a journey. Actually, I was one of the quietest, most timid little girls when I was a little girl. And I think it's amazing that we're all on a journey. Growing up, friendships were really difficult for me. And I made a lot of mistakes in my friendships. So sometimes telling our children what we were like can be really reassuring, can help them see that actually it's a journey. And that as we grow up, often we do grow in confidence. As we learn how to tackle different things in different ways, we are better resourced. And you're absolutely right. It's often, you know, when a parent is worried about their child, it's often either because they see themselves as a child in that child and want to spare them the pain and the agony that they went through, or they're feeling awkward themselves and they want to spare themselves the pain. Being human isn't always easy. Life is challenging. It's okay to sometimes just want to retreat in and be quiet and not speak up for yourself or not do the thing that serves you best. It's okay sometimes to kind of, you know, be quiet and not speak up for yourself. Kind of be mousy and people-pleasing and all of those things that we don't really want to be and we don't want our children to be. At the same time, it is like you say, a journey that mother and daughter could go on together. They could set each other tasks, little quests. Okay. So, you know, you're going to speak to one new person at school today, and I'm going to speak to one stranger in the queue at the post office today, or whatever it is, you know, whatever it is that we're struggling with. And I do think this, you know, many children have this fantasy, that their parents are all put together and perfect and got it all under control. And in some senses, they do need to feel that we're in charge and that they're in safe hands with us. And at the same time, we can also reveal it's like, I've had such a stressy day and I absolutely, I don't know which to do first. Do I do the cooking or do I do the, you know, actually, I'm just going to go for a walk. I'm going to phone a friend. You know, when we put it into words, what's going on in our minds and open that up a little bit, it helps our children see that it's perfectly normal sometimes to lose the plot and to be overwhelmed and stressed. And that actually that happens to adults as well as children. But we have some tools and some methods and ways of dealing with it and coping with it.
Speaker 2It's so, it is right, isn't it? It humanises us in lots of ways. We don't want our children to see us as perfect because that's not a great narrative. We don't want our children to see us as completely out of control and not able to regulate anything. It's that it's hitting that spot in middle ground, isn't it?
Speaker 3Yeah, we have to, when we're with our children, we always need to be the adult in the room. And there is so much pressure on us parents to be perfect, to get it right as if there is some right way and there really isn't. And it's useful to remind ourselves that actually, when I think about all the hundreds of girls that I've worked with, those girls who see their parents or particularly their mother as perfect, it's a tyranny because then they feel they too have to be perfect. And that's not something we want to pass on to our girls. So yeah, it's the right amount of humanness and human frailty. We all have our strengths. We have our weaknesses too. And actually, sometimes they're from the same source. Our strengths are also our weaknesses.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's both of those. Kim, can I ask you, going back to the point that we made, that I asked around this notion of when we are a parent who may be not as confident and we're seeing that in our children, what happens with the flip side? Because we sometimes also have parents who are incredibly sociable, really confident, and they really struggle to sort of meet their daughter where they're at in terms of the struggles that they may well have around friendships. It's not because they don't want to, but it seems so alien to them that they seem to kind of struggle with that. Any sort of advice that you've got, if you are social butterfly, supremely confident socially, but you've got a daughter who is really struggling with friendships, really struggling. Yes.
Speaker 3So first thing is to remember back to when you were that age, because sometimes even the socially extrovert, comfortable, confident parents may not have started out like that. And they've forgotten perhaps how it was to be that age. So that can sometimes be the starting point, but perhaps they weren't. Perhaps they were always fairly socially at ease and they weren't. So the first thing I would do then is listen to the child, get curious. What is it like for you when you go in a crowded room? How is it when you're with your friends and they suddenly go off and do that? To get really curious, to understand their experience. If the child is too young to be able to really put that into words, but don't underestimate actually how children can give us a sense of what their world is like. But if they're too young to then find another child who naturally quiet, naturally more introvert. A lot of our neurodiverse girls as well, they're great to listen to and help us understand how their world is for them too. But to do it with the tone that there's nothing wrong with them, we do live in a culture where particularly at school, but also almost everywhere else, there's a pressure that we should all, whether we're young or old, be more outgoing, be more outspoken, be more confident and comfortable in ourselves. Well, not everyone is, particularly in a group and out socially. Some people come into their own when they're just as comfortable as others. And I think that's a really important on their own. And then they go into their dreamy world and they are enormously creative and come up with incredible plans and ideas. That would all be lost if we all just went prioritized and favored the kind of more noisy, outgoing, loud, exuberant people who we need to. We need everybody, all the different variations there are of being human. So in terms of an extrovert parent, we need to be able to do that. And I think that's a really important part of that. And I think that's a really important part with a more introverted child. Get curious about what are the qualities of introversion? What do they bring to a group? I remember when my son, who's a natural introvert, his mates were around and I overheard them talking about what they like. This is unusual for teenage boys, but they were talking about what they liked about each other. And I overheard them saying, we can always rely on you and we know you're not going to tell anyone else. And I kind of thought, well, that is a very precious quality that came to him naturally. He didn't have to try to do that. So, it's about then recognising the values and the strengths of the different qualities that our children have, never making them wrong. I mean, that's the job as a parent, isn't it? To truly accept your child as they are, not to see ourselves and our role as being a sort of fix-it programme to try and make them more this or less that. And I know we're trying to teach them to pick up their dirty wet towels off the floor and do their homework on time. But actually, to also look at our children with kind eyes. And see the wonderful qualities that they bring to this world, the uniqueness that they have, and celebrate that as well as getting caught up in our role as parents to kind of steer them into kind of being acceptable human beings when they're out in the world. And actually trust that that will happen. We don't need to take as big a role in that job as we perhaps think we need to.
Speaker 2Yeah. I mean, I think one of the themes that keeps coming out again and again, Kim, that you're saying is around really listening and it's that active listening isn't it listening so that you can genuinely see to understand that you could paraphrase back. So what I think I'm hearing is that when this happens, this is how it makes you feel. How do we as parents in a busy and noisy world really create time and space to do that listening?
Speaker 3So first off, not put pressure on ourselves to do that all the time. That's impossible and we'll just feel like we're failing. But to know that a little goes a long way. So just five minutes for each child every day that they can rely on. Now for many children, it's the end of the day. So right at that time when we're exhausted and we want some adult time, that's often the time when children do want to open up and want a bit of our attention. And it's really well spent. In the car as well is a lovely time to do it, particularly if it's just you and one child, if you've got more than one children. Because you're both facing front and they know that it's going to be over at a particular time. So if it gets a bit kind of awkward, then it's not going to go on forever. So it is just finding those moments as well as creating them like I talked about with the mother-daughter date. But it's finding those moments every day and just trusting that sometimes what can feel like a bottomless pit, I can never give my child enough of my attention to kind of actually clearly say to them, right, I've got 10 minutes now. I've put everything down. You've got me. You've got my full attention. What do you want to show me? Because often it's not talking about something. It's showing you their favourite game or telling you about the wings on an aeroplane that they've been just fascinated by. It's about being willing to go into their world. I know a lot about the offside rule now, having one boy who was really into football. All three children played football, but one more than others. It's about being willing to go into their world and give them attention for the things that are important and interesting to them, not just what's important and interesting to me.
Speaker 2Yeah. It is so true that when you give them that, it really, they don't need a huge amount. I remember what reading Shonda Rhimes' The Year of Saying Yes, she talks very specifically about a time she was laden with all sorts of bags, trying to leave the house, and her daughter asked her to play with her. And of course, this was her year of saying yes. So she took all her bags off. She sat down. It was moments, literally minutes, couple of minutes. That's all her daughter wanted. And she was done. Her cup was full, and she didn't want to go to bed. She didn't want to go to bed. And I think sometimes we think that actually they want hours of our time, whereas really, when we're fully present, fully engaged, and they have our full attention, it isn't that long.
Speaker 3Absolutely. And if we have children who have siblings, and there's lots of fighting and bickering between siblings, that's often an indicator for us that they are fighting for our attention. And so whilst putting our attention on their fights, might be what we get drawn to doing, actually, if we take that as being a message to us that if I give each child a bit more of my individual time, and I am just talking five or 10 minutes here, that might actually solve the problem between the siblings a bit.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. Well, they're vying for that limited resource, which is our time, isn't it? So it's a very potent, potent thing. And thank you for that, Kim. You have been absolutely incredible. I don't want to let you go yet until I've asked you. As we kind of wrap up, because what often I do in the podcast is about giving parents some top five tips, things that they can do and implement in their life day to day. And we will share the link, links to all of Kim's, to her book, to Rights for Girls, and all of that incredible stuff. So if you want to go and sort of dig a bit deeper, or maybe look at joining some of the groups, you can go ahead and do that or buy the book. So what five tips, Kim, would you give parents about what we could do in today to help raise these resilient women?
Speaker 3Number one, I am repeating myself a little bit here, but I would say the first thing is to put our feet in their shoes. Remember back to when you were that age or at that stage yourself, just to help you remember how the world seems and how you experience the world. That's the first thing. Yeah. Then it would be to listen, not just to the words, but to the behavior as well. Our children, they can't always tell us in words what it is that they're thinking or feeling or struggling with, but their behavior often communicates to us really clearly what it is that they are trying to tell us. If we can manage not to take their behavior personally, not to make them wrong for it, but instead to listen to what's underneath it, then we are really paying good attention. And remember, as parents, we are the world experts on our children. We are the ones who are best placed to understand what's going on. We are the ones who are best placed to understand what their behavior is really trying to tell us. So remember back, listen, and then time. Again, full attention time. And it doesn't have to be a lot, but it does need to be regularly. So it's not enough just to have a special away day once a year with your child. Actually, much better to have five minutes before bed or five minutes when they first wake up in the morning or a cup of tea when they first come in from school, something that's sort of regular and routine that they can rely on. I would say, let them be themselves. I think this is probably one of the hardest things, not to want them to be a particular way, not to be a mini you, or not to be how you wish you'd have been, or not to be anything other than themselves. To really trust that this is a human being who's come into this world with unique strengths and skills to bring to life. And if we can manage not to make them wrong, if we can help them celebrate who they are, and feel sure about who they are, they are going to reach their full potential much more likely than if we make them wrong, and they feel like they're not okay as they are. And finally, I would say to recognize our role, our superpower as a role model. That actually, if there's anything in our child that we're struggling with, to attend to it in ourselves. Our children are great mirrors. And often the things that trigger us or that are challenging for us in our children's behavior are the things that trigger us. And so I think it's behavior are things that either we did as children or actually we still are doing so go first lead the way show your child the way show it in how you are rather than in your words or your or your guidance um be be the change that you want to see in your child that's just gone back on what i just said about not allowing them to be who they are but it's like be everything you can be as a parent be be forgiving of yourself to be accepting of yourself the kind of parent that you are you are the perfect parent for your child and we all slip up we all have imperfections but to really celebrate ourselves and the good job that we're doing with our children even if they're struggling that's not evidence of our poor parenting that's that's just kind of wakens us up to they need a little bit more of our love and caring support in this moment
Speaker 2i love those those are so great and the fifth one is not necessarily going back on what you're saying i think it's it's almost that if we do the work on ourselves if we always model that adaptability and change and reflection and that we're a work in progress then our children learn that that's it's a lifelong pro you know it's lifelong they're seeking out who you are and working on it not just a specific period of time
Speaker 3i think when we're able to enjoy parenting that's when our children also get to experience the joy of being the child to us as their parent they they are they too are mirrored when we are able to find our calm and our and take care of ourselves so that we're relaxed and loving and caring then our children experience themselves as a joy to be with yeah
Speaker 2it's that you know we must never underestimate the value in taking care of ourselves as the greatest gift we can give our children kim thank you so much for your wisdom your thoughtful commentary and some really practical easy to implement sensible easy for us to do not always easy in the in the regard of actually you know it needs to be intentional but something that within all our capabilities that we can do is just that you you put it so eloquently
Speaker 3oh it's been my real pleasure thank you for inviting me thank you for joining us today we'll see you next time
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