"What girls need is a careful balance between self-concept and the mistakes they will inevitably make. That is, a girl's fierce denial suggests a refusal to admit a mistake into her idea of who she is, a slamming and bolting of an internal door," [Simmons] said.Simmons is the author of Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls and The Curse of the Good Girl: Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence.
Girls regard their mistakes as problems with themselves, not as opportunities to learn and grow. Therefore, when a girl gets a less-than-stellar grade on an essay, she will, in most cases, immediately jump to the conclusion that the teacher doesn't like her. In the same vein, if a girl makes a bad play on the soccer field, she will assume that her teammates hate her.
These assumptions that girls make about others lead to distorted thinking in which "being nice at all costs (is) the prime directive" of the "Good Girl."
The extremes to which girls go to be perfect, both physically and socially, lead to "all-or-nothing thinking" in which any failure a girl experiences is interpreted as "catastrophic."
Labels: parenting, self-esteem, daughters
Posted By: Aspen/CRC
