I know many of you like myself would be blessed with a girl child. Girls are, as it is said Daddy’s Princess and Mommy’s world! They are little angels who grow up to be our best friends. A mother’s best company is always her dear daughter. Despite all this, when it comes to raising girls it becomes a challenge for us. Especially in today’s world when on the one hand girls are proving themselves equal to men in all fields and on the other hand they also face discrimination.
Here are 8 things which I want all girls should be taught from the very beginning in order to raise them as strong individuals.
1. Self-dependence
Girls must be taught to do all things themselves without being dependent on anyone. This should start from a very early age; say, when your daughter starts to eat, don’t run with a spoon after her. Let her play, spoil the food but do encourage her to eat by herself. Similarly, let her explore the world on her own. Don’t try to play her shadow everywhere.
“A woman is like a tea bag — you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.– Eleanor Roosevelt
2. Care & Compassion
Even though care & compassion are regarded as basic traits of all females still in today’s competitive world these qualities are sometimes relegated in a corner. So it’s very important that we keep teaching our girls to be caring and compassionate towards everyone. Being a good human being is always more important than being successful.
3. Spirituality
Whatever religion you follow, you must make your daughter have a strong faith in that. She should be taught to pray regularly. Whenever she is in need, she should be taught to remember God. She also must be made to feel thankful to God for all the blessings in her life.
4. Critical Thinking
When your boys are playing with their car toys and something happened or they broke it down — wouldn’t their be unlikely try to fix it by just assembling the parts together? What if it was our girls? We have been teaching our girls to always get someone’s help — unknowingly limiting their ability to think to their way out of a critical situation. When your daughters are faced with difficulties, the best way you can start teaching them about critical thinking is involving them and teaching what to do if something like that happens again. If they broke their toy, guild them to fix the broken part. This small act will help them later on in their future life when they are faced with critical situations in their relationship, workplace or business.
5. Patience
With patience they can reach for the stars — it won’t be easy or quick but it’s possible. Patience turns talent into achievement. Hard work and patience always brings forth result. Patience can transform relationship, be it in their workplace or marriage. In life we are always quick to hasty decisions in the moment full of rush or anger and often regret it later on. While, there are much things that can be changed if we have the patience and think past the situation. All things will come past, be it good or bad. Time will heal everything.
6. Forgiveness
Teaching your girls forgiveness is the best gift you can give to your daughters. Forgiveness will free their mind from any past bondage. Forgiveness is not something we do for others but ourselves and forgiveness is not something we give when the other parties apology. Forgiveness is something we do for ourselves whether the other parties is sorry for what they did or not. Most importantly teach them the importance to forgive themselves for any mistakes they did in the past. Forgiveness will also allow them to walk freely and with confident to their future.
7. Equality
Equality doesn’t mean men and women are the same. We are not. Women can bring a new life to this world, which no man can. Equality means that our girls are no less than boys. Equality means not limiting themselves only to the princess dolls or toys that are only for girls. Equality means we are giving out girls the same opportunities to explore their talents and their hobbies just as our boys. If our girls is interested in engineering type of toys or something like car toys — we give it to them. We do not limit them just because “it’s not girls toys.”
8. Adaptable
When we respect the land we walk upon, all it’s habitats will respect us. It’s simply means wherever we are or wherever we go we need to teach our girls to be adapt. As your daughters grow up they won’t be able to stay with you, she will be going to school or college, going to work and eventually get to start her own family. Each phase will be different, she will be introduced to different types of people and places, in view of every situation she has to be able to have self-control and behave according to the situation and the custom of the place.
Source: Mrs Akinlabi Inioluwa Esther. She’s a member of Children Evangelism Ministry (CEM), She is a Children teacher at RCCG(Wind of Change Parish, Awe.), The founder of “Not Too Young Initiative”.
