Girls Positivity Club inspires girls to be anyone they want to be
Empowering young girls to see their potential— that’s the mission for Melissa Jones, Girls Positivity Club. This morning, she chatted with Randy and Amber about how we, as parents, can empower our daughters in their everyday life… plus, some yummy snacks they can make themselves!
Snack On a Stick
This is an easy snack that is fun for kids to make and what empowers kids in the kitchen is having a role in making snacks, meals, and desserts. Involving kids in creating healthy and fun snacks motivates them to want to eat them and empowers them to make choices in what they eat.
Fruit Sticks
Skewer or toothpicks
Variety of fruit that could easily be slid on a skewer- grapes, blueberries, strawberries, bananas, pineapples, mangos, pears, apples. (Optional dip in flavored yogurt or whipped topping)
Veggie Sticks
Skewer or toothpicks
Variety of vegetables that could easily be slid on a skewer- cucumbers, waffle carrots, celery, broccoli, sweet peppers, cherry, or grape tomatoes. Cheese cubes can also be added for a good pairing. (Optional- dip in ranch)
Dessert Sticks
Skewer or toothpicks
Chunk up dessert items such as angel food cake, brownies, pound cake, mini muffins, marshmallows, and so on. Add fruit that would pair nicely with the dessert such as pineapple or strawberries. (Optional dip in flavored yogurt or whipped topping and add sprinkles or mini chocolate chips)
Ways parents can help their daughters explore their potential gifts in creativity
Creativity looks a lot of different ways and setting aside time and space for her to experiment with creativity is a key and healthy way to explore. Providing your daughter with a variety of art supplies on hand and encouraging her to experiment with art is a really simple way to allow space for her artistic side to pour out. Encouraging your daughter to build with legos, to create inventions, to sketch or write out ideas she has to solve a problem is a great way to tap into her engineer and inventor side. Creativity can be outside the box thinking of creating change in some area and by asking for your daughter’s input in solving a problem such as saying, “How would you solve it?” opens up an opportunity for your daughter to explore possible solutions that are unique. Creativity can be in music, movement, writing, cooking, or envisioning an idea that would help the world. The main key is to allow girls to explore these types of creativity and as parents, we can simply have a conversation about what your daughter would like to explore creatively.
How parents can be intentional about highlighting powerful women in the present and past
Being intentional about talking about women in the past and present who have done amazing things in the world allows her to see herself in that role and being open to the possibility that she can do big things too (A Mighty Girl is a great starting place). Telling girls to be realistic can be damaging to their vision of who they could be in the future and highlighting women in an area of your daughter’s interest is especially important. Showing girls that these incredible women started out just like her, but these women took risks to explore what they loved or took the chance in facing fears or judgment to follow their hopes and dreams (and she can too).
How to start conversations with girls about gender equality and everyday bravery
The conversation about gender equality can start with a simple conversation about roles girls and women play in different settings and then asking open-ended questions to start the conversation and see how your daughter thinks about gender equality then asking why she feels this way and if she thinks it should be changed. Here are some conversation starters. Starting with simple topics related to the roles in your own family is a great place to start.
Who do you think should do which house chores? Should the mom and dad have set roles or should they take turns?
Do you think boys and girls should be able to play with each other’s toys or do you think there are certain toys that should be off-limits for boys or girls or should they be equal?
Do you think a woman will become the president? Would anything be different in the country?
Teaching girls to use everyday bravery like speaking up when they have opinions or raising their hand in class even if she is afraid of being wrong or how peers will see her is simple everyday bravery she can start using now.