Princesses

Is your girl a little princess?
Of course she is… in one sense anyway. In your eyes and (hopefully) in her own, she is a young woman of huge worth. You are allowed to be proud of your kids, to accentuate their positives, to cheer them on. You are allowed to think that she is exceptional, one of a kind and definitely ‘above average’! To you she’s a princess, and yes, you should tell her so.

But sometimes being a princess isn’t nearly good enough. In fairy stories, princesses always seem to need a lot of rescuing. They are forever being captured by dragons or put under spells and all their problem solving amounts to just waiting for some handsome prince to appear on the scene.

Girls need to believe that they can stick up for themselves and solve their own problems and not to just act helpless until somebody steps up to help.  And they will never learn to solve problems unless they have a few to wrestle with.  When they give you a problem, rather than step in and solve it for them, give it back to them. “Hmm – that sound’s tricky. What do you think you could do about that?” Sometimes just getting them to explain the problem to you in more detail is all the help they need to see their way through it.  At other times, once they have your support and comfort they’ll then have the emotional strength to tackle a problem.

Of course you would never abandon them in a major crisis – you’ve always got their back – but your daughters probably have all the brain-power they need to tackle and conquer most of the problems that will come their way in life. What they may lack is the confidence.  Don’t rob her of that confidence by saying, “Don’t worry about that; Dad will fix it for his little princess,” instead, say, “Just as well you are a Princess who knows how to change a flat tyre!”

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