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Empower and Influence Young Girls for Our Equal Future

By Esther | October 16th 2020 | Life and Purpose, Women Empowerment, Teen Corner, Family and Relationships

“I am loved. I am blessed. I forgive. I receive.” -Jennifer Bichanich

There are more than 1.1 billion girls under the age of 18 in the world today, who will be the largest generation of female leaders, entrepreneurs, changemakers, and change agents in the world that we will have ever seen.

These young girls are our future. And how they succeed in life will depend on how we teach, treat, support, and mentor them.

But statistics are showing that with the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an increase in the abuse that our girls are experiencing. Sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, mental abuse, and even sex trafficking has increased and continues to increase.

This makes it even more important to give a voice to it and make people aware of what is happening and what each one of us can do to help, support, and empower our girls.

The United Nations theme for this year’s International Day of the Girl Child is “My Voice, Our Equal Future”. And it is true that these young girls of ours hold our future in their hands.

We, therefore, need to provide them with their voice, encourage them, and empower them, so they can be put on the right path to a brighter and powerful future.

I had a juicy conversation with my niece Crystal Solomon, and a very wonderful friend and mentor for young girls, Tracy Palmer. And I want to share with you the juicy and profound takeaways from that conversation.

We talked about reaching out, helping out, and mentoring young girls and what each of us can do to make that possible.

You don’t have to be licensed or trained in order to mentor and help young girls. Each one of us, no matter what age we are in, are in a position to mentor, empower, and influence a young girl.

We were born with greatness in us. For some of us, especially for young girls, it is just a matter of mentoring, cultivating, and bringing that greatness out.

We can break the cycle of abuse by simply how we’re treating and what we’re speaking into these young girls’ lives. We need to speak positive things to them and provide them with the tools that they need to handle and survive their day to day life situations.

So, what do our girls really need today?

A lot of what girls need today is self-confidence. Our girls are so influenced by social media that it becomes a gauge for how they look, how to act, what they should be doing, and most of the time the things you see in social media are not really healthy or right for young girls.

Young girls equate how they are seen on social media as acceptance and inclusion. Their self-confidence is then rooted and linked to what social media says and what’s trending when it should be internal and should come from within.

Young girls need to recognize and realize what they love about themselves, rather than what social media dictates.

Young girls mostly have identity issues. They usually are not aware of who they are. They don’t know their worth or their value, and just try to follow what others are doing.

But, if we go deeper we realize that a lot of what we are seeing today on young girls stems from the home front. A lot of mental issues and identity issues are not being addressed because the parents themselves have their own mental and identity issues.

This creates a division in the household and these young girls are left with nobody to tell them what the right way to go is. And when the village comes in and tries to intervene, that’s when parents get the pushback on their child.

The reality of the times is a lot of parents today want to give up and throw in the towel. A lot of parents are not in this for the long haul. But parenting is the only job that you’re going to get. There’s never a vacation, even when the children have grown and on their own.

Parents have to stop looking for reasons why they are going to throw in the towel on their children. They have to stop using embarrassment and humiliation on their children. It is not right to trap and shame children, especially young girls.

When we look at today’s generation, let’s pull back the layers and see where these children are really coming from. Let’s talk. Let’s talk about the issues. Let’s talk about rape, about emotional abuse, about domestic violence.

How do we heal from these things if we don’t talk about them? How do we expose what is hurting us or our young girls if we don’t converse about it?

If cancer goes untreated, it spreads to another part of the body. If abuse gets untreated, it spreads and filters through the body and causes the victim to have an altered mental state.

From the day we were born, life experiences can happen to us of which we have no control over. It is embedded in us like seeds planted in our subconscious mind.

They are suppressed and then become triggered by events and experiences that occur in our life as we grow older. They begin to come out and then we become confused and we don’t understand why we are behaving and reacting the way we are. We don’t remember or have forgotten what happened to us as a child and then these triggers bring them out which affects how we react and deal with our situation.

So, how do we address that? How do we let that girl know that it is not over for her, no matter where she is coming from?

Trauma and abuse don’t have a belief system or a color when it happens. It has nothing but just abuse and that abuse can affect how a child grows and is treated. Our goal then is to put them on a path to success, no matter what, and that they know that in their journey they can become whoever or whatever they choose to be.

The first step to doing that is trust. We have to get that girl in a trusting place. A girl in a hurt state, in a state of denial, of depression, of not knowing who she is, of lacking knowledge will have a hard time trusting anyone if there is one little thing that makes her feel uneasy.

When we are dealing with topics that are very sensitive, particularly towards young girls, we have to be able to get that girl’s trust in its entirety. And that begins with ownership.

We have to own who we are, and we have to own our behaviors. We have to be truthful with ourselves because, in order for us to reach out to that girl, we have to make sure that we have reached out within ourselves and that we have mastered ourselves first so that we can be anything that girl needs.

When we are truthful with ourselves, we become truthful to the young girls we are helping, and we create the safe space that she needs where there are no judgments.

Once we get that trust, the next thing that we should do is to listen. Listen without interruptions. Listen with your heart. Listen without judgment. Listening is the key component of keeping that trust.

Communication is vital in the conversation of empowering and influencing young girls. Truthfulness and honesty, even if it hurts, is essential to establishing trust. But these will not matter if we do not know how to listen with our hearts.

What do we need, then, to become a good mentor?

When mentoring we want to develop the whole girl: body, soul, mind, spirit. And the one thing that we want to do when we are mentoring them is that we always have to leave them in choice because when you take a person’s choice away, you take their power away.

Don’t push your beliefs on the girl. That will take away her choice. We can influence, make suggestions and recommendations, but always leave her in choice.

Always be transparent. Do not be afraid of your own story. You should be able to go right down to the level where the girl is at and work your way back up with her to where she needs to be.

Be free. Be delivered. Be honest with yourself. Young girls will not open up and identify with you if you can’t identify with what they are going through. These girls, like everyone else, do not want to feel left out and alone.

Leave judgment and personal opinions outside. Be careful with what you are saying because sometimes, just when you think you are getting through and breaking the shell, you say one thing and she loses her trust. And this goes back to being able to listen.

And finally, love. When you show love, you are able to accept a person exactly for who they are and will not try to change them. Show young girls that they are loved, that they are accepted for who they are, and that you are willing to listen to them with your heart and without judgment.

If you think that a girl is not comfortable with speaking to anyone just yet, encourage her to keep a journal and write her feelings out. Letting everything that she holds inside, whether through confiding or through writing, allows that young girl to release whatever she is suppressing and takes the weight off her chest.

Final Words

We all have a hand in our young girls’ future. So, in any way we can, let us support, encourage, empower, and influence them so they can find their way to live their lives in happiness, in success, and in purpose.

To the parents, love your children. Identify your children by the name that you gave them. In your angered state, your children are not anything other than the name that you gave them. Always be a parent. Stand with your children. Don’t turn your back on them. If they act differently, pay attention. A parent who is in tune with their child knows when there is a red flag. Don’t be embarrassed or ashamed to reach out because parents need a support system as well.

To the girl, it’s okay that you went through what you went through. What’s important now is that you heal from what you went through. You need to understand that what happened to you was not your fault and that you have a support system here.

It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to not have it all together. It’s okay to need to take a break and say you’re overwhelmed. It’s also okay to need to go see someone to talk to, to help you figure out the things, feelings, and issues in your life.

As what Pastor Michael Todd said, always be HOT. Humble, open, and transparent.

To the parent and to the child, keep an open line of communication.

 To learn more about healing, happiness, and purpose, get my book,“Why? Stepping into Purpose” for powerful stories of self-discovery and purpose.
If you want to be a mentor or need help with finding a mentor, reach out to us at https://www.fddwomen.com/contact.

ESTHER GRAHAM

I'm a spiritual and life coach that is on a mission to change the world by helping people rise to their full potential, regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation or religion.

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Life and Purpose

Entrepreneurship and Leadership

Self-Care Series

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Woman Empowerment

Transformation and Spirituality

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