It provided an escape, a separate world.

I could dream, I could lose myself in the words, I could be anything I wanted to be.

I’m talking about The Secret Garden, and reading as a whole.

Growing up in a less-than-happy household was hard, especially for me, an already introverted child.

My escape was to read. One day, I was sitting in a secret garden with Mary and Colin. The next, I witnessed martians waging war on the world.

I encountered heroes, strong females, dream worlds.

It lit me up inside, and I took that magic and light with me to this day.

Want to inspire your daughter to dream, to take magic and light with her throughout her life?

Use reading to inspire her.

Read to her. Read with her. Give her a special spot that’s all her own to dream and explore and become powerful.

Provide her with books that help her grow as a person, that teach her about powerful female heroines, that encourage her to explore.

Check out the three books below to get your daughter started on her inspiring journey!

You Forgot Your Skirt, Amelia Bloomer

A Sweet Smell of Roses

33 Things Every Girl Should Know About Women’s History: From Suffragettes to Skirt Lengths to E.R.A.

I’ve just shared with you how reading helped me be the woman I am today, now I want you to share what reading has done for you in the comments below!

The post Using Reading to Inspire Your Daughter appeared first on Sweet Phenomena.

To find women who deserve their attention.

In a world filled with Bratz dolls, sexualized Candy Land characters, and trashy toddler clothing, we’re desperately trying to find something better for them.

This is why I’ve decided to highlight a Stupendous Sweetie in the Sweet Phenomena newsletter each month.

On the first Wednesday of every month you can find a new article all about a phenomenal female who is doing her thing and changing the world.

The first Sweetie debuts tomorrow!

Not on the list? No problem!

Just head here to sign up for the newsletter and you’ll be all set to get your first issue!

Oh, and there’s a swell bonus for you too: a three-part mini-series on helping your daughter achieve her dreams! A series for her, and a series for you!

Have any ideas on who you’d like to be featured as a Stupendous Sweetie? Leave a comment below!

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Our fear, though, is that we can’t give them everything they need to get there.

We always worry that we’ve left something out, we haven’t given them everything they need.

Today’s video touches on three ways to prepare your daughter to make the decision of becoming a female breadwinner, or not.

Maybe she wants to grow up and be a stay-at-home mom. There’s nothing at all wrong with that. She’ll raise the next generation of world-changers.

Maybe she wants to work outside the home as the sole breadwinner in her family. There’s nothing wrong with that either. She’ll change the world in her own special way.

Maybe she wants to work at home as the sole breadwinner in her family. Again, it’s totally fine.

You will have trained her to be able to make that decision based on her hopes, dreams, and passions, not based on someone else’s view of what’s right for her.

Part of this entire process is helping your daughter learn how to set goals for herself.

Dream BIG is a series I put together to help you train your daughter to set goals, achieve those goals, and then celebrate the achievement in fun and meaningful ways.

Click here to enter your email address and receive the series as my complimentary gift to you!

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The post Careers & Women: How to Prepare Your Daughter to be a {Bread}Winner appeared first on Sweet Phenomena.

Self-esteem in girls peaks at about age nine, and then it tanks from there. Sobering right? Yeah, I pretty much feel like a #fail parent.

I want my daughter to feel fulfilled, to know how to shine in her own skin. This requires self-esteem, and I wholeheartedly believe that education is one of the foundational pieces of building self-esteem in girls.

Education provides you with opportunities. Education teaches you about other cultures.

Education helps you discover what makes you sparkle inside.  Keep reading for five ways I strive to use education to help her do this.

What Type of Education?

I’m not just talking book smarts. Education doesn’t have to involve sitting in a school.

Education encompasses a wide realm of activities, and as parents it’s our job to make sure these are appreciated and utilized.

It can involve the library, extra-curricular activities, reading, writing, music, art, science, technology, anything that furthers your knowledge and experience in any given subject.

It can come from books or movies or television {NatGeo anyone?} or people or interactions or experiences.

Wrap your head around all of that I just said up there. You’ve got to understand it before you can help your daughter understand it.

Why is it so Important to Build Self-Esteem in Girls?

Many girls have a tendency to focus on what’s outside; after all, this means they can attract boys.

Who needs a smart girl when you can have a pretty one?

{Yes, typing that last part did make me throw up a little in my mouth.}

Oprah said it best, when talking about aging:

I know for sure that only by owning who and what you are can you step into the fullness of life.

Who you are: a caring, vibrant, empathetic, funny, smart, confident, thoughtful girl. And so on.

What you are: a dentist, doctor, teacher, mother, wife, archaeologist, scientist, business owner. And on and on.

Beauty fades. It can’t be used as a calling card forever.

Would you rather help your daughter build her inner beauty, her hopes and dreams, so that she always feels fulfilled, or would you rather let her pass through life seeing how far those pretty eyes can get her?

How Do You Do It?

Building self-esteem in girls is hard.

Our society doesn’t value our inner self, it values our outer characteristics.

So, you can’t turn to society to help your daughter.

Education is one of those things that can help you get her where she needs to be. How, though?

Click play to learn about a few ways you can use education to build self-esteem in your own girls.

See, totally not difficult. Many of these things you might already be doing, and they go a long way in helping to develop self-esteem in girls.

Want a few more ideas? I liked these nine ideas over at Divine Caroline.

Imagine the pride you’ll feel as you see your daughter begin to love herself, begin to embrace that which makes her unique.

She’ll sparkle and shine and she’ll be ready to share her special gifts with the world.

She’ll experience the successes and learning experiences that come from being a risk taker.

I’d Love to Hear From You!

How have you used education to build your daughter’s confidence and self-esteem? What tips do you have for other parents?

Thank you so much for taking the time to read and watch. Our culture needs a smackdown, and it all starts with you.

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As most of you know, I’m taking part in the rocking Prosperity’s Kitchen show.  The following is for the fabulous PK judges:

I chose the term I did because it will draw the most targeted traffic for me. You can check out my About page to learn more.

Other combinations of the term, or variations based on the content of the post, drew either too few searches or competed against heavy hitters such as .org sites, medical sites, and non-profit organizations.

I liked “building self-esteem in girls” but wasn’t sure if that would be the better way to go. It had 880 global monthly searches and 590 local monthly searches, with 1,580 intitle searches.  

I decided to stick with this one because of the higher number of searches and relatively “easy” competition, which will still bring the targeted traffic.

Learn more about Wistia and their video SEO process here and view my robots.txt here.

The post Dumb isn’t Pretty: Building Self-Esteem in Girls Through Education appeared first on Sweet Phenomena.

Failure has a super-bad connotation in our society.

Sure, there are some things that are pretty fail: kicking kittens, not believing in unicorns, and throwing garbage into the ocean.

Know what isn’t?

Working your butt off at something and coming up just a little short.

Taking risks pays off in so many ways, but sometimes you don’t quite end up where you thought you would.

Why Failure is Awesome

I was at Blissdom this week and Jon Acuff touched on the road to awesome.

It’s tight, windy, and adventurous, but it’s not foreign to us. Want to know what Jon said that left nary a dry eye in the place and a complete hush over the room?

…you used to know awesome quite well. Everyone did at one point. Especially when we were kids.

Think about that for a moment. When you were a kid, anything was possible. You could be anything you wanted to be.

You could fly to the moon and be a doctor and travel the world. I wanted to be a baker.

You knew you were awesome.

Then you lost it somehow. Fear of failure set in.

But failure is one of the best indicators of an awesome person. It means they’re trying. They’re hustling.

They’re working their way toward their definition of success, and learning along the way.

How do we as parents shake off our own insecurities about failure and teach our daughters how to rebound beautifully?

Teach Your Daughter that She is a Total Winner

How do you teach your daughter that a supposed failure is indeed epic: epic awesome? Remember that:

Failing keeps you humble.  While we can all be awesome, we’re all still human. We can always learn something from someone else.

Failing means you’re trying. If you’re just coasting along on the easy road, you’re not trying, you’re existing.

Failing teaches you. If you let it, a failure can teach you so much: what to do differently, how you react under pressure, about yourself.

Celebrate. Why just celebrate her success? Celebrate her failures. It means she’s taken initiative and tried something. Reward that behavior.

Evaluate the plan. Take a look at how your daughter got to this point in the first place. Maybe her plan was totally awesome. Remember, she can’t control outside factors. Maybe her plan needs some tweaking. Tweak it and move on!

Brainstorm. Instead of dwelling on the disappointment, brainstorm ideas with your daughter. Figure out tweaks to her plan, ways to overcome obstacles, etc.

Get support. We can’t be everything to our daughters. Sorry, ain’t gonna happen. If you can’t give her quite the support she needs, consider helping her find a mentor that can.

We’re All Human

Will this magically make the whole situation easier for your daughter?

Nope; it’ll hurt. It’ll sting.

The key here is in the consistency.

Just like you won’t build strong muscles by doing an exercise once or twice, helping your daughter through this process once or twice won’t ingrain it in her brain.

Keep working at it with her and soon you’ll have an even more confident little lady on your hands.

I mentioned goals earlier; they’re part of this process. Want a super-colorful, girl-inspired way to help your daughter set goals?

If you promise to share your email address I promise to send you some awesomeness right away!

The post The Success of Failure: Teaching Your Daughter to Appreciate an Epic Fail appeared first on Sweet Phenomena.