Keeping your girls on track

You want your daughters to grow up to be successful, don’t you?

The trouble is, young girls these days have so much to distract them. Especially once they’ve entered their teens. Suddenly they’re aware of how attractive they are and start to spend hours flaunting their bodies, worrying about their clothes, shoes, nails and hair, and wasting whole days on music videos, TV shows, social media, phoning friends, you name it…

So how do you keep them on track?

Because many girls who’ve done well academically all through primary school, start to slip off the rails in their mid to late teens, as all those distractions really begin to bite.

You fight the distractions by showing your teenage daughters what high expectations you have for them. And don’t just do that once.

Do it every single day! Because research shows that daughters who are constantly reminded of their parents’ expectations have the best chance of growing up to become successful women.

DRILLING RIGHT MESSAGES

So teenage girls are much more likely to succeed if you nag them! They work harder at school, waste less time floating around the internet and are far less likely to get into trouble. They’re less likely to become pregnant as teenagers, much more likely to go to college and less likely as adults to get stuck in dead-end low-wage jobs or to be unemployed.

Of course, staying on the rails doesn’t automatically mean that your girls are destined for the stars. But it does mean they’ll be more likely to work at being successful. Your task is to get them to the point where their desire to succeed, and their willingness to work hard, are driven by their own ambitions and vision rather than yours.

That’s not easy, though, is it? Because nagging a 14-year-old girl just results in endless eye rolls, slammed doors and major sulks.

But the more it seems like going on at her is a complete waste of time, the more it’s likely to be working. Because even though your teenage daughters try all the time to get round you, your nagging does set up the expectations deep in their minds that they should go to college. And not get pregnant as teenagers. Or waste their time on all the other distractions around them. 

And so when the time comes, there’s a much better chance they’ll take the right decisions.

Because all that repetition and nagging drives your voice really deep into their minds. Where it will stay for decades. Like even now, I’ll bet you can still sometimes hear your parents’ words, when you start thinking about doing something you really shouldn’t. So make sure your girls get the right messages, and repeat them loud and clear for as long as it takes. 

They’ll thank you for all your nagging. Eventually. Even though they make it abundantly clear how much they’re hating it right now. So stick at it!