Biologically women get enough reasons in life to feel depressed. Many go through terrible mood swings during menstruation every month while for some there is postpartum depression which lasts for several months and some just never recover from it. By nature a woman is a giver which raises her bar of expectations from others to be a giver as well and when these expectations are not met she feels emotionally exploited.
Dealing with Several children who were taken to counsellors and psychiatrists at a very young age and were diagnosed with emotional issues, when I traced their history I realised most of them were being raised by an emotionally disturbed mother who believed that life wasn’t fair to her. And unlearning at this age is very difficult so I would highly recommend parents to raise emotionally stronger girls who when put to test of life know how to shine. Who have the confidence of winning their battles independently and not someone who is in constant hunt of a shoulder to cry on. Also girls who make their own decisions as a result of which don’t look for reasons to blame others when things don’t go their way. It is not about raising ill tempered or disrespectful girls but it is about raising girls who value self respect.
For the same a few things that I feel are required to be followed specially while raising girls-
- Make them active and agile– Good amount of physical activity is the best way to release feel good hormones in the body. Girls need to go out in the ground, run, sweat, exert to feel more confident about themselves.
- Boost their self-esteem by letting them know their strengths.
- From beginning guide them to find solace in little things of life- be it creating something new or spending time with nature or reading their favourite author or playing a musical instrument or dancing their heart out. They must know their quiet zone where they can enter to escape the outside chaos rather than wasting time and energy in looking for someone else to heal them.
- Having open discussions about their emotions and letting them understand that it is natural. Each one goes through variety of emotions at different stages of life but it is essential to guide our emotions for a quality life and not let our emotions guide us all the time. If they are frustrated on someone they must need to identify that they have tremendous pent up energy which needs to be channelised and put to something more constructive.
- Teaching them gratitude- always keep their focus on what they have rather than what they wanted to have.
- Role model– Mothers to young girls must be emotionally strong women themselves who these girls can look up to. Seeing their mom with tears in their eyes at the drop of a hat might fetch short lived sympathy but ruin a beautiful life in making. So first mothers need to find that peace and harmony within themselves only then they can raise stronger girls.
Though I am a mother to a boy, but this blog comes from my mom’s experiences while raising me up and I shall always be grateful to her for raising me the way she did.
Parenting by Dr Shweta 