This week’s
article summary is How
Puberty Kills Girls' Confidence, and it resonated for me as a former middle
school teacher who saw firsthand how girls’ self-confidence and assurance often
waned in middle school.
As
an elementary school, Trinity empowers girls. For example, it is more the norm
that our sixth grade student council president is a girl (and this year is no
exception). As you’ll see in the article, this isn’t unusual in that 1)
elementary girls and boys share similar level of confidence and 2) girls on
average perform better in school than boys.
In
middle and high school, girls collectively continue to outperform boys
academically, yet they frequently begin to doubt themselves due to both
internal and external forces.
We
still live in a male-centric world that encourages risk-taking in boys while
expecting perfection and compliance in girls. Girls also are more prone to ruminate
on their actions, decisions, and relationships, and, as the article explains,
that over-thinking can result in self-doubt and negative feelings. Boys, on the
other hand, are more often blissfully unaware of their imperfections and
unabashed to take risks. And taking risks is critical because we all learn and
improve from our mistakes and missteps; self-confidence grows from the cycle of
risk-taking, failure, and perseverance. As such, boys becoming men fits more
into Carol Dweck’s growth mindset than girls becoming women.
I
liked how the article talks about the “goalpost shift” from conforming in
younger years to being more daring and risk-taking in later life.
The
article’s take-away for us in elementary school is to give girls while their
confidence is high more opportunities to make mistakes and to become more
accepting that they (like everyone) are far shy of perfect and that effort over
time leads to improvement. It’s from
these experiences that they can perhaps store that self-confidence for their
inevitable teen years of doubt.
Joe
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The change can be baffling to many
parents: Their young girls are masters of the universe, full of gutsy fire. But
as puberty sets in, their confidence nose-dives, and those same daughters can
transform into unrecognizably timid, cautious, risk-averse versions of their
former self.
We spoke with hundreds of tween
and teen girls who detailed a striking number of things they don’t feel
confident about: “making new friends,” “the way I dress,” “speaking in a
group.” In one survey girls were asked
to rate their confidence on a scale of 0 to 10, and from the ages of 8 to 14,
the average of girls’ responses fell from approximately 8.5 to 6—a drop-off of
30 percent.
Until the age of 12, there was
virtually no difference in confidence between boys and girls. But, because of
the drop-off girls experienced during puberty, by the age of 14 the average
girl was far less confident than the average boy. Many boys, the survey
suggested, do experience some hits to their confidence entering their teens,
but nothing like what girls experience.
The female tween and early-teen confidence
plunge is especially striking because girls in middle and high school are
outperforming boys academically, and many people mistake their success for
confidence. But the girls we talked with and polled detailed, instead, a
worrisome shift. From girls 12 and under, we heard things such as “I make
friends really easily—I can go up to anyone and start a conversation” and “I
love writing poetry and I don’t care if anyone else thinks it’s good or bad.” A
year or more into their teens, it was “I feel like everybody is so smart and
pretty and I’m just this ugly girl without friends,” and “I feel that if I
acted like my true self that no one would like me.”
Confidence is an essential
ingredient for turning thoughts into action, wishes into reality. Moreover,
when deployed, confidence can perpetuate and multiply itself. As boys and girls
(and men and women) take risks and see the payoffs, they gain the courage
to take more risks in the future. Conversely, confidence’s absence can inhibit
the very sorts of behaviors—risk taking, failure, and perseverance—that build
it back up. So the cratering of confidence in girls is especially troubling
because of long-term implications. It can mean that risks are avoided again and
again, and confidence isn’t being stockpiled for the future. And indeed, the
confidence gender gap that opens at puberty often remains throughout
adulthood.
What makes confidence building
so much more elusive for so many tween and teen girls? A few things stand out.
The habit of what psychologists call rumination—essentially, dwelling
extensively on negative feelings—is more prevalent in women than in men,
and often starts at puberty. This can make girls more cautious, and less
inclined toward risk taking. Additionally, at an early age, parents and
teachers frequently encourage and reward girls’ people-pleasing,
perfectionistic behavior, without understanding the consequences. Often, this
is because it just makes parents’ and teachers’ lives easier: In a busy
household or noisy classroom, who doesn’t want kids who color within the lines,
follow directions, and don’t cause problems? But perfectionism, of course, inhibits
risk taking, a willingness to fail, and valuable psychological growth.
Later in life the goalposts
shift considerably where being able to take risks and rebound are advantageous.
And the boys in our survey seemed to have a greater appetite for risk taking:
Our poll shows that from ages 8 to 14 boys are more likely than girls to
describe themselves as confident, strong, adventurous, and fearless.
Teen and tween girls are focused instead
on setting impossibly high standards for themselves: the proportion of
girls who say they are not allowed to fail rises from 18 to 45 percent from the
ages of 12 to 13. In their efforts to please everyone, achieve more, and follow
rules, many girls are actually nurturing traits in themselves that set them up
to struggle in the long run. Adding to this, many girls are also wise enough by
the age of 12 to see that the world still treats men and women differently—that
dings their confidence, too.
Social media doesn’t help
either, and its ill effects might hit girls harder than boys. The internet
can multiply social stresses astronomically. In the past, girls could have an
overwhelming day at school, fight with a friend, and get a “bad” grade, but go
home and get some distance. There’s no distance anymore—only constant, instant,
and public condemnation or praise.
There’s evidence that tweaking
the status quo, and acclimating girls at this critical age to more risk taking
and failure, makes a difference. Some of the most compelling data links
participation in sports to professional success. It’s not only through athletics
that young girls can gain confidence; sport is simply an organized and easily
available opportunity to experience loss, failure, and resilience. But the same
skills can be acquired by participating on a debate team, learning to cook, or
speaking up on behalf of a cause like animal welfare—as long as there is a move
outside of her comfort zone, and a process of struggle and mastery, confidence
will usually be the result.
It’s essential to close the
gap, and to do so early, because the long-term effects of these dynamics hurt
not only girls, but the women they become, many of whom, within a few years of
entering the workforce, experience another confidence drop, and a drop in
aspirations. Their rule-following, good-girl methods have been celebrated, rewarded
by a structured educational and societal system. It’s a shock to arrive in the
adult world and discover a dramatically new playing field: failure is okay.
Risk is worth it. No wonder they struggle: Their whole life, to date, they’ve
internalized just the opposite, a societal bait and switch that should be
recognized. Girls are adept at learning—they just need the right study guide.
