March is National Women’s History Month, a month of celebrating the great achievements of women in our country.
As our world progresses, we still to this day see inequalities when it comes to men and women, an issue that needs to be fixed. Every girl deserves to grow up dreaming to become whatever they want. Every girl deserves to be able to work for the same opportunities as men. It’s our duty to teach our girls that they can be whatever they want to be once they grow up.
As we celebrate Women’s History Month, here are some ways we can better empower the young girls in our world!
Create awareness
The best way to help empower young women is by creating awareness of important issues that are affecting the women and girls in our country. Holidays, such as International Women’s Day on March 8, are the perfect time to make a social media post, read, learn, and talk about the ways women and young girls can become more empowered.
Encourage girls to follow their dreams
Every girl should have the opportunity to follow their dreams. However, to accomplish this, parents, friends, and family must encourage girls to do so. By sitting down and asking your young daughter what she wants to do in life, or what her hopes and dreams are, will help you better understand what she needs in her life.
Parents can encourage their daughters to follow their dreams in a number of ways, including: reading books, demonstrating leadership skills, participating in activities, watching educational movies, and much more!
Model self-acceptance
Another way to empower young girls is by staying positive about not only their self-acceptance, appearance, and emotions, but also yours. Parents who are constantly talking about their own body hang-ups in front of their daughters instill the same behavior in them without even knowing it. As a parent, you are her first and foremost role model and an example of who she wants to be like someday.
Another part of modeling self-accepting is to not focus on her looks. Instead of talking about how cute your young daughter looks, start including words such as brave, creative, kind, and hard-working!
Be a mentor
Lastly, to empower young women, every parent should be a mentor to their young daughters. When your daughter needs help, needs a better understanding of something, or just needs a friend to talk to, you should be there for her. Parents should be the role model in which they want their daughter to learn from and grow up as. Helping young women through the struggles of life is one of the best ways for them to feel more empowered as they grow up.
As we celebrate Women’s History Month, it’s time that we take time and make sure we are empowering our little girls.
At DREAM, our youth mentoring programs give young girls and boys an extra outlet in which they can have a friend. Visit our website today to learn more about our youth mentoring programs!
