Raising Worry-Free Girls: Helping Your Daughter Feel Braver, Stronger, and Smarter in an Anxious World

“Girls who worry are not only some of the smartest kids I meet, they’re also some of the kindest. The most thoughtful. The most compliant.”

“I’ll tell you exactly what my daughter told me: “I realized I’m more brave than I am afraid.”

“Anxiety doesn’t have a memory, remember? So believing she was going to learn from that mistake was just me falling into the trap of avoidance as well. She regretfully stayed home, and the safety she felt was stronger than her regret. The Worry Monster just flexed his muscle that much more.”

“We need to help them express those feelings so that they don’t all spill out as worry.”

“A teenage girl told me recently that she felt closer to her mom when she had panic attacks than any other time, so “maybe I let myself get really anxious because that’s the time she’s most nurturing to me.”

“When your daughter has a little help, a lot of empowerment, and a foundational faith, worries don’t have to carry the same power in her life. With God’s help, I really believe you can raise a worry-free girl. As The Message paraphrase of Matthew 11:28–30 says,”

“He has several tactics he uses most often in his attacks on her mind: exaggerated likelihood, catastrophic thinking, underestimated ability, faulty memory, and perpetual questions. Worry has no memory and assumes the worst”

“When she starts to escalate, keep your voice level. Do your own breathing. Don’t panic. She really will be okay. She may get angry with you in the process, especially if you’ve been her primary coping skill up until this point. She may want to lure you into an argument so that she can have an emotional release. If exploding at you is the coping skill she uses most often at home, it’s one that will continue into adulthood and into her adult relationships, such as her marriage, friendships, and workplace relationships. Teach her healthy coping skills instead. Model them yourself. Pray persistently. Prompt her to practice her skills. She can do this. And you can, too, especially if you both stay calm and connected.”

“Scientists have observed that our brains get better at whatever they practice. This phenomenon is called neuroplasticity. So at this point, however old she is, she’s likely mastered the art of the worry brain. Instead, we want her to develop mastery over using her thinking brain to “boss back” the worries.5”

“Girls want to do well, be liked, live up to their own expectations and yours, and look pretty at the same time.”

“The more she uses her voice to boss the Worry Monster back, the more she, in turn, builds up that voice, as well as her confidence and the neuroplasticity in her strong, smart brain.”

“A healthy mind platter includes: focus time, play time, connecting time, physical time, time in, down time, and sleep time.”

“girls with faulty memory ask lots of questions.”

“Courage with fear is wisdom; courage without fear is destructiveness”

“Children want to be independent. She not only wants you to feel proud of her, she wants to feel proud of herself. But, remember, especially if she’s anxious, she underestimates herself. She needs help. She needs you to understand not only what’s happening to her, but why. (Hint: It’s really for reasons that speak to the bravery and strength and intelligence that are already inside of her. But she doesn’t know that yet.) In the meantime, she needs you to believe in her. She needs you to remind her often that she’s capable. And she needs you to give her opportunities to prove it.”

“We truly are fearfully and wonderfully made. But sometimes our brains operate on false alarms.”

“How can you develop more flexibility as a family, especially with an anxious daughter? First, it can be helpful to practice in the safety of your own home. Change seats at the dinner table. Serve breakfast for dinner. Make beds with the pillows in the opposite direction. Mix up the bedtime routine or which one of you wakes the kids in the morning. Little changes can have a big impact on your daughter learning flexibility.”

“But when you have more emotion over something in her life than she does, she typically either shuts down or simply stops talking to you about it. Worry operates under the same idea. You can’t work harder than she does to defeat her Worry Monster.”

“Anxiety is a method of seeking two experiences: certainty and comfort. The problem is that it wants these two outcomes immediately and continually,” according to Reid Wilson and Lynn Lyons, the authors of Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents.8 To give children the certainty and comfort they’re seeking requires that we rescue them from scary situations. And every time we rescue, we perpetuate the belief that they need to be rescued. It also makes them more demanding the next time.”