“She is so hard on herself.”

If you have a teen daughter who participates in sport, performance, or competition of any kind (including grades, appearance, and friendships), you may have watched this happen:

She can immediately focuses on what went wrong.

“I should have landed that.”​
​“That was terrible.”​
​“I know I can do better.”

And your instinct may be to jump in with:

“But you did so many things well!”

Of course you want to help her see the good.

But what if she believes that being hard on herself is actually how she stays motivated?

A Conversation for the Moms Behind the Champion

This is exactly the kind of conversation we're having in our Mom Behind the Champion series, a space for moms supporting daughters in sport, performance, and competition.

We recently held our first Mom Behind the Champion Conversation, and it was such a great discussion. We explored the realities of supporting our daughters through pressure, disappointment, self-criticism, comparison, and all the emotions that can come with being a young athlete or performer.

There were some really thoughtful questions and honest conversations about how we can support our daughters while also supporting ourselves as the moms behind the champion.

If you missed the first one, we'd love to have you join us for the next conversation on October 13th.

The whip may be working… but at what cost?

Some teens genuinely believe that criticism pushes them to improve. If they stop being hard on themselves, they worry they’ll become complacent.

So the goal isn't necessarily to take away her drive.

It’s to help her discover that there are other ways to move forward.

Validate. Then redirect.

When she's disappointed, embarrassed, frustrated, or angry, she may not be ready to hear another perspective.

Try meeting her where she is:

You aren't agreeing that she's terrible. You're simply communicating:

“I see what this experience is like for you right now.”

Validation can help bring the intensity down enough for curiosity to become possible.

Not all self-criticism is useful information.

Sometimes underneath the criticism is a legitimate desire to improve.

That's information.

But “I'm terrible,” “I always screw up,” or “I'm not good enough” isn't useful feedback. It's self-attack.

We can help our daughters learn to separate the two:

What can I learn from this?​
versus
​What am I making this mean about me?

That distinction matters.

A different kind of motivation

Maybe your daughter has been using the whip to get to her goals.

Our job isn't necessarily to grab it out of her hands.

It's to help her discover that she can also get there (and even beyond!) with:

Curiosity.

Encouragement.

Compassion.

Honest reflection.

Specific goals.

Practice.

The goal isn't a daughter who responds to every disappointment with “Everything is amazing!”

It's a daughter who can say:

“Yep. That sucked.”

…and eventually:

“Okay. What's next?”

With gratitude,

Chantal

This Week on Raising Resilient Teen Girls

Meet Chipo Her kind and compassionate nature make her such an amazing part of our team. She works with teen girls & young women who sometimes feel unseen and are working through relationship dynamics in their family! Learn more about Chipo

Mom Behind the Champion For moms who have teen girls in sport & performance. Body image, self-criticism, performance anxiety, handling rejection, and so much more. Open, honest, and supportive conversations to support you, the moms who are there for it all! Save your spot