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

believe it’s never been more important to talk about how the trouble your child will experience can lead to resilience. In fact, children are immunized against stress by handling stressful situations. We want her to learn how she can see difficulties as opportunities. And, ultimately, how God can and will use hurt in her life—even big hurt—for her

The actual physical architecture of the brain adapts to new information, reorganizing itself and creating neural pathways based on what a person sees, hears, touches, thinks about, practices, and so on. . . . Where attention goes, neurons fire. And where neurons fire, they wire, or join together.

the important thing to focus on is growing your coping skills right alongside hers.

overprotecting doesn’t work. It doesn’t take away kids’ fear.

Girls feel too much pressure—to please, to perform, to excel, to be responsible. Plus, they want to look beautiful while they’re doing it all, and doing it all well. They feel pressure before they’re really old enough to understand it.

Practicing mindfulness involves breathing methods, guided imagery, and other practices to relax the body and mind and help reduce stress.” They go on to say that research has shown it to help with stress, anxiety, depression, insomnia, and physical issues such as hypertension.

They don’t want their child to feel paralyzing fear. They want her to feel confident and strong instead. And so they try to keep her out of situations that create those feelings of fear or inadequacy. In other words, they rescue, they fix, they help her avoid the situations that trigger the fear.

“animal studies have found that after a prolonged period of stress, the adult brain will tend to bounce back within ten days, while the adolescent brain takes about three weeks.”

Anxiety is a lot like a bully. We used to be told that ignoring a bully eventually makes him go away. It doesn’t. He only feels more power in the silence. The only way to get rid of a bully is to confront him. Once your daughter learns to turn and face the bully of anxiety, he’ll come back less and less often, with less and less power every time.