The Magic of Doing

I just finished reading Girls Will Be Girls by JoAnn Deak. Fantastic book, by the way.

As you can tell, I'm trying to bolster my confidence about being a father of two girls¹. I feel pretty good right now. This is a product of a) I'm doing most of the things that Deak said a father of a 3-year old should be doing, and b) 3-year old girls are a lot easier to get right than the 8-18 year old girls. Still, I'm glad I'm reading this now and getting ready for the harder years.

One thing I wanted to share that really resonated for me was in the last chapter. I suspect Deak put it in the last chapter so that it would be easily recalled. Translation: this might be important.

She talks about the inherent needs girls have for competence, confidence, and connectedness. What's the best way to develop all of these attributes? Doing stuff!

The stuff can be just about anything. Sports, arts, literature, service, cooking, camping, tutoring, civic groups, school newspapers...the list goes on and on. The key is to do stuff frequently and do a variety of it. As the girls get older, they tend to gravitate toward their favorite activities, but it's this initial push of trying something, experiencing it, and improving at it while sharing the experience with others that builds those three C's.

Why does this resonate with me? I see this same principle in action with my boy scouts. I talk with the older scouts at least once a year (when the new group of scouts is about to come in), and as often as I think is necessary, about their responsibility to protect the self confidence in the younger boys. I remind them that any criticism or bullying from them can cause great damage to a young boy's self confidence, and it can take years to repair the damage.

Luckily, the boys take this message very seriously and engage with the younger boys in very positive ways. They teach them how to do the basic scout skills, play various games, etc. Once they get these boys involved, you see drastic and rapid changes in the younger boys. It may seem silly, but the transformation really starts to become apparent about the first time that a boy can take down a tent without any instruction. It's simple, but it's accomplishment; and it starts the process of thinking I can learn this.

If you look at a group of boys who joined scouting together, you can see a clear difference in confidence between the boys who have been on 8 - 10 campouts and those who have been on 2 - 3. The ones that have done things are far more confident.

It's easy for me to frame this in terms of scouting--it's what I'm most familiar with. But remember, Girls Will Be Girls made the observation about girls. I see the same principle with boys. There's no reason to think that this doesn't extend to adults. Throughout our lives we should be working on being more competent, confident, and connected people. So let's all get out and do something.





¹ This was a bit of a gamble. I have heard a number of times that parenting books will just tell you all the things you aren't doing right, thus diminishing your confidence as a parent. Not so with Girls Will Be Girls. Even if you don't have girls, you should read this one.