By Dr. Sibyl West, Sr. Director of Education at ROX
Have you ever watched your daughter go quiet in a moment when you really wished she'd speak up? Or maybe it's the opposite: maybe she said exactly what she thought, and it was not what you were expecting to hear. Have you ever found yourself wondering what, exactly, is the right thing to do in these situations? You find yourself wishing you had the playbook on how to raise a confident girl.
If that’s you, you’re in exactly the right place. But before we dive into three ways to build your girl’s confidence, allow me to introduce you to ROX (Ruling Our eXperiences). ROX is the national nonprofit leader in programming, research and education focused on girls in grades five through 12. Our mission is to create generations of confident girls who control their own relationships, experiences, decisions and futures.
Maybe your daughter is enrolled in a ROX Program for Girls at her school, and you’re reading this blog because you want to do everything you can to support her at home.
But maybe this is the first time you’re hearing about ROX. Either way, this blog is for you.
Everything we do at ROX is based on rigorous research. In fact, every five years, we conduct The Girls’ Index™, which is the largest survey of its kind on girls in grades five through 12 across the United States.
In The Girls’ Index™, we ask girls what they're experiencing, what they believe, and how they see themselves. More than 27,000 girls have answered to-date.
What they're telling us is hard to hear: girls' confidence has dropped sharply in recent years, and the drop is steepest among our youngest girls. In fact 79% of respondents told us they're under more pressure than they can handle.
That's a sobering picture. But it's also a roadmap, because when girls tell us exactly what they're up against, we know exactly how to show up for them. That's what the ROX and The ROX Program for Girls does.
If you’re a parent or caregiver, here's what I want you to hold onto: your girl doesn't need to be fixed. She needs the tools, the community, and the trained guidance to become who she already has it in her to be.
So now, let’s talk about three ways you can help your girl build confidence.
The Skills That Build Confidence
Here's the thing: confidence isn't a personality trait. It's not something a girl either has or doesn't have.
There are three areas that play a key role in building a girl’s confidence. First, using her voice. Second, trusting herself. And third, maybe the hardest one, learning to handle hard things.
How To Help Your Girl Use Her Voice
What does using her voice have to do with building confidence? I think when we hear the word, “confident,” we picture a girl who walks into a room with her head held high, and who isn't afraid to speak in front of people. But confidence is also knowing that what you think and what you need matters, and being willing to say it out loud.
When a girl says, “I don't agree,” “I need help,” or even “I don't like that,” she's practicing confidence. She's learning: my voice matters. I can say what I think, even when somebody else might not agree with me.
Here's what that can actually look like at home, and it's tricky, because using her voice doesn't always look the way we want it to look. Sometimes it's your girl telling you she doesn't agree with a decision you made. Other times she might be telling you she doesn't want to hug somebody, or saying something a friend did bothered her. These things can be hard to hear.
It can also be really simple things like ordering her own food at a restaurant, asking a teacher a question instead of having you send an email, or telling someone what she actually wants instead of saying, “I don't care.”
And sometimes, yes, it might sound a little like attitude. That's where we have to separate what she's saying from how she's saying it.
Now here's where we tend to get in our own way: we jump in. And usually it's because it's just easier… Somebody asks her a question, and we answer. She has a problem with a teacher, and we send the email. She's trying to figure out what to say to a friend, and we tell her exactly what to say.
And here's a hard one: we tell our girls we want them to be strong and assertive, but then when they practice that assertiveness on us, suddenly we're thinking, “oh no, not in this house.”
But she has to have somewhere safe to practice using that voice. Home is actually one of the most important places for her to do that.
So what can we do instead? Give her the chance to speak before you step in. If somebody asks her a question, wait a second and let her answer it. If she has a problem, instead of immediately fixing it, ask her, “what do you think you could say?” If she disagrees with you, you don't have to change your answer, but you can hear her out.
And when she does speak up, especially when it was hard for her, acknowledge it. Something as simple as, “I'm glad you told me,” or “I know that probably wasn't easy to say.”
Helping Your Girl Learn How To Trust Herself
A big part of confidence is being able to say, I trust myself. I trust myself to make a decision. I trust myself when something doesn't feel right. I trust myself to know what I need, enough to make a choice without needing everybody around me to confirm it's the right one.
Because if a girl is constantly looking outside herself for reassurance (is this okay, do you think I should, what would you do?) it's really hard for her to build confidence in her own judgment. At some point, we want her to be able to hear her own voice underneath all that noise.
So what does this look like at home? You might see a girl who asks you to make every decision for her. “Which one should I wear?” “What should I say?” “Do you think I should go?” Sometimes she already knows what she wants, she just wants you to confirm she's making the right choice.
You might also see it when something feels off. Maybe she doesn't want to be around a certain person, or she wants to leave a situation but can't really explain why. Many girls think they need a really good reason before they're allowed to trust that feeling.
And then there are the everyday moments: choosing what she likes even when her friends like something else, trying something without knowing how it'll turn out, making a decision and standing by it…
Here's where we get in the way, and honestly, this one's a little humbling: we give them the answer. And it comes from a good place. We've got more life experience. We can see the mistake coming from a mile away. You’re probably nodding even just reading this, because it is genuinely hard to bite your tongue when you already know how the story ends. So when she says, “What should I do?” it is very tempting to say, “here's what you should do.”
We also sometimes override what girls are telling us about their own experience. “Oh, she didn't mean it that way.” “You're fine.” “There's nothing to be nervous about.” “Just give it a chance.” We're trying to reassure them, but the message they can actually hear is: maybe I shouldn't trust what I'm feeling. Maybe somebody else knows better than I do.
So what's the shift here? Give the question back to her. When she asks, “What do you think I should do?” try saying, “What are you thinking?” or “What feels right to you?” You can absolutely help her think through the options without making the decision for her.
And when she tells you something doesn't feel right, get curious before you talk her out of it. Say things like, “tell me more about that” or “what are you noticing?” She may not always have the words for it yet. And that's okay.
And here's the hard part: sometimes we have to let girls make a choice that isn't the choice we would make. Obviously, we're not talking about safety. But in those lower stakes moments, she needs the chance to make a decision, see what happens, and realize, I can figure this out.
Because trusting yourself doesn't come from always making the perfect decision. It comes from learning that you can make a decision, and trust yourself to handle whatever comes next.
How To Help Your Girl Learn How To Handle Hard Things
I think this is the one we sometimes miss when it comes to building confidence. Confidence isn't believing everything is going to be easy. Confidence is believing that even when something is hard, I can handle it.
Girls are going to get disappointed. They're going to make mistakes. They're going to be nervous, overwhelmed, frustrated, embarrassed, all of it. We can't build confidence by making sure those things never happen to her. Confidence actually starts to grow when a girl can look back at something difficult and think, “that was really hard, and I got through it.”
So what does this look like at home? Honestly, sometimes it looks like a meltdown over something that seems pretty small to us. She didn't make the team. She got a grade she wasn't expecting. Her friend didn't text her back. She has a presentation tomorrow and wants to stay home. She tried something new, wasn't immediately good at it, and now she never wants to do it again.
And sometimes what you're seeing is avoidance: “I don't want to go,” “I can't do it,” “I'm just bad at this.” Those are the moments when girls are figuring out what to do with discomfort, and whether feeling uncomfortable means they should stop.
This is the one that's hardest to hear, honestly. We try to make the hard feeling go away. And of course we do, nobody enjoys watching their kid struggle. So we fix the problem. We email the teacher. We let her quit. We say, “don't worry about it,” or “it's not that big of a deal,” because we're trying to help her feel better.
Sometimes we go the other direction and jump straight into lesson mode: “well, here's what you should have done,” when she really just needed a minute to be disappointed. If we rush in every time something gets uncomfortable, she never gets the chance to find out, “wait, I actually can handle this.”
So what's the move here? First, let the feeling be there. You could say things like, “You're really disappointed,” “That was embarrassing,” or “I can see why you're nervous.” We don't have to convince her not to feel it.
Then, instead of immediately solving the problem, help her figure out what comes next. “Okay, what do you need right now?” “What's one thing you could do?” “Who could help you with this?”
And when she gets through something hard, point it out. Not in a “see, I told you so!” kind of way. More like, “remember how nervous you were about that? You did it anyway.” Or, “that didn't turn out the way you wanted, but look at how you handled it.”
Because we don't want girls to believe confident people never struggle. We want them to know that struggling, and discovering they can handle it, is one of the ways confidence actually gets built.
The Closing Challenge
So that's three ways you can help your girl build her confidence. Help her learn how to use her voice, trust herself, and handle hard things.
None of these require a big, dramatic moment. They show up in tiny, everyday interactions. And honestly, that's the good news, because it means we get chances to practice them with our girls almost every single day.
So here's a small challenge for you: Find just one moment. Find a single spot where you'd normally jump in, whether that's answering for her, fixing the problem, or handing her the decision, and instead, let her go first. Let her place her own order. Let her sit with the disappointment for one more minute before you step in to fix it. Let her make the call, even if it's not the call you would have made.
That's it: one moment. Because confidence doesn't get built through some big overhaul. It gets built one opportunity to practice at a time.
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rox faqs
What is ROX?
Ruling Our eXperiences (ROX) is the nonprofit authority on girls. We conduct large-scale national research with girls, deliver evidence-based programs in schools nationwide and equip adults to better support and empower girls.
What is The ROX Program for Girls?
The ROX Program for Girls is an evidence-based program that 5th - 12th grade girls can opt into with parental consent, delivered in schools by trained and licensed female professionals. The ROX Program gives girls the skills they need to succeed in relationships, academics, career and life and has been validated with over 55,000 girls.
The ROX Program covers topics including: communication, relationships, body image, social media, stress and pressure, self-defense, college and career, leadership.
Who can run ROX?
Female licensed school counselors, social workers, educators and psychologists are eligible to facilitate The ROX Program for Girls.
How can someone become a ROX Facilitator?
Eligible candidates must submit an application to complete the 3-day training that prepares and certifies Facilitators to run The ROX Program for Girls. There are virtual and in-person training options available. Learn more and apply here. Scholarships are available to get trained and start a ROX Program at your school.