Cindy Lopez: Welcome. My name is Cindy Lopez, the host of this CHC podcast, Voices of Compassion. We hope you find a little courage, feel connected and experience compassion every time you listen.
What does it really mean to raise strong girls, and how has our understanding of their needs evolved? In this heartfelt conversation we talk with CHC experts, Dr. Marjan Ebadi, and Dr. Emily Hsu about the unique challenges girls face growing up today, from the moment a young girl says, “I can’t do it” to the pressures of body image, perfectionism, and social media, we explore how confidence develops and sometimes dips through childhood and adolescence. We’ll share real stories and practical ways parents can help girls build resilience, embrace mistakes, and believe in their own brilliance. We’ll also talk about the power of modeling confidence as adults and why this generation of girls gives us so much hope for the future.
Thank you so much, Dr. Hsu and Dr. Ebadi for joining us today to talk about raising strong girls. Before we launch into our conversation, I’d love it if you could take a couple of minutes to tell our listeners a little bit more about you.
Marjan Ebadi, PhD: Hi. I am Dr. Marjan Ebadi and I am a psychologist at CHC, and I mostly do psychological evaluation for ADHD, learning disability, mood disorders, and I’m really excited to talk about how to help build more confident girls and advocate for them.
Emily Hsu, PhD: Hi, I am Dr. Emily Hsu. I’m also a clinical psychologist. I work on the community clinic / Medi-Cal side. I also participate in evaluations as well, and I also provide parent coaching. I’m really excited about this topic because I think it’s always good to try to foster confidence as early as possible.
Cindy Lopez: Thank you for sharing your thoughts and your insights and experience with us today. Let’s talk about, first of all, what does raising strong girls mean to you as psychologists and maybe even your own experience?
Marjan Ebadi, PhD: I think big changes usually start at micro-movements or within the home. Part of society, like 50% or more are female. So, it’s always helpful to be able to build confidence early on in girls – so then we can improve our society as a whole – because then we can have females that will advocate for themselves and will have careers or making change and shifts when they become older.
Emily Hsu, PhD: Strong girls means a lot of different things to me, as a psychologist and also as a woman, as an ethnic minority woman, as a daughter, a sister, I think it means confidence in knowing who you are. And even if for some reason somebody says something, comments on what you say, your body, studies have shown that girls often get comments about themselves that aren’t the most positive as young as six as old, I’m going to say as old as eight because that’s a little bit older. And I think it’s about women knowing their voice matters and being able to use their voice even if they do get comments about how they’re saying something, that the fact that they said something about their bodies, they’re still going to be able to be curious and also stand up for what they believe in without shrinking themselves to match what is more palpable. And also being able to not only advocate for themselves, but also being able to be like, “You know what, that didn’t feel good to me, what that person said.” And instead of ruminating about it or letting that really hurt their self-esteem and not, for example, maybe say or do something again, to be curious and seek support from other individuals, whether it be like another woman, but to someone in general who can be like, okay, well let’s process that. How did that feel to you? And so, it’s learning to be able to find your voice and trust your voice again and again, especially as society changes.
Cindy Lopez: Yeah. I love what you just said about find your voice and trust your voice. I think that’s so important and even for us as adults and being female and everything that, that means. It was a long time ago when I grew up, but when I grew up there was a lot of girls kind of being seen and not heard. So, I think as we consider raising strong girls in our conversation today, I’m wondering too, how has our understanding of girls needs changed or evolved over time?
Emily Hsu, PhD: I think it’s changed, at least for me because I don’t think my mom necessarily knows, but my mom raised me as a feminist and my mom was an orphan. She came over when she was 18, didn’t speak any English, learned herself, put herself through nursing school, and I think the needs have changed in that it started with my mom who realized even though she got adopted that she had to be able to stand on her own two feet, make her way, but she also was coming from a time period where women weren’t able to open a mortgage without permission from their husband. They weren’t able to hold a bank account. And so my mom instilled, because she was able to, because of what other women pioneered, where we all know that women weren’t able to vote. And so I think, I want use the term back in the day, I think the needs have evolved in that women as each generation has been like, you know what we can do more. We are more, and we deserve to do more. I think the needs have evolved in that women don’t want to just be like, well this is just how it is. This is what society wants of me. This is how society defines what I am as a woman. I think women are saying, you know what, I want my daughter, I want my sister to have opportunities, and I want her to be able to get them. And so I think the need has been where women have wanted to because of their experiences. And as the generations have shifted because I know it’s shifted even with me, the needs have been like, I want be more financially stable, independent. I want to be able to work and become a scientist. And so I think the needs have evolved in that we are seeing women be what they’ve always been, but I think it’s gotten louder with women saying like, let’s trust our voices because we do it all anyway. I think the need has been, going from being a homemaker, which is a full-time job in and of itself, but also being able to do more and be more without society saying, wait, wait, why are you trying to step outside of what has been honestly societally beneficial, not for women.
Cindy Lopez: And I think we’re also saying at the same time that women are also making a choice or they have the opportunity now to make a choice between being the full-time mom and maybe trying to balance the work and being a mom or being more full-time working mom. Like, all of those things are coming into play now whereas you know a few decades ago there weren’t those choices. So, all of those choices are great. It’s just that I think what we’re saying now is like, what we really want our girls to know as they’re growing up is that they do have choices – and that they can make choices that are true to them and make sense for them and their families.
Marjan Ebadi, PhD: Just to add on what you both said so beautifully is I think also another shift that is happening is moving from like, if someone is, you know, a homemaker and also like a scientist was like an exception or like, “Oh wow, you’re so powerful. Like, oh my gosh, you must be like an exceptional woman,” to be more like, “It’s part of life.” Like you said, having a choice to either do both or having partners that will help you to do both. So, I think one shift that I’m seeing in the newer generations to be more accepting of what are my dreams and how do I go for them? Rather than like, oh, I can either pick getting married or decide to be a career woman and I can’t have both, kind of thing. So, I think it’s shifting, one being multiple choices and it’s not an exception, like a lot of us can pursue those maybe with more support and help because we all need support. But, I think it’s shifting from an exception to more like it’s accepted at least in the newer generations too.
Cindy Lopez: Let’s talk about girls as they’re growing up. What are the key kind of developmental milestones, where girls might face some unique challenges that parents and caregivers might want be aware of?
Emily Hsu, PhD: I’m imagining kids on the playground starting at the age of six and seven. Like for me, once a child turns between the age of six and seven, there’s definitely been a developmental shift, an expectation, and I’m thinking about how kids play on the playground, which to me a playground feels like a very even playing field. You see all different types of children, all different types of adults playing together. It’s a really great way to work on social skills. It’s a really great way to work on gross, fine motor skills. So many things and I think about how we also have stereotypically socialized girls and boys in terms of how they’re supposed to be.
Like, I remember hearing at a young age, that it was important for me to lower my voice, not speak so loud because that’s what girls do. And I remember being told that in a private school. And so I felt that and it was even on the playground too, which is why I think about that scenario where even like the changes of how like you would see boys play, like I remember seeing second and third graders looking back, playing like more physically based games like soccer, tag and things like that, which was something that I also happened to want to play. And then I would also see girls doing imaginative play, which all genders would take part in. But I definitely think when you start reaching like those milestones of when you start going to school, I think that’s when you start seeing unique differences developmentally in terms of what’s expected in terms of behavior, what a child is supposedly or stereotypically going to gravitate to, whether that’s dictated by society, and how that’s fostered, I think is something that I’ve noticed, especially once I start going to school.
Marjan Ebadi, PhD: Just to add on, Dr. Hsu’s comment, as she said, a lot of things come out around age six, but I think a lot of other things that kids get to hear is from their parents or movies or jokes that things start to come up in playgrounds like, “Oh, you throw like a girl,” or “You can’t do this because you’re not strong enough” or “Math is harder for girls.” Like, it’s just like little comments here and there that I think, especially with girls that they sometimes tend to be more observant or internalize things. So, they just kind of take those comments and then integrate them. Some people are far more anxious or more self-conscious as they are, that they might take them as facts or values and then build around that like, “Oh, I can’t play sports” or “I’m playing against the guy so I can’t be as strong enough,” or “I can’t throw good enough.” And then also with math too, if you have a lot of anxiety that comes up just because those comments tend to make their way through the communication between peers and even like sometimes teachers or people trying to be helpful and they will tell you something that is actually more negative than helpful.
Cindy Lopez: So, I know that we’re talking a lot about confidence in girls and how do we build and nurture that confidence. We also see that, that confidence gap often widens during the elementary school years. So, thinking about academic pressures, peers, like comparison with others and even perfectionism, I think those all play a role in girls perceptions of themselves. What do you see as you’re thinking about girls during those elementary years and some of those things I just mentioned?
Marjan Ebadi, PhD: I think a lot of things happen for kids in elementary where their identity is also forming or starting to figure out who we are, or like what are we good at, or what are our friends good at. And again, for a lot of kids regardless of gender, they will learn a lot by modeling and looking at other people in comparison or comparing each other, to figure out like, oh, this person’s doing it better or faster, and then why can’t I do it? So, there’s a lot of those questions that will naturally pop up. And it can happen if you’re comparing yourself all the time, especially in Bay Area too, there’s a competitiveness that you need to be better or smarter or you need to get certain scores because you need to go to the next school or all of that, that are naturally present here. And it also depends on the comments you hear at school or at home that can, give you the mentality that you always need to be better too. So, it just a combination of a few things.
Cindy Lopez: So, there are academic pressures, even in elementary school, right? And so they’re looking at their peers and their friends, and they’re thinking, “Well, I’m not doing what they’re doing,” or “I’m not doing it how they’re doing it,” especially for kids with learning differences or other kinds of mental health conditions. They feel a sense of other, and I think that also can play into their perception of themselves and where they fit in the world. And especially as a girl figuring that out. How can parents help girls, their girls, develop a healthy relationship with failure and mistakes during childhood and even into young adulthood?
Emily Hsu, PhD: I think by just having a conversation. Because we know stereotypically what parents typically do is they say like, “Well, how was your day?” Depending on the child, you know, they could tell you a lot about what happened in their day. I think of it especially if we want to make sure that not only girls, but just our children in general are developing a healthy relationship on things that didn’t go as well, something disappointed them. And I do encourage my parents to ask them specifically about that. What’s one thing about your day you’d like to tell me about? Was there something that happened that you were confused about, like also putting in that emotional language, I think is also really important. Because it’s not just happy, sad, mad, right? There’s also the nuances of emotion and you can feel multiple emotions at once. And so I think about how we could foster that language early on in our children and be really curious, you know, now that they’re able to speak and they are able to understand, you’re able to have a conversation to have those talks about anything that I think would be performance based, whether it’s academics, extracurriculars. I think it would be a great opportunity to talk to our girls about, “Hey, how did you feel when, oh, I noticed that your head was a little bit down during this experience, X, Y, and Z, you know like, what were you thinking at that moment?” And if they can’t tell you, it’d be like, do you remember how you felt? And I think it would be a good idea to foster that kind of a conversation where it’s not just how was your day. “Was there a part of your day that was, maybe a little disappointing? Something that you wished went a little bit differently? How did you deal with it?” Having that kind of conversation I think might be helpful at a young age because we know that kids, they’re very social, right? Most kids want to tell you. And there’s that stereotype I often see, and I even know I’m using the word stereotype a lot, where you ask a young child about their day when they’re like six, they will tell you everything about their day. They will keep talking about their day, even though you ask that one question and then you get to teenage years and you ask them about their day, and they’re like, “Fine,” “Good.” And so I do think that that’s normal for a teen to maybe not want to talk as much, but I think if we were to foster these mental health conversations early, the emotional vocabulary so that we can increase not just their academic abilities, but also their emotional intelligence, the EQ, as we’re also fostering the physical intelligence and all of that, I do think that we will start creating girls that are more able to talk about what didn’t feel good. Because we know that girls typically are able to talk more about what’s going on for them in general.
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Cindy Lopez: I wonder about social media. Now in today’s world, that pressure that comes from social media, it can be particularly intense for teens, I think. How can parents help their daughters develop more internal validation rather than seeking external approval. And I think that social media really fosters that need for external approval. So, what can parents do?
Marjan Ebadi, PhD: I think as Dr. Hsu said, building that emotional intelligence and being able to like name things, notice things about yourself internally or how things impact you, would give them first tools to realize if they’re feeling stressed or sad about something, they can understand where it is in their body. And also it helps early on if you model that confidence, not just naming things that went wrong, but naming things like, oh, you did that so well. Like, whatever they’re doing great. And also giving them tools, be proud of yourself or name things you did or you’re proud of. So, building that language early on can help a lot. And then I think, being able to foster like a setting that they can also come and tell you things. They’re worried. So, then they get not fully just like external validation, but when you talk it out with somebody, you can build your own internal confidence as well. Because you’re processing the information out. But just reminding them about all these positive or strength-based things to have about themselves because the more we can name it accurately or help them recognize things that the stronger their internal validation will be. So, then it’s less of, oh, I need to get affirmation from friends, or people going to tell me I’m cool enough. So, if comments come in, it’s like, well, do I care what they think? Actually, I don’t care that much because I have internal confidence that I have built. And it can sometimes also get shattered too. So, having that external support with people that you can trust. So, we want to make sure to have these people that can help them. For whatever reason, it kind of got deflated, they can build it back up.
Cindy Lopez: Yeah, I think what you were just talking about, the idea of parents helping their girls reframe self-doubt and develop a little bit of a growth mindset. Dr. Ebadi, you talked about modeling. How important is it for girls to see mothers and other women in their lives modeling confidence and resilience and maybe expand a little bit more on what that looks like.
Emily Hsu, PhD: I think it’s super important. My mom, I mean, you look at her history and my mom is much smaller than me. I’m very tall. She’s not, but she commands quite the presence and she’s good. She’s very good. And I remember seeing her do it all. And she always did it so skillfully. And yes, she definitely had her moments, like most mothers do, where it was really hard. She would become emotional, but that generation, you know, that culture didn’t necessarily have a language for what it was, but I think because my mother modeled the importance of not just education, but going into the sciences, the importance of financial IQ. I think how to balance your checkbook, know how to be self-sufficient, like laundry, all of these kinds of ideas, was extremely important to me. And I remember her late at night because she did put her career on hold, when she had us, studying late into the night. And so I remember seeing that as a young child and being like, I want to be like her. I want to be the woman that can do it all. And so for me, it was incredibly important, to see that because I think if you see it modeled, and I also happen to have a good relationship with my mother too, it actually created a foundation for me to be interested in the sciences. So, I think it’s incredibly important.
Cindy Lopez: So, I think about growth mindset, which it’s a not yet. And I can try again. It’s all of that. So, thinking about that when a girl says, “I can’t do it,” or immediately gives up on things that are challenging, I mean, this happens for boys and girls, but particularly with girls, what would be helpful in terms of parents’ response to those kinds of comments from their daughters?
Marjan Ebadi, PhD: It’s going back on, one modeling it would really help, just because you can show that things don’t have to go well all the time. You can name it for them and then also kind of point out even if they quote unquote, “failed” on something or couldn’t achieve whatever they want, like, we can learn from this. It’s like what are something that did work and what are something that didn’t work? Sometimes also saying that it’s okay to let go of something and then retry again. Because then that way you can take a break and look at it from different direction because we don’t want to hyperfocus on how to fix one thing. And then it’s going back again to what Dr. Hsu said there’s a lot of, “I can’t do it.” It goes back to I don’t have the ability to do something rather than like, well, maybe you don’t have the right tools. It’s not like you innately can’t do this, but it’s you need to think of it differently or maybe we need to try our methods in a different way, or like I said, take a break and come back and look at it. And, trying in the future, a lot of things happen, even research, like we try multiple things and we’re like, okay, none of those worked. Let’s figure out what else works out. So, I think with a lot of those comments is just helping them, that it’s not their worth if they can’t do something. Let’s collaborate together or think about it later. So, I think that would be one of the main things, what I need to do or what I need to change. It’s more action-based than identity-based.
Emily Hsu, PhD: I like what you said, Dr. Ebadi about if a child struggles in a certain area, shifting the mindset of “I can’t” to maybe “This was hard,” but I also liked how you talked about maybe you don’t have the right tools, which also reminds me of something that we talk about in dialectical behavior therapy is knowing your vulnerabilities. If you didn’t get enough sleep, you are thirsty, you’re hungry, you are nervous. Like, I think of that emotional vulnerability as being also really important. You feel pressure. I think that’s a vulnerability as well. You know, when you compare yourself to others. And I do really like taking away that language of, “I can’t do it.” Can we shift that to, “This was really hard for me.” It’s a different way of looking at it. And can we as parents, foster in our girls that, “Ooh, this was really hard for me.” And why might that be? That curiosity, I think is really important because if we want girls to develop a healthy relationship with themselves internally, how do we distance our self-worth from an action. Because a lot of people will say, “Oh, it’s about results.” And if I can’t produce results, then I’m worth nothing, for example. And it’s like, well, let’s be curious because it’s not necessarily that. What you’re expressing is a feeling, and that definitely is painful. It sucks. There’s a lot going into that, but can we also take a look at what brought us to that conclusion, right? I think of all those cognitive errors that we have, like, if I can’t do this, then this is what this means. And it’s like, well, why is that? Might we, like Dr. Ebadi said, not have the right tools. Might we be vulnerable? Might we need to, like Dr. Ebadi said, need to take a break, and then reconvene, come back with a plan. How I think about players, a lot of times what they’ll do is, I don’t pretend to know football very well, but they plan, you know, what the play is going to look like and they change accordingly because something probably didn’t work. They’re looking to gain yards, which we know is extremely important. And so they don’t go, “Oh, we can’t do it. Oh, no, no, no… we’re down, you know, 15 points. We’re never going to make it.” There might be that feeling, and we know that feelings aren’t facts, and we still pivot, right? We still try to gain a little bit more. We still try to rework the play, and we could also apply that with our girls so that we could rework the play, rework the mindset so that we can build, as you said, Cindy, that growth mindset.
Cindy Lopez: Yeah. As you are both talking, I’m reminded about growing up and feeling like, I was praised for being compliant, and I think we still do that some today, especially in school. And, if you can like stay under the radar, that’s good, you know, don’t stand out. But how can parents, how can caregivers encourage assertiveness and risk taking while still teaching respect and kindness? That it’s not all about speaking up all the time, but how do you develop your voice and still convey respect and kindness for others?
Marjan Ebadi, PhD: Yeah, like you said, I think it’s been generational comments and expectations. So, I feel like it’s within generations that expect girls to have compliance or like you said, don’t raise your voice or be loud. We definitely want to create like a collaborative or social aspect to working with others, but what are my boundaries or things I don’t feel comfortable doing. So, teaching them about how to set appropriate boundaries and how to say no appropriately, right? So, I think bringing awareness to kids or girls about what are their limitations and what do they want and how is agreeing to something or not is impacting them and you don’t want to always be the loudest in a group and saying, “I don’t want this,” or “I don’t want” that because that’s not appropriate either. But just being able to have healthy I statements and just recognizing things that don’t work for them boundary wise. And the other thing is, learning how to advocate for yourself effectively too because you have to navigate systems, right? And that kind of comes with experience and also modeling and teaching. So, one way is actually if your moms are advocating for themselves at a store, at work or other things and kids seeing that, that’s one way they can actually learn better too, but just fostering and teaching them at home on how to appropriately advocate, teaching them how to advocate at school, and then noticing and highlighting their own boundaries and what they should do for themselves.
Cindy Lopez: So, I’m thinking about our listeners today, and as they’re thinking about raising girls and wondering if there’s something going on with their daughter that is more than what we’re talking about today, when might parents think that seeking out professional support would be helpful?
Marjan Ebadi, PhD: So, one of the ways is noticing when the self-doubts are more than just mild self-doubt throughout the day, like when it’s starting to impact your child’s friendships, schoolwork, academic work, and then you’re noticing that it’s, again, shifting from I can’t do it because you don’t have the right tool to like, oh, this is my sense of worth, right? What I usually describe is they turn into the worst friends for themselves, like they start saying really mean comments to themselves and if it was their own friend, they probably wouldn’t dare say that, and then pulling a lot of breaks that it’s impacting like their confidence at home, at school. I think that’s good enough to want to consult or check and see if they need some professional help or like therapy services or some coaching or tools that can help them.
I think early on is when you start noticing that it’s impacting multiple domains in their life. And it’s more than, “I’m frustrated with this” and it’s more like, “Oh, I’m not good enough” mentality.
Emily Hsu, PhD: Yeah, I would agree with Dr. Ebadi, I think there’s different phases. I mean, I tell my parents, if you are starting to wonder, and I think about, wonder during the developmental milestones. We’ve talked about how between the ages of six and eight, that’s where girls start getting a lot of comments about their performance, about their bodies, about what they say, how they say it. So, I think that could be a curious time for you to be like, well, how is my daughter internalizing and navigating the world, at school with play dates on the playground. I also think about when girls start getting their menstrual cycle, right. There’s a lot of changes that, yeah, you may go to class for, you may learn about your bodies, but…
Marjan Ebadi, PhD: No one prepares you.
Emily Hsu, PhD: Yeah. No one prepares you really. It can be really hard and especially because girls develop differently. You might be the first girl to start developing physically, the first girl to have your period, or the girl that’s a little bit later. Like we’ve seen Netflix series on it. We’ve seen documentaries on it. So, I think there’s also that intervention period.
Any transitions–I also think throughout the school years, right, where we go from elementary school to middle school and then middle school to high school, high school to college, I think there’s multiple points that we expect or understand kids to just kind of fall into a certain kind of an area, which is why we foster these mental health talks early to be like, alright, you’re going to be in middle school. So, what are some thoughts you’re having about that? Like, what are some worries you’re having about that and just kind of looking for any changes in behaviors? I think can be really helpful as well. I think we start seeing girls that are depressed. And Dr. Ebadi talked about self-harm, it’s gotten pretty serious. And understanding also for example, if your child is engaging in self-harm, I’m always curious about what the function of the behavior is like, what are they doing it for, where they’re doing it, what it does for them when they do it, before they do it and after. Because it can serve a function for our girls, especially if they’re doing it because they don’t like a part of their body, they’re being bullied or they just feel terrible inside. And I think that can also foster another conversation where I know it’s scary for parents if your child is self-harming or if your child’s depressed or both or having suicide ideation. I still think it’s a important way to have that talk because if your child, if your girl is telling you that they’re having these things, or even if you find out, how you approach it, again, is another opportunity to model, to regulate yourself and be like, “Wow, this must be super hard for you.” The language that you used when your daughter said at six, “I can’t.” Like, “Wow, that must be so hard for you. What’s leading you to this? You know, like, would you like to try again?” Having that same conversation but making it more developmentally appropriate. You can have those same conversations because you’ve had them before. So, this is where if we start young and you keep it up, alright, then we can start looking for these kinds of behaviors and acting appropriately and being proactive.
Cindy Lopez: Thank you, Dr. Hsu and Dr. Ebadi for joining us today and sharing your insights and experience with us. As we wrap up this episode, I’m wondering as you look ahead into the future, like what gives you hope about the generation of girls growing up today?
Marjan Ebadi, PhD: Seeing girls advocate for themselves and wanting to do things that I think my generation had a harder time… be like, oh, am I the odd one or is it more normal that everyone wants to do this? So, I think I’m seeing, even in like just in eval, I have a lot of teens that come in and parents are like, she wanted to do it. Like she thought there was something that wasn’t working. So, I think that’s a nice shift realizing, oh, something’s not working for me and I’m going to find ways to do it.
The other thing is I think also comparing to like when I was younger, I feel like they have a lot more models, fictional and real, that are showing women doing all these cool things that are confident in making a change in the world. And I think that’s always nice to see that, again, kind of moving from, “Oh, she’s an exceptional, smart lady,” to more like, “Oh, there’s a lot of people out there.” And I think it’s nice to see it both in the real world and also just like fictional stories to have strong models that you feel like you can internalize and also advocate for yourself.
Emily Hsu, PhD: Yeah, I think, I know social media can be challenging, right? And I think any tool out there, AI, depending on how you use it, can be something that either helps you, hurts you, or becomes a problem. I think with our access to just everything nowadays, I think about the access that I know I was looking for, and a woman that looked like me and a woman that was also very career driven. I think we can use that to our advantage because I think it’s so important. And I think being in this now generation where we have access to social media, I know for me personally, I look for women who only look like me, but who also are really leaning into proudly and loudly into their femininity. Like I have actually in front of me, her Instagram handle is Midlife.Muse. She’s a psychologist and she does these workshops on healing women. She also has some for men; healing women from within. She talks about leading into your feminine energy and also telling women, because we’ve been told, if you become strong, if you claim your worth, if you stop tolerating, you’ll lose your femininity because it’s inconvenient for some people. But what I really like about her and why I feel hopeful for the community is because we now have access to someone like her, where it is also more geared towards the newer generation where it’s in doses. Like, just as you can look at an influencer who might promote a lifestyle that you’re worried is problematic for your teen. There’s also so many girls out there who are talking about, I feel more so now, or maybe just because it’s part of my algorithm, talking about Instagram pose, real life pose and just talking about the different changes in women’s body goes through. Like, in the morning my stomach, you know, is relatively flat. I have a bite of food. And then because we know women’s bodies are changing, a lot more sensitive and not because it’s a bad thing about it’s just because we are very powerful, as a person, just biologically we’re very powerful. And so I think of that access as being powerful because we see women on TV now as lawyers, we see them as doctors, we see them as mathematicians. And I know for me growing up, I didn’t see that and so I feel like that is hopeful for me because we’re here to stay. We’ve always been here, but we have now more access.
Cindy Lopez: I heard several times during the course of our conversation, the piece about being curious and listening both to our own internal voices, but also to our kids, to our daughters and what’s going on and be curious and listen, and that theme seems like it comes up again and again in our Voices of Compassion podcast episodes with our experts as we’re talking about learning and mental health, that be curious and listen. If you are not doing anything else, like start there. So, for our listeners, thank you for joining us today. If you need some help, please reach out. CHC is there for you. If you’re thinking about maybe your child needs an assessment, some therapy, or even parent coaching, please reach out. You can reach our care team via email at [email protected] or you can call at 650-688-3625. Thank you again.
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