While we were home this summer, we have enjoyed our community pool. It is great for kids–there are two water slides (one slow, one fast), diving boards, a baby pool and plenty of space for millions of kids to spread out. It also has two of these aqua climbing-walls near the deep end.
Last year, try as she might, Hannie couldn’t quite conquer it. She was only 6 and her arms and legs were not quite strong enough to get herself all the way to the tippy top. It’s all she’s talked about this year in the car rides over to the pool.
And no matter how hard she tried in early June, it just wasn’t happening.
We’ve talked about strategies, and she’s planned her ascents for many a summer week…
And then late in August, good golly she made it up. Hip-hip hooray! I wished I’d had my camera with me to have a picture of her smile that day, but it will be forever with me. She did something hard. It took practice, patience, and a lot of self-confidence. But she did it. And she was so proud of herself.
So early this week when we got an email about Dove’s New Self-Esteem Toolkits and I was reading about their new social mission to inspire girls to be unstoppable, I was truly impressed with the activities that are there. Dove has partnered with The Girl Scouts, Girls Inc. and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America with an amazing goal to reach 15 million young lives by 2015 with self-esteem education. Now that’s awesome. They have great topics and conversation starters as well as some hands-on activities to do with girls of all ages in your life.
And after I had reviewed some of the topics, Hannie and I sat down and talked about what she had accomplished this summer. She tried something new, she worked hard physically and she accomplished her goal of making it to the top of that aqua climbing-wall.
I know it’s small and it’s just one of many things that she probably accomplished this year…but I want her to always be proud of who she is and what hard work can do. I think, as women and mothers, we all want that. And it was so nice to have one more reason to have a meaningful discussion about it.
Thanks, Dove.
This is great and so important for our girls. I really like the Dove campaign they have with the women of all shapes and sizes and now this. I would like to add that a great program for girls is the GOTR (Girls on the Run) program. It promotes self-esteem, healthy eating, exercise. My daughter tried it last year (Spring of 4th grade) and LOVED it!!! This is a child who is positive and energetic anyway! She was on fire! Thanks to the women volunteers (moms and staff) in her new 5th grade center, all girls who wanted to participate were able to do so. They are offereing it Fall and Spring this year at our location. I strongly suggest this as another activity for girls. It culminates with a 5K run, which was an amazing experience–here in St. Louis, MO–with the Arch in view, thousands of girls and their running partners laughed, dressed in crazy, fun attire, danced, ran and celebrated. Encourage your girls to get involved with one of the activities available to them!
What another awesome girl’s program! I am going to check into it….
That is an awesome story and one that we hear quite often. Children love to be challenged both mentally and physically. What we see all the time is that children rally together to help each other figure out how to get up that wall. It’s not a success for them unless they all figure it out and make it up that wall. Keep up the great work and keep challenging children to learn and accomplish new things.