I was recently placed in a situation that I didn’t expect and really caught my by surprise.
While presenting a workshop for pre-teen girls, I became aware of how one of the girls in the group were being mean to another girl. No need to 'sugar-coat' what she did, she was just plain mean.
And like I said, this was surprising to me because over the many years of presenting workshops for girls, the support, respect and compassion that they have for each other in the groups have always been something that stood out for me.
While addressing this negative behaviour with the 2 girls involved, I then learnt that they've know each other since they were very young and that this negativity has been going on for a while between them.
I am always looking for ways to turn a situation into a 'learning opportunity' and of course, that was exactly what we did. I am happy to say that both girls walked away with some valuable food for thought on how they can be more kind and considerate toward each other, but it also got ME thinking...
think that, as moms, we focus a lot on teaching our daughters how to protect themselves from other people's mean and hurtful words. In fact, one of the lessons during our Girl-School course is all about "Protecting your Heart" and how you have a choice about how you let other people's words affect you. But what happened that morning made me realise that we should not forget to place just as much emphasis on teaching our daughters to also treat others with compassion and respect. I decided to create a printable for my own daughter, which is the 'Compassion Exercise' by Harry Palmer, to remind her daily to live a life of compassion and to have empathy for other people. I thought this might be valuable for you too, so I want to share that printable...
You can click here to download it.
Recent Comments