HOW TO RAISE A CONFIDENT, RESILIENT DAUGHTER WHO CAN SPEAK UP FOR HERSELF
Extraordinary Purpose Podcast
Solo Episode with Erin Verdis
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
In this episode, Erin explores how parents can help raise confident, resilient daughters who know how to speak up for themselves. Through personal stories about parenting a teenage daughter, navigating a difficult coach, self-advocacy, hard conversations, and an experience from Erin's own childhood, she examines one of the hardest parenting questions: When should we step in, and when should we step back?
Topics include parenting teenage daughters, confidence, resilience, self-advocacy, emotional growth, difficult conversations, modeling courage, empowering girls, and helping teens learn that they can do hard things.
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TRANSCRIPT
And teaching our daughters that we can do hard things, it's so important. It's so important to put our daughters in these situations to help them navigate hard conversations, whether it's confronting someone or asking for something that they want that's important to them, not doing it for them, not always stepping in.
And it's okay to step in on their behalf initially, but making sure that we bring them into the situation and help them learn some of these skills.
Welcome to the Extraordinary Purpose Podcast, where we explore some of the truly difficult questions and challenges that parents and their families face every day. Whether it's the sometimes painful process of parenting teens and young adults. Navigating relationships with your partner and children, or you discovering your purpose in relationship with yourself, we will bring heartfelt and vulnerable conversations to the table to support and empower you.
Our mission is to help you create a lifestyle full of love, passion, adventure, and influence. Here we go
  
ERIN'S INTRODUCTION
Hi there, and welcome to the Extraordinary Purpose Podcast. This is Erin, and I'm really, really excited to be bringing this solo episode to you today. This is going to be a really incredible topic. And how's everyone doing out there today? Let's see, it's Tuesday for me here in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And just the last couple days have started to feel like fall a little bit here, which is kind of exciting.
I think I've shared this before, but I always go through this little kind of melancholy period, like, after summer and before it starts to really feel like fall. So those first few weeks of September, I don't know, ever since I was a kid, I'm always like, it's, we're neither here nor there. Maybe it's the uncertainty.
But once fall really kicks in, I get in that cozy, warm, excited mode for fall. Cinnamon, apple candles, and cider mills, and all the pumpkin stuff. So I'm really excited that fall's just about here now. So today's episode is all about how to instill resilience and empower your daughter by modeling your own.
Okay, and I'm bringing to you today a couple really personal stories. One is something that has, come into our lives in this past week that I've had to navigate.  Another story I'm going to share later on is something from when I was a kid, and just been doing a lot of thinking about this. You know, when our kids are little, I feel like it's so much easier to advocate for them.
They're just little, like, helpless kids, and of course we have to stand up, and it's almost this primal thing as a mother to just stand up for your kids and do what you have to do, and you'll say whatever you have to say, right? And especially with our girls, as they get older, and they become adolescents, and they start having a mind of their own and a voice of their own, and the whole idea of embarrassing them becomes very real, it becomes more challenging to make that distinction, to make that decision.
You know, when do I step in, and when do I speak up on behalf of her, and when do I let her handle things on her own?
I know there have been times in the past when I wanted to speak up and say something and I didn't, and I absolutely regretted it later on. Now that being said, there is probably just as many times when I have spoken up, and what's resulted in that for me in the end, I feel that I modeled something a lot more powerful for my daughter than I would have had I stayed quiet. And, you know, it becomes more challenging because our daughters also go through that phase of, you know, "Don't, Mom, don't say anything. You're going to embarrass me," or, you know, "What if so-and-so doesn't like me if you speak up and say something?
You're such a Karen. You're so embarrassing." You know, we all get that, right? And you do. You question, and I know for a fact you're a mom listening to this, you've had those moments where it's that gut instinct of like, "Mm, I really feel like I need to say something right now," and then often we don't, right?
We get quiet. We hold ourselves back because, we don't want to rock the boat. A lot of us, most of us, it's human nature, we don't like confrontation, quote, unquote, right? We don't want to upset anyone. We don't want our daughters to be upset with us. We don't want to compromise that relationship, and so it can be really challenging.
And I don't think we talk about this enough, and I think too many women, too many moms stay quiet. They stay in the background. They're not sure what to say. This can also bring to the surface a lot of our own insecurities from when we were younger, right? It can bring back if you were bullied at all when you were a kid, or you had mean girls in your circle or something like that.
This idea of speaking up and saying something, can bring up a lot of that stuff from your past. Also, if you were ever talked down to or made an example of when you were younger for speaking up on something, that can be traumatizing for a young girl, and it can be very easy to stay quiet as you get older as a woman. But the truth is, our daughters need us. They need to see us standing up, using our voice, advocating for them, advocating for ourselves when it's appropriate.
And I am not here today to tell you when that is and when that is not, because that is very personal, right? That is a very personal decision that you have to make. So I'm going to share a story of something that came up for Skylar and I this past week, because I think it'll really paint a picture of what I'm getting at here.
WHEN DO WE STEP IN AS PARENTS?
So I know I've talked a lot on here, Skylar plays volleyball. A lot of you know that. And she is new. She's a freshman, at a new school, and she made the freshman volleyball team, which was very exciting for her. And I remember when, before she even made the team, she said, "You know, I'm, I'm hearing from everybody that the freshman coach is really mean, and she's really hard on everybody."
And then the next thing she said, because she's Skylar, is, "You know, but I think that'll be good for me. I think it'll be good to have a coach that really can challenge me and push me." And then the next thing I said to her is, "Skylar, you tend to do really well with- personalities like that," and she does. She does really well. She tends to get along with just about everyone. So the season got started, and pretty quickly, complaints started coming in as she got in the car after practice.
there were some tears at one of her tournaments, just things like, "My coach is really, just flat-out mean to me. She's mean to a lot of the other girls. The way she says things is inappropriate. She makes me feel uncomfortable," things like that. And this is kind of what I've done in the past, and it's what I did this time.
I listened, didn't say much, you know, gave her some, coached her a little bit on maybe how to, like, handle the situation. Told her to just, "Let's just kind of keep our head down and keep moving forward. Let's see where this goes. Let's give it another chance. Let's give it another, week or so or another few days at least, and we'll see where this goes."
And there was just some complaints of her, the coach, running really late for practices and things like that. So they started to pile up. And I kept telling myself, "Let's just hold off. Let's just hold off. Let's just hold off." And so last week, Skylar got in the car and granted, she wasn't feeling well.
She'd kind of been battling a cold, so there was that. But she just broke down. She broke down in tears and essentially told me that she had brought to her coach an idea for some new drills. And, you know, apparently the coach had encouraged the girls to bring her ideas and to let her know if they ever had anything new to share.
So Skylar brought it to her where all the girls were kind of standing around taking the nets down from practice that day. And instead of, you know, telling Skylar like, "Hey, let's, let's talk about this after we're done practice," or, "Can you come back to me tomorrow with this?" She looked at Skylar directly in the eye, looked away and said, "All right, girls, let's finish taking down the nets."
Completely dismissed her. Completely just shut her down in front of her team. And I know that's not the end of the world. Had that been an isolated experience, I probably would have just, again, let it roll off and coached her through how to handle it. But it was so clear that she was so humiliated. She was embarrassed.
It was kind of like this final straw for her. She just said, "Mom, I want to quit. I just feel like I want to quit this team. It's not even fun. I get. I'm not even enjoying myself. It's miserable." And so I'd had enough. I was like, "Okay." It was like, "That's enough for me." And so I still sat with it. I slept on it. I did not react.
I did not send anybody an email that day. I waited until the next day later in the day and I really marinated in this and made sure it was something that I wanted to do. And I reached out to the varsity coach who heads the entire program And I basically just shared with her how I felt. I shared with her what happened.
I told her that I had been holding off on sending any kind of feedback. I was hoping things would get better on their own, that I was trying to coach Skylar on how to navigate these situations. You know, the truth is, we've all been there, right, moms? Like, we've, our kids, girls or boys, sons or daughters, we've had these situations where they have a teacher that sucks, right?
They just have a teacher that completely sucks. And, you know, they've had coaches that aren't that great. There's people at school that aren't going to treat them amazing all the time. And of course, we know with life experience that that is just life. And so there is that idea that we cannot just go rescue our kids all the time.
We can't just have them switch teachers. We can't complain every time something doesn't go right in a sport, or they don't like what the coach says to them. It's true. We have to prepare them for the fact that they're going to have professors and coaches and teachers and bosses or clients one day that are a pain in the ass, and they have to learn how to navigate different personalities and tough personalities, and that's what really builds resilience.
So of course, I was coaching her through that, and I explained that to this woman. And she got back to me basically, didn't hear anything I was trying to say, and, you know, the main distinction I was trying to make is that I understand that this is high school level sports. I understand that these girls are going to be challenged and coached hard and pushed, and that I'm a life coach myself.
This is what I coach my girls on. I teach them how to navigate hard conversations. I teach them how to have a stronger, healthier mindset, how to push themselves. I hold them accountable. We can do all of that. We can teach young girls to be more empowered and teach them resilience without making them feel small and humiliated.
And so this woman, this coach, came back to me, basically didn't hear that distinction at all. pretty much only heard that I was complaining, and at the end just said, "I want to be very clear, this is a very competitive volleyball program, and our girls are pushed harder than they've ever been pushed, and it's to make them better players."
And I was like, "Wow. Okay." Didn't hear anything I had to say. And so I emailed her back, was even more black and white, really tightened up my message. Just really wanted her to know that, you know, I understand all of that, and I was trying to make a very clear distinction. It was the, it's the approach that's being used to develop these girls and to, quote-unquote, coach them hard and challenge them that's not actually teaching them anything.
It's making them feel embarrassed and small, and it's not making them better players, and it's not preparing them to become more expanded and evolved young women. And you know, I just truly feel, being a life coach myself, that when you are in a position of authority, when you are a coach, a life coach, you know, a sports coach, a therapist, a teacher, whatever it is.
When you have an opportunity and you are on a platform to help young people become the best versions of themselves, to really dig deep and learn who they truly are. And yes, we can teach them grit. We can teach them all of that. We can do it in a way that, again, is empowering, that's uplifting, that excites them to want to learn more about themselves.
And when I see somebody in this kind of a position abusing their authority and taking out on them what they probably haven't dealt with in themselves, and they haven't done their own inner work. And they are, they get defensive, or they're challenged by these young girls in a really negative way, and then they deflect that and project that onto them, I have a problem with that.
I have a real issue with that. So I sent her that second email, made the distinctions,
And so she came back to me, you know, a second time and basically just said, "I really think we should meet in person, maybe me, you, and, this other coach, Skylar's coach." She just said, "I'm really not understanding where you're coming from or what you mean by, our approach needs to be looked at."
So I decided to just take a breath. I'm like, "Let's just take a breath and let this go." And so I got this email yesterday, and I picked Skylar up from practice yesterday. And she was in a great mood for once after practice, and, you know, you got to remember, she plays club volleyball.
She's played other kinds of volleyball. She's always in a great mood after practice. She has a blast at practices. She usually has great rapport with her coaches and her teammates. And so to see this kid coming out every day miserable with just a look on her face of complete defeat has been heartbreaking.
And so when she got in the car yesterday, I said, "Wow, you're in a great mood. How was practice?" And she said, "Really good, Mom." She's like, "My coach didn't yell at me and didn't embarrass me for once." She was like, "Thank you." So remember, I had just told Skylar that I reached out to this head coach, the varsity coach, maybe two or three days ago.
I was kind of scared to tell her because I knew that it could go either way, but most likely she was going to be upset with me for speaking up, and surprisingly, she wasn't that upset. we were at, at the dinner table. It was me, Chris, Skylar, and my son, River, and, it kind of came up in conversation, and I was talking to River about it.
And she goes, "I didn't know you reached out to her." And I was like, "Oh, shit." And, she didn't say much about it. I think she processed it and recognized that maybe it was the right thing to do. She knew I was really upset about it. And so When she got in the car yesterday, I told her what's been going on, and, she thanked me for reaching out.
She said she must have said something to this coach, because she was really nice to me today. And so I went on to tell her that the other coach suggested that we all get together for a conversation, and I just left it there. I left it hanging for a minute, and I could see her thinking about it.
And she looked at me, and she said, "You know, Mom, I don't think you need to be there." And it wasn't coming from a place of, "I don't want you there. You might embarrass me more." It was just like, "I got this." And so I stayed quiet, and I listened, and she just said, "I really think I know what I need to say, and I think if, you know, the other coach is there, I'll feel more comfortable."
'Cause she really loves the varsity and JV coaches. She actually really likes them. It's just this one coach that she's having an issue with. And I said, "You know, Sky, I think that's a great idea. I think that's smart. I think that you can speak better to this than I can, because I'm not at your practices. I don't exactly know what goes on there.
I just know what you tell me, and I think it would mean more coming from you.", I should say, I should kind of backpedal here for a second. In that first email, the head coach, suggested that for this situation and going forward, that she wanted Skylar to go directly to her coach and have a conversation, which like I said, my son played basketball all through high school. I'm very familiar with high school sports. I get that they want the kids to go directly to the coaches, and they should. That's exactly what they should do if a coach creates the space for them to be able to come and say how they feel, and, you know, advocate for themselves.
But when a coach doesn't create that space, and a kid just feels intimidated and, you know, bulldozed by this coach, they're not going to feel comfortable. And again, this is freshmen, right? These girls are just coming into high school. This is their introduction to the sports program, and there is, this coach is not approachable.
And I expressed that in my second email, that I did not feel that it was all on Skylar to have to go and create this conversation with a grown woman who intimidates her and makes her feel small. So this was an opportunity for her to be able to have that conversation with the other head coach there so that she has a little bit of a safety net and she feels comfortable.
And so she's going to. In two days after practice, they're going to sit down for 10 or 15 minutes after practice, and Skylar's going to have this conversation, and she is going to be prepared. This was actually her idea. She said, "Mom, I'm going to write down some notes and so I know what I need to say." And I helped coach her through it and told her to come up with maybe two or three examples that she could speak to keep the focus on her, because she'll, she tells me a lot of things about the other girls, too.
I said, "Let's let their moms, or let's let them advocate for them, and let's you and I focus on you. So just keep yourself in your own lane when you're having this conversation." And I could not be more proud of Skylar. I could not be more proud of her for taking this on, and on her own recognizing that this was the right thing to do.
And I'm proud of Skylar because this isn't easy for her. And I'm also proud of myself as a mom and a woman because in so many ways, I believe part of this is, is nature. Part of this is Skylar just being the way she is. I always say, I had a home birth with her, and I was, I labor for 12 hours. I was up all night.
And at the end of, towards the end of my labor, I was like, she was getting close, and I just told my midwife, I said, "I can't push anymore. Like, I'm done." I felt like I had been at a, like a rave party all night. I was just spent. And my midwife said, "Erin, just stop. Stop pushing. Stop everything. Let your body take over.
Let's see what happens." And I'm telling you, I had one more contraction, and this little girl came barreling out. She it was almost like she just said, "Mom, just move out of the way. I got this." And she got herself out. It was amazing. And that's how she came into this world, and that's how she's been ever since.
So she is a little spitball of fire, by nature, but I know the nurture aspect is that she has watched me stand up, not just for her, but for other moms. When she was in a certain classroom where the kids stayed together for several years, so the parents got very close.
And there was a couple times I had to advocate for some other moms. And so she's watched me do this over the years. So I think part of it is that I've instilled this in her by modeling it myself, and part of it, it is just who she is, to be fair. and I feel really good about how this turned out, you know?
And don't get me wrong, do not get me wrong, I had a lot of fears come up around this. There was a lot of fear, a lot of what ifs. What if this coach doesn't end up liking me now and I ruin Skylar's chances to play volleyball in the future? What if they don't let her on the team next year because they think, "Oh, she's got this pain in the ass mom that's going to complain all the time"?
You know, I don't want to be seen as one of those moms who thinks her daughter should have special privileges or needs to be coddled. All those things that go through my mind, that go through all of our minds when we're about to step up to the plate like this for our kids, or for ourselves for that matter.
So don't think at all that this was easy for me. This was really hard. It, I wasn't sure what to do. I wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do. I'm still not sure if I did the exact right thing, but I went with my intuition. I went with my gut. I knew when enough was enough. I knew when it was time to finally speak up on behalf of her.
And until then, I was trying to help her figure out how to navigate it herself. And so that's why I said before, I'm not here to tell you when that time comes. You have to be in tune with your gut instinct, that primal part of being a mother to know. And what I will say as a little coaching here is never react.
You know, if, if you're upset, if something your daughter brings home to you pisses you off and you're ready to jump on it right now, sleep on it. I slept on it, and I gave it the whole next day before I made a real decision. I really, I meditated on it the next morning. I checked in with myself several times that day, and it kept coming up over and over again.
I was like, "Yes, this is the right thing to do. Yes, this is the right thing to do." And so make sure that you are checking in with yourself and checking in with how you feel. So, you know, the other thing I want to say, what this can do for our younger daughters is it gives them reference. It gives them a reference point.
You know, when we can instill this kind of resilience and empowerment in them by modeling it ourselves and then helping them learn how to navigate these situations. You know, Skylar's going to go forward now always remembering this conversation she's going to have with these coaches. She will always remember that she was able to bring herself together, get her thoughts together, sit down like an adult and have a conversation advocating for herself, being honest and open about how it made her feel, and looking for resolution and closure to it so that she can move on for the rest of the season and hopefully enjoy herself.
And her and her coach can have better rapport, and they've been open and honest with each other, and they can move on. What a fricking gift that is, right? And so this other little story I want to share is something that happened with me when I was a little bit younger than Skylar. I was 12. But it's a story I want to share because it's something that I've never forgotten.
So when I was 12, a little postcard came in our mailbox for, a beauty pageant, to join a beauty pageant that was coming to Michigan called Little Miss of America. And, you know, in hindsight, they probably put these in any 12-year-old's mailbox, but I thought it was really special that it came into my mailbox.
And so I asked my mom, could I do this? I wanted to do this. Now remember, I was performing all my life. Not professionally, but the world was my stage. We moved, like, so many times when I was little, and any neighborhood we moved into, the way I made friends is I invited people over to be my audience, and I would put them on my couch or on my bed, all these little kids from the neighborhood with all my stuffed animals, and I made up all these amazing dance routines, and I'd sing, and they loved it.
These kids would be like, "Oh, that's amazing." And so I was already... That's just where I was coming from. It was just something, I loved being up on stage, and I thought, "Wow, this is a chance for me to really be on stage." And so my mom said yeah. She said, "We can do this," and she supported me. She helped me do a little photo shoot.
She worked at a really high-end restaurant here in Michigan, in Dearborn, Michigan. That's what my mom did when I was growing up. She had a degree in social work, but didn't quite pay the bills as a single mom, so she did this job, and it paid the bills a lot better. So one of her coworkers had modeled in the past and was now a photographer, so she did my pictures, and we started getting prepared.
I got a gown and all of that. But I needed an entry fee for this beauty pageant. I think it was $500. And could my mom have just paid it? Sure. She could've just paid it herself but instead she set up a meeting for me to meet with the owner of the restaurant she worked at.
He was this really, really friendly man. He really liked my mom a lot. He just really appreciated her as a person, and he said, "Yes, I'll, I'll sit and meet with Erin." So she didn't sit down with me. She told me to put a nice outfit on. I think I put a dress on. I got ready. I put some makeup on, and I went, and he was at a booth, and she, and her...
You know, I knew who he was, but she reintroduced me to him, and I sat across from him. I shook his hand, and I thanked him for, you know, the opportunity to talk to him. And I don't remember everything I said. I was 12, but I know it was a good pitch. And he sat there, and he shook his head, and he smiled at me, and he said, "It would be an honor to support you, Erin."
And he shook my hand again and wrote me a check right there and gave me the money. I told my mom later that he was so impressed that I was so well-spoken and I was so professional and that I really sold him on why he should invest in me. And I'm telling you, I have never, ever forgotten that. That has stayed with me my whole life, and I'm so grateful to my mom that she nudged me because I think I fought back a little.
I didn't want to. I was embarrassed. I think I just wanted her to talk to him for me, and I probably even said, "Can't you just pay for it?" And she said, "Nope, if you want to do this, this is how you're going to do it." And I do believe that that moment was such an incredible reference point in my life that it has helped me become who I am.
It gave me confidence. It helped me learn how to sell. It helped me learn how to promote myself and get myself out there when I was a model, and then as a life coach and a business owner. it helped me learn how to have conversations and walk through my nervousness and my fears and do the thing anyway.
TEACHING OUR DAUGHTERS: I CAN DO HARD THINGS
And teaching us and our daughters that we can do hard things, it's so important. It's so important to put our daughters in these situations to help them navigate hard conversations, whether it's confronting someone or asking for something that they want that's important to them, not doing it for them, not always stepping in.
And it's okay to step in on their behalf initially, but making sure that we bring them into the situation and help them learn some of these skills. That's how we teach them to be resilient. That's how we empower them. And so I hope these stories served you well. If you're a mom out there that's struggling with a similar situation, trust your gut instinct.
Really play the tape through, right? Really think about where this could go and what could come from this on the other side. Because what came of the earlier story with Skylar is that she's going to learn how to have these conversations now, and she's going to understand the power behind stepping up and speaking out and speaking up for yourself.
So, so important. All right, moms, I hope you're doing great out there. I love you so much. Thank you for tuning in, and we'll see you next week for our next episode of the Extraordinary Purpose Podcast. Have a good one.
  we are so thankful for you and your beautiful family and hope you found something inside today's episode that brought you hope inspiration, and most importantly, a path forward. If you're interested in evolving your relationship, giving your kids the most important gift of personal growth and development, or are a mom looking to reconnect with your confidence and become empowered in all areas of your life.
Then schedule a discovery call with us today. Our mission is to help as many families as possible, find their purpose. And that starts with you. See you in the next epis
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