Lunch With Sandy
Welcome to the "Lunch With Sandy" podcast, where we serve up candid conversations seasoned with humor and insight. Join us as we delve into much-needed discussions, sprinkled with our unique sense of humor. On the menu, you'll find a variety of topics, from conflict resolution to navigating tricky questions with grace. We also explore current events, sharing our perspectives on the everyday trials and triumphs. So pull up a chair, grab a plate, and enjoy the feast of conversation.
Lunch With Sandy
The Art of Cultivating Confident and Independent Girls
Have you ever questioned if your daughter is equipped to tackle the world with her head held high? That's the very heart of our conversation today, where Terrance and I, unravel the complexities of instilling healthy self-esteem in our daughters. As we traverse through personal accounts and professional nuggets of wisdom, we aim to illuminate the path for parents striving to embed leadership, integrity, and confidence in their young women.
Navigating adolescence can feel like steering a ship through a storm, particularly when puberty's tumultuous waves hit. Our dialogue here is a compass for those choppy waters, highlighting the paramount role empathy and boundaries play during these transformative years. We foster candid discussions about the surprises our own daughters have brought into our lives, emphasizing seizing the moments for meaningful conversation—acknowledging that these are the precious opportunities where the true lessons of integrity and self-worth are imparted.
The episode crescendos as we address the art of empowering our daughters towards independence and the audacity to succeed on their own merits. Our guests share their insights into shaping a small yet staunch circle of friends and nurturing individual talents that diverge from traditional paths to innovative careers. We wrap up this heartfelt episode with an empowering message: let's champion our daughters to rewrite the narrative of being a teenage girl in today's world, setting them on a journey of self-discovery, where they can truly thrive.
In a relationship, when is honesty not the best policy? How do you balance what you want versus what you need, and is there something you need to say to your spouse but can't find the right way to say it? If so, then you're in the right place. This is the Lunch with Sandy podcast. With nearly 20 years of marriage under their belts, Terrance and Sandy Jackson discuss a range of topics, provide valuable insights on relationships and talk about the conversations married couples need to have. So what does lunch have to do with all of this? Well, it's a metaphor for how these conversations originally started. Speaking of conversations, let's get one going. Here's your hosts, Terrance and Sandy.
Terrance:Welcome to another episode of the Lunch with Sandy podcast, where we discuss various topics and offer insights from the perspective of a married couple. I'm Terrance and I'm Sandy. Today we're going to be having a conversation about raising daughters, but before we get into that, please remember to follow the Lunch with Sandy podcast on your favorite podcasting app and you can also follow us on all social media. At lunch with Sandy and speaking of Sandy, Sandy, how are you today?
Sandy:Probably as good as I sound, which is not so hot.
Terrance:And why is that?
Sandy:I think allergies came early this year.
Terrance:You know funny, you sounded fine this morning.
Sandy:Yeah, it's kind of started last night.
Terrance:Allergies might be coming early because your boy, poxitani Fila, whatever his name is he did say spring was going to come a little early and it is a bit nice out there.
Sandy:Yeah, I started seeing flowers growing, so that's nice.
Terrance:It's funny. I came home from my run today and I noticed everyone outside working in their yard. The leaf bags were out. I saw the infamous neighbor next door, who never cleans up his leaves, was outside cleaning up leaves today.
Sandy:Yeah, not me. I'm trying to avoid being outside.
Terrance:And the funny thing today Matthea was outside. He said hey, when am I going to see you? Are you biking or what? I said Matthea? I said listen, I ran today, I biked yesterday, I biked the day before. I said I'm waiting on you. He said oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I said I'm surprised to see you out here. He said I'm only out here because you're out here. He said as soon as you go inside, I'm going back inside.
Sandy:Yeah, I'd love this time of the year, but my allergies do not.
Terrance:Speaking of this time of year, we are in March, and you know what that means. It means that we have a birthday coming up.
Sandy:Yes, we do.
Terrance:And Aila will be turning 14 this year. So, speaking of her turning 14 and speaking of her turning 14, you know, there's one area where we do have a lot of experience in.
Sandy:Raising daughters.
Terrance:Raising daughters, raising daughters. And I think back and I got to give a shout out to my man, prince, because Prince told me something that it always it made me laugh, but it resonated with me and he said listen, he says, as a father of daughters, you got one job. And I said, oh goodness, what's that one job? And he said keep her off the pole. But that's not what we're talking about today.
Sandy:But valid point.
Terrance:We discussed this briefly in one of our other episodes about how it's different raising daughters than it is from raising sons. And regardless of whether or not you're raising daughters or sons, your goal is to raise a child that's going to be able to contribute to society and be respectful in those things. But when I look at raising daughters, there's always something that I add extra to that when I think about how I want to raise my daughters, and for me, I want to raise them with a particular mindset that's going to match whatever skills they may acquire. And let me explain. There are three things that I think that we need to make sure we nurture when we talk about raising daughters, and the first one is we want to make sure that we nurture a healthy sense of self-esteem when we're talking about raising daughters. And when I say healthy sense of self-esteem, what I mean is we want to make sure that, in their eyes, how they value themselves and how they perceive themselves is in a high sense, for lack of a better term and I use the term healthy sense of self-esteem because, again, there are some individuals or you can put yourself in a situation, or you can put your you can nurture your child to a situation where they're beyond the measure of reality, and that's not what I'm talking about. But one of the things, one of the qualities that I think that we should be focusing on when we talk about raising daughters and having a particular mindset, is a healthy sense of self-esteem, because I think that's very important.
Terrance:The other area that I think that we really need to nurture has to do with particular characteristics that make them good in a leadership position, and what I mean by that is I'm talking about the traits such as integrity, compassion, respect and those areas Well, respect and also confidence.
Terrance:And speaking of confidence, that is one other quality that I think that we should nurture when we start talking about raising daughters. We want to make sure that they are self-assured in themselves and their actual abilities. And I say all that because, particularly in today's environment, it's a challenge. When you talk about comparing what has been the environment for young women in the past and today, it's not just a challenge from the perspective of the environment. It's a challenge for you now, as parents, to actually get them to have a particular mindset and to instill certain things in them, and particularly for young women, there are some things that you have to navigate, to put them in a position to actually hear what it is that you actually have to say to them, and one of those areas has to do with the fact that, as a young woman, there are some changes that happen within them, and those changes not only affect them physically, but it also affects them mentally, and this is something that you may be to attest to, because I'm imagining that at some point you were a young woman.
Sandy:I don't know, has my camera cracked?
Terrance:But you know it's no. Yeah, when we start talking about puberty in children, both guys and girls go through it, but I think for young girls there is more of a swing. I'll call it Right. Okay. And I think that swing happens earlier. When I say swing, what I mean is from an emotional perspective, from a physical perspective you know they start changing probably. Well, I think it's statistically. I think they change faster than actual. You know the boys do.
Sandy:I would say girls go through more physical changes than boys do for sure.
Terrance:Oh, 100%, yes, yes.
Sandy:And that does affect kind of everything else too. To be honest, there are some days that I prefer not to talk to Ayla, right now.
Terrance:Don't you Listen, don't bring, don't you sass my daughter, don't sass my daughter.
Sandy:But you know, you can tell Like sometimes she's just for lack of a better term, just miserable. Well, I'm going to rephrase that.
Terrance:I think that I hear what you're saying and I think that we just have to be cognizant of the fact that when they start experiencing these changes, those changes, like I said, they're not just physical, they're mental, so their behavior will change, it'll affect their decision making, and I think that, as long as we keep those things in mind when we talk about raising kids or raising daughters with a particular mindset, you know, in order for us to achieve that, we need to be cognizant of those things and navigate those things, because they mean they are challenges.
Sandy:Yeah, for sure.
Terrance:And when those situations happen, the one thing that we have to make sure we do now is we need to make sure that we're not creating a cavity or a divide between us and them, because the change is very impactful and I know it affects each person differently, but when the behavior starts to change, when the I'm trying to phrase this the right way when the talking back and all those things start to happen, I think one of the things that we have to make sure that we do is we not just understanding but, at the same time, communicating with them, because I think one of the easy traps to fall into is I'm not going to communicate with them right now, because if I do, I might hit them with a two piece and a biscuit.
Sandy:Well, I must admit that I still am cognizant of how much I want to communicate during certain times.
Terrance:Yeah.
Sandy:Because if she's the one that's initiating a conversation, that's definitely. One thing I learned is that if she's talking, I try to stop whatever I'm doing and have that conversation, because later on, you know, you try to have a conversation with her and she's just like, basically, you know now, yeah, you know that active listening is important.
Terrance:Yeah, because you said it. Once she starts talking, that's the time for you to actually listen Exactly.
Terrance:I think communication is very, very important. I think that you know, at the same time, we then, now we, we also have to be able to empathize and put ourselves in the shoes of the young teenage girl. Yeah, when these things are happening, because you know, we, we have a lot of experience in this. Yeah, you know, we have two older daughters who we had to go through this with and I, you know, I'm sure you remember this the experience with them were very, very different.
Sandy:All three of them have been very different.
Terrance:We have raised three very unique daughters, and the thing about it is they tend to amaze me every day, and when I say amaze me, I'm not always talking about wow, what you did was amazing. I was like man, I'm amazed that you made it. I'm amazed that that came out your mouth. You know so. But the other part about that is, you know, the active listening is important.
Sandy:Well, yeah, and it's not always a convenient time either.
Announcer:That's the thing.
Sandy:And that's key, that's you know, because when they are talking is just you have to jump on it, because you just never know how fleeting it is, it's going to be it's like here one minute, go on the next, like it's. You know, like you have this one in a lifetime opportunity.
Terrance:You need to seize the moment, yeah, and you know, at the same, at the same time or in conjunction with that, at some point, or particularly at these points, when they start to these, that change starts to happen. They want to be independent, right? They want to be able to do all these different things, and the challenge as a parent that you're going to face is you have to be able to balance that, you know. Yeah.
Terrance:That independence. With the authority that you have as a parent, you want them to be able to do certain things, but at the same time, you have to be able to say, hey, whoa, bring it, bring it back, bring it back.
Sandy:It is definitely a balance Trying to give them the independence to do things and learn things on their own, but not to the point where it's going to harm them.
Terrance:Yeah, and that in some cases can cause conflict. And so when that happens now, you have to make sure, from a resolution perspective, you have a plan in place or you have steps that you can, you know, take to move that conflict to a resolution and at the same time you have to be able to set boundaries. So they understand that. Ok, well, I can operate between A and B, yeah, but once I go outside of that, there's consequences and repercussions.
Sandy:Well, and expectations. I think that's one of the best things that worked for Lexi was you know when she was driving and going out it was OK what time you know in having these conversations I should say up front to set those expectations. You know she knew whatever time she told us was the time to be home.
Terrance:Yeah, and you know what's important about that, what you said, you know. So when we're we're going to talk about Lexi for a second, because at that particular time, I feel that we were being very flexible in understanding, to the perspective or to the fact that you know she was growing up, she wanted to do these things, and we looked at it from this view, saying, ok, well, we're going to allow you to do these, but you need to give us this information. But, more importantly, when she didn't do what she said she was going to do, we enforced consequences. Yeah, and I think that setting the expectation is important. I think that being flexible with them and giving being flexible with them and giving them a certain amount of leeway to grow and to experience things is important, but more important than that.
Sandy:Because we didn't give her the curfew.
Terrance:We asked her what time? No, no, exactly.
Sandy:She was going to be home, and that was the time that she had to stick to.
Terrance:Yeah. But more importantly than all of that is when they break their word. Oh yeah, holding them and making them understand that there's actual consequences. Now, you know, all this stuff kind of ties back to those characteristics from the perspective Not all of them right now, but we'll get to it. But when we provide them the opportunity to lead themselves right, we're giving them chances to develop particular traits, we're giving them the chance to be respectful from the perspective of you say this is what you're going to do, do it. You earn trust in all those other things. You don't do it, life has consequences. And so now, as you move through life, you have to understand that you are going to be held accountable for all these different things. Yeah, and I think by providing them with that flexibility, that builds a sense of assuredness because now? Or a sense of confidence because now, hey, I can do these things, or I have the ability to do this and I have their support as long as I stay within. Again, a and B.
Sandy:Yeah, and kind of, like you said, each child is unique and I would say that you kind of have to know that uniqueness to kind of decide what tactic you're going to take with each one. Yeah. Because, like for Sheena, more of her expectation was to be out of her room in awful electronics right, yeah yeah, in Philexie, you know, she was a little bit more, we'll say, devious.
Terrance:Well, I'm gonna say I'll replace devious with adventurous.
Sandy:Adventurous. Yeah, it wasn't as forthcoming.
Terrance:Yes.
Sandy:You know. So our tactics with her had to be a little different. You know, I'm sure she did plenty of stuff behind our back, absolutely. But at the same time she at least knew. You know, like you said, that there are expectations, there are consequences, and you know, that's kind of that's how life goes.
Terrance:Yeah, no, 100%. It's funny because you know what you don't know won't hurt not us. It may hurt you, but not us. And I think that the uniqueness between the two of them, even with Ayla it astounds me because again with Lexie we had to play those cards. We had to say you have between A and B which, shayna? I mean we never really ran into that.
Sandy:No, and that's what I mean. Like it's still the same concept, it's just applied differently depending on your child. You know, and like Ayla right now, the expectation I feel like is more honestly, getting her to do more stuff out of the house, like you know what I mean. Like I told her and she almost tried to back out again. She's like I don't think I want to do a track anymore. I said, well, you're doing it, I want to see another me.
Sandy:Yeah, she just said it today, so for her it's a little different too, Like we set that expectation like listen, you need to do something. Because, well, you know she's complaining about being bored today, but then she's also saying that she doesn't want to do all these things. You know.
Sandy:So, for her, the expectation, I think, is like a little different. Even there, you know, we don't have to worry so much about her being in her room. She's not adventurer Well right now, she's only 13. She's not yet as adventurous as Lexie, so I think she's kind of in between.
Terrance:Yeah. You know, and I think the challenge.
Terrance:I think the challenge is they grew up in different times and I think that's a big thing and you know, right now I don't know. I mean, I think it's on the rare side that you have kids who are at that age and who are doing more outside because of just the access and technology. And I'm not saying that we want her to be that way because, again, she needs to get out and she needs to start experiencing some of those things. I think a big part of it, too, is with her. She does not, she doesn't want to fail.
Sandy:Yeah.
Terrance:And to some, particularly at that age if you don't try, you won't fail. But you know, my view on that is you fail at everything you don't try.
Sandy:Well, that, and I feel like she's very hesitant to try new things.
Terrance:Yeah, I think she's very hesitant to try new things in front of people. Yeah, and I don't think it makes a difference who the person is, whether it's you, me or whatever. Sometimes I can have a conversation with her, and you know we can get through it.
Terrance:But I think that with her it's a different time and I think that because of the rarity of kids her age doing different things, I think that makes it a challenge, and because who she is I'm gonna tell you. I mean, aila is, and people don't believe this. Aila is a little version of me, because I wasn't always the person that I am today, and so that's why a lot of times I can have a conversation with her afterwards and say, hey, listen, you gotta do better, you gotta try. I understand you gotta try harder. But you know, when we talk about all of this stuff and we talk about the change they go through, and we talk about giving them leeway and we talk about holding them accountable and enforcing consequences, we always wanna make sure that at the end of the day, you know we're supporting their mental health and self-esteem.
Sandy:Yeah, and that's a big one. It is a big one because you and, honestly, I should say, to one of the things that I noticed raising Lexi and Shayna and I did my best and I think I'm doing much better with Aila which is, you know, they kind of mimic what they see, you know, and hence, if you, as the mother, are constantly putting yourself down and remarking on your own looks, in your own body image, I feel like they end up doing something very similar.
Terrance:Yes, because they model that behavior and those are some of the biggest challenges that girls face. When you talk about, you know, the self-esteem image, the body image, even mental health, I mean one of the things that I've always strived and I think I've done a very, very good job, and part of it has to do with you know and we'll get to this piece later when I talk about having a particular mindset. I make sure that what they see in my interaction with you is nothing but positive and I know it can't be 100% of the time, but, damn it, it's 99.9% of the time and the reason for that is whenever they decide that they're going to choose a mate, a partner or whatever, I want them to know what it is supposed to look like.
Sandy:Right enough that we haven't, I guess, debated.
Terrance:No, we have listened, we've had arguments, but we've never, never presented ourselves in a negative light to them at any point in their lives.
Sandy:Yeah, we've never put each other down. We've never. I'm trying to just think of some of the stuff. Like we never got overly heated.
Terrance:We don't do listen, and it's not that we don't do each other each other dirty in front of them. It's just not something that we we don't do that.
Terrance:And when you were mentioning you know how you present yourself about certain things. I think that's very important because, again, from the perspective of me being a man, there are gonna be certain things that they're not going to pick up from me, but there's gonna be certain things that they're going to. They're gonna be certain traits that they look for and whoever is going to be with them and in their relationship that I'm sure they're going to model or look for. But that aspect of making sure that you know, when we start talking about that mindset and I'm gonna call it the Queen's mindset because you know that's my whole thing, the self-esteem, the being comfortable with who you are, where you are, all of those things we need to make sure that, well, we and by we in this sense.
Terrance:I mean you have to portray yourself in that positive light, because that's something that they're going to see and that's who they have to model their behavior after when they're in the house.
Sandy:Yeah well, I've always tried to push that. It's a healthy body, right? That is the goal that you should be striving for. It's not, you know, having one asset bigger than the other. It's not, you know. You know, now that the fine lines are coming into my face like I try not to comment on those A-Lid now telling me that I look old with my gray hair.
Terrance:Listen and went so A-Lid, and I'm like you know what.
Sandy:But I told her I'm like that's okay, I'm okay with that.
Terrance:Exactly. I don't care you know, and you know I say this, and this is the first time I think I'm gonna actually, you know, I've said it before. You know, I have this whole thing with being perfectly imperfect.
Terrance:Listen you are who you are, love it and own it. Now there may be some things about you that you want to change, but you should be comfortable with who you are. Yep, you know you should be. You know. Obviously you want to be healthy. You want to be happy and when I say healthy I mean physically and mentally but you should not be living by anybody else's standards. Right.
Terrance:And I think that's so important, particularly in today's age of social media all the access, all the body modification that all these people are doing out there, I just I get, I get concerned that me being the father and three daughters, I don't want them to get caught up in that and I mean I want them to understand that, listen, you are beautiful as you are. Yep. You should be unapologetically you and don't have a problem with being perfectly imperfect.
Sandy:Yeah, I remember one time too I don't know where Alexi and I were, and she said something about basically how perfect somebody looked, maybe like in a magazine or something, and I was like, yeah, well, they're probably airbrushed. So like, do you, you know, like it's probably not real. Like so you can't set yourself up to try to mimic that. I'm like. You're already beautiful as it is. You know what I mean. Like that's not what your goal should be.
Terrance:Yeah, and see, this is why, you know, one of the reasons why I labeled this episode Challenges of Raising a Queen is because, again, when I think of a queen, I think of the mindset I think of inherently capable, self-reliant, independent, confident, able to navigate any challenge that life throws at you. And I think that's the goal that we should be setting for our young daughters, and the thing that always poses a threat to that is all the access to all the information that's out there, and it becomes a challenge because no matter what information you provide them with, it's coming from the mouths of their parents. Yeah.
Terrance:And at some point, there's a period of time where the voice of their peers is going to ring much louder than yours.
Terrance:So when you're having that conversation because now it's finally started to come out where you'll see someone in a magazine and they'll look at that magazine saying, hey, that's not me, I didn't, okay that someone touched that up, someone airbrushed, that, it was Photoshopped when they see all of this stuff and they have this image and unfortunately a lot of that stuff is changing now but the image or the concept of beauty that's out there, that's being portrayed, is not reality, and young women have had the tendency in the past to get caught up in that and to do these different things to actually achieve that. Yeah, and what we need to do is we need to empower our daughters, and there are certain things that we can actually do to achieve that goal right, and the first is making them understand the importance of them making their own choices. And when I talk about them making their own choices now, I'm talking about not listening to those voices out there, but making a choice based on what it is that's best for you.
Sandy:Yeah.
Terrance:Now go ahead.
Sandy:I was gonna say. I know that sometimes that's hard and sometimes they seek advice from their friends, and I would say that that's kind of the second thing is not surrounding yourself with Friends who are not really friends, and that was one of the things that we had to deal with.
Terrance:Yes, with both of them. And the thing with that is this I, in the age of social media, it's hard for the younger generation to grasp that you're going to have a very, very small group of core friends who are going to be with you through thick and thin, and it's very small. I can count them on less than one hand. But with the age of social media and access and you have all these friends I just did air quotes they don't seem to initially grasp that concept. As they start to get older they start to understand, but by that time sometimes situations have happened that have forced them to come to that realization.
Sandy:Yeah Well, unfortunately, especially teenage girls can be really catty, you know, and it's important that they're surrounding themselves with other females that are supportive, you know, and empowering and showing the positivity of a female-female relationship.
Terrance:Yeah.
Sandy:Versus? You know not. I guess you know it's really hard to find those relationships and you know to your point. You can count them all on one hand.
Terrance:Yeah, and it is difficult, but the one thing that I think that it's important to make sure that you know, we nurture and we tell our daughters is independence is key. By that what I mean is you have to be self-reliant. I remember and you know I used to hate when they would say this. I remember when the girls would say I'm going to find a rich doctor and marry him, and that used to burn me up because I said, no, you don't want to be dependent on any other individual. Listen, it is fine to have a partner in life who is going to be there with you to help you build what you shouldn't rely on them to build, that's right that used to burn me up, and I think that that was them trying to take the easy way out.
Terrance:Well, yes, and I think that you know, if you fall down that path and you don't focus on acquiring your own skill set, building for your own future and all those things, when that person decides, or if that person decides that they want to step out or they want to do whatever, now they have you at a disadvantage because you can't provide for yourself.
Sandy:Yeah, and even from that perspective, even the simple things, like there are so many things you know that are, I guess, considered like male things. You know what I mean Changing oil, changing attire. You know being able to start a fire. You know like, just like little life skills, like that. Yeah. You know, I feel like you all need to just know how to do. Yeah, I think, just like as a female.
Terrance:I think that we need to make sure they understand that there's no role for a man that a woman can't do.
Sandy:Exactly.
Terrance:There's no role for a man that a woman shouldn't be able to do, and vice versa. I mean, we're not raising sons at this point, but the goal is, it's okay, I appreciate you doing that for me, but I can do it on my own. Yeah, exactly, and that's the thing, and so that's one of the things that I've always tried to have conversations with the girls about and I have those conversations with Ayla now is, you know, be self-reliant, rely on yourself, bet on yourself. That's the other thing, too, you know.
Terrance:I think that and we were having a conversation earlier, me and you, and we were talking about you I think it's important too that, in order to support our daughters, we need to make sure that they have the ability to pursue their path, and I say that is more importantly today than it was in previous generations, because with the access and the opportunities that they have, the chances for success for that are greatly increased. Now, you listen, you still got to put work in, but when we start thinking about the inequality that exists sometimes in traditional places of employment and when I say places of employment, I don't mean particular places, I mean traditionally there was always been an inequality between men and women. You don't have to go a traditional route and today's age you have the opportunity to build your own stuff, and if you're passionate about something, we should be nurturing that, because that potentially could be something that you could now turn into a career or make a profit off.
Sandy:Oh, definitely, Because, honestly, this is probably something I've struggled with for the past 25 years Like still not figuring out what I want to do when I grow up. Like you know what I mean. Like I've never known, I've never had. You know, like I had ideas when I was younger but I never really pursued them, you know so do you.
Sandy:Some were probably harder, you know also to do, but you know, and I feel like I've always been stuck in this like limbo of working, just to work, even though it's nothing that I'm fully passionate about.
Terrance:So let me ask you this question. This is a leading question to a question I may potentially ask you, but I'm only going to ask you that, if you can stay on the light side of things, would you say that, as a young teenager or as a teenager, there were certain traits or qualities that were nurtured from your parents to you? Well, only on the light side, it's just.
Sandy:Yeah, no, I'm just trying to like think that one through. I feel like it was, honestly, it always felt like more kind of the situation Like, okay, you're gonna go to school so that you can get a good job, but then you're gonna get married and have kids, you know. So it was still within that traditional realm, but at least having an education.
Terrance:Yeah.
Sandy:I don't think that anything was ever like. What do you really? You know, what are you passionate about, that you can, you know, focus on.
Terrance:Yeah, and you know what? Again, time provides the opportunity to gain experience and knowledge that otherwise you wouldn't have had, and I know that the mindset was different back then, but now what happens is we have the opportunity to think differently. I still think that, and you know this, and I tell the good listen, particularly Ayla education is important, but so are your passions, so you need to make sure you get your education, but that doesn't mean that you have to lock yourself into something. Where you're not, you're going to be miserable Because, again, you know what me I separate who I am from what I do, and I think that that's very important. But we want to make sure that, in order to support our daughters, we start having these conversations and making sure they understand that you may decide to do something today that you don't want to do tomorrow, and that's okay. Yeah.
Terrance:But as long as you are continuing to move in a direction that you see, that you see fits who you are, yeah Well, and to be honest, I probably made just a lot of dumb decisions when I was younger that moved me away from that path.
Sandy:Right, but I think to your point. When you can create harmony between the two, like what you're doing for work plus your passion, you're just going to be that much happier.
Terrance:And so what I'll say to what you just said is this but now that provides you the opportunity to learn a look at your experience and take what works from that and instill that in the girls, and what doesn't you leave to the side. The thing about a challenge is a challenge is an opportunity, right, as long as you learn from your failures or whatever, then you win. That's why, going back to Aila, I think it's important for her to follow through on some of these things. Now, again, I don't want to be the parent that forces her to do anything, but I think she should at least try, and that's why I'm going to get out there with her and try to do some running with her and support her, and, at the same time, I don't want to put her in a situation where she starts to feel self-confident and she doesn't have that self-esteem. And that's the balance that we actually need to focus to make sure that, yeah, for her.
Sandy:I think when she does it she's going to be fine. You know what I mean. She's going to enjoy it. It's just getting her to do it.
Terrance:And you know the other thing too the other thing I wonder is whether or not someone else was going to do it. And then they backed out.
Sandy:That could very well maybe, but we'll say, but you know, and then, kind of like, what you're talking about it's also like. So it is one of the things that I did learn and that's where I try to like even help guide Lexi. If you remember, lexi was like, oh, she wanted to go into business, she wanted to do this, you know. And is she 100% happy in her career now? I don't know. But I think, I think it's just the environment that she's working in, not so much her career choice.
Terrance:But here's the difference though.
Sandy:But, like to the point, like she wanted to go into business and I said, well, why don't you go help your uncle take this job, you know? Cause this is essentially what you're going to be doing if you get into business, like sitting at a desk and banging out work for the most part, right, and that was the you know. So I think in that daughter she did not want to be in business.
Terrance:Well, I think there's a difference. I mean there is a difference depending on what it is, because if we define what he technically you know he is a CPA, and depending on what business you get into, it can be very different from that, but I hear what you're saying.
Terrance:It's go and experience something and see what you want to do. Now the part about her not being extremely happy with what she does. I know that for a fact because I asked her. But at the same time she is happy she might, and that's the thing. This is where I talk about separating what you do from who. You are right you don't have to enjoy 100% what it is that you do. It's nice if you do, but you don't have to. I think that you know, when it comes down to what we want to make sure that we're instilling in these and our daughters and kids in general is, you know, life is about balance. You're not, it's not going to be all roses and whatever you want to call it 100% of the time, but you got to look at that balance and as long as you can maintain that balance and you're happy, then you know it's a win.
Sandy:Yeah, for sure.
Terrance:So you know, today we're talking about. You know raising teenage girls and how it can be a challenge. It takes patience, empathy and understanding to do so. The key to success is found through communicating openly and honestly, in setting clear boundaries that take into account who they are, but at the same time, you have to have a clear set of consequences and be able to support and empower them with their choices and their passions. So let's empower our daughters to embrace their uniqueness, chase their dreams and rewrite the story of what it means to be a teenage girl in today's world, because when we believe in their potential, there's no limit to what they can achieve. Thank you for joining us on the Lunch with Sandy podcast. Please be sure to follow us and leave feedback on your favorite podcasting app. Until next time, stay well.
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