Karen C.L. Anderson is a master-certified life coach and international bestselling author of several books, including Overcoming Creative Anxiety: Journal Prompts & Practices for Disarming Your Inner Critic & Allowing Creativity to Flow. Anderson corresponded with Girls That Create via email about her book, our Inner Critic and Inner Advocate, and how it all relates to creativity. Let’s start with the Inner Critic. What is your definition of the Inner Critic, and what impact does it have on creatives? Your Inner Critic is a voice-inside-your-brain that parrots back all the things you’ve ever heard that your brain interpreted as harshly critical or demeaning. If your experience of your Inner Critic is painful enough (i.e., traumatic), your nervous system might perceive it as a threat and send you into one (or more) of the human threat/trauma responses: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. You don’t consciously do this. It is an automatic, natural, and instinctual protection. The reason you might see this as a problem isn’t the nervous system response. It’s the stories you tell yourself, about yourself, as a result: myriad versions of “There’s something wrong with me” and “I’m not good enough.” Left unacknowledged and unquestioned, your Inner Critic will shut you down. You will continue to see it as something happening TO you rather than something happening FOR you by your human nervous system. It’s worth mentioning that the word “trauma” is really misunderstood. We tend to think of it as something physically horrible that happens to someone: being a soldier experiencing combat in …

Did you wake up one day and realize your child is now a pre-teen? That their interests are also changing as fast as they are? Whether you like it or not, your little ones are growing up. They are developing their own styles and opinions. What they like and dislike. And they want their bedrooms to reflect that. Your kiddos are also at an age when they are busy with multiple activities, so storage is crucial when considering bedroom design. Another essential element is to plan a new study area as their school activities pick up. Here are simple tips for updating your growing child’s bedroom. They are fun to do, and they won’t break the bank. Seven Ways to Update Your Pre-Teen’s Bedroom Honor Your Pre-Teen’s Personality Decide on a theme. It’s important to honor your pre-teen’s personality by selecting a theme that best reflects them. Whether it is choosing a color palette or a specific style, you want the room to feel cohesive. Doing so will also help give direction when shopping for new furniture and accessories. One way to find their theme is to collect pictures of items and spaces they like, both from magazines and online websites. Decide What Stay and What Goes Rearrange the furniture that you have. Go through the room and decide what furniture can stay and what new furniture needs to be purchased. You may be surprised that you can keep most of the furniture if you move it to a different location or update it with …

Have you ever spoken directly to your daughter about money? Whether you have or haven’t, know that she’s already absorbed volumes of information from observing your actions and overhearing your opinions on the topic. A study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison found kids can understand basic money concepts by age three, like value or exchange: You pay money to get things. And separate research from the University of Cambridge showed many kids’ money habits, from executive function skills like self-monitoring to delayed gratification, are set by age seven. Your daughter will face gender equality issues like unequal pay, time out of the workforce, and uncertainty about investing. Help her become confident in her money-handling abilities by using these four steps. Teaching Your Girl Money Habits Know Thy Money Personality Gather self-knowledge by taking a money personality test (there are many online). Ensure you and your partner understand your money blocks and areas for growth before talking to your daughter. You don’t want to pass on a negative money mindset. Consider both your families. What messages get passed from one generation to the next about money? What messages should end with you? Which ones need reframing to be more beneficial? Question your motives. You may think focusing on a “save, save, save!” narrative 100 percent sounds like a wise and positive message to pass on, but that’s not necessarily true. What if your attitude towards saving is fear-based? In that case, your daughter may learn to squirrel away every cent and never invest in herself or …

In her new book Thrivers, Dr. Michele Borba helps parents and educators teach the essential character strengths kids need to become young people who flourish in a rapidly changing, digitally-driven, and uncertain world. As a teacher, educational consultant, and parent for 40 years, Dr. Borba has never been more worried for young people than she is about this current generation of kids. Across the nation, student mental health is plummeting, depression rates among teens are rising, kids are reporting severe anxiety at ever-younger ages. When Dr. Borba asks a group of students to “tell me about your generation,” most respond with stories of stress, anxiety, isolation, and fear. But some young people aren’t struggling; they’re thriving. They cope with adversity, develop healthy relationships, and embrace change. They are ready for whatever the world throws at them, even in uncertain times. Dr. Borba calls these kids Thrivers, and the more she studied them, she wondered, What is their secret? And can it be taught to others? Seven Essential Character Strengths For her book, Dr. Borba combed scientific studies on resilience, spoke to dozens of researchers and experts in the field, and interviewed more than 100 young people from all walks of life. In the end she found something surprising. The difference between those who struggle and those who succeed comes down not to grades or test scores, but to seven essential character strengths that set Thrivers apart (and set them up for happiness and greater accomplishment later in life): Self-confidence: Healthy identify, using personal strengths to …

2021 marks the 25th annual celebration of poets and poetry. National Poetry Month, launched by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, reminds the public that poets play an integral role in our culture and that poetry matters. Here are ten quotes by women poets to celebrate. Ten Quotes by Women Poets “We all move forward when we recognize how resilient and striking the women around us are” ~Rupi Kaur “Who so loves believes the impossible.” ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning “Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun.” ~Christina Rossetti “Art hurts. Art urges voyages – and it is easier to stay at home.” ~Gwendolyn Brooks “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” ~Mary Oliver   “Poetry is the lens we use to interrogate the history we stand on and the future we stand for. It’s no coincidence that at the base of the Statue of Liberty, there is a poem.” ~Amanda Gorman “We want deeper sincerity of motive, a greater courage in speech and earnestness in action.” ~Sarojini Naidu “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” ~Maya Angelou “Poetry, above all, is a series of intense moments – its power is not in narrative. I’m not dealing with facts, I’m dealing with emotion.” ~Carol Ann Duffy “Keep up the good work, if only for a while, if only for the twinkling of a tiny galaxy.” ~Wislawa Szymborska More Girls That Create posts: 10 Quotes About Moms Raising …

Rashida knew about periods. She knew she’d get one soon. It was a strange thing to think about. Nobody had spoken to her about blood and bleeding, breasts, and body hair. Not even her mom, who seemed to think the school would cover all that. Rashida looked down to wipe one Monday, and there it was. Red. Toilets have a way of making things feel incredibly routine, lonely, and unceremonious. And so it was. She waited until after dinner when her dad and little sister had left the room. In her head, she repeated her news as a way to build up the courage to tell her mom she’d irreversibly changed. She breathed deeply: “I got my period today.” Her mom stood up and left the dim room. Rashida was alone with her new blood again. Her mom returned, silently passed her a pack of sanitary pads. They were done. The girl had all she needed. Except she didn’t. Where Potentials Exist Pre-teen is a tricky time of teetering. Grown girls are about to become young women, lines transform into curves, and bodies turn cyclical. Overnight, body hair changes from meaningless to meaningful. If ever there’s a time to tightly hold your daughter’s hand and offer her all the wisdom of one who’s gone before, it’s at this crucial apex where potentials exist. She has equal potential to leap into a future-self timeline of self-loathing, confusion, and isolation or one of fierce self-knowledge, inner power access, and freedom. Two of the reasons this abyss-sized divergence …

When it comes to your girls’ creativity and development, some routines hinder, and some routines help. Routine basics, done regularly and with love, work. But over-scheduling organized enrichment activities could actually do more harm than good. Just because you can offer your child every artistic, physical, and social extra-curricular activity doesn’t mean you should. Things like enough sleep and nutritious food can seem rudimentary (even banal), but that doesn’t mean they should be taken for granted. Creativity needs both breathing room and structure. Understanding what a balance of each looks like is the difference between “looking like you’re parenting” and actually doing the rather unceremonious things that work. Connection Between Creativity and Routine If you can build a solid foundation of routine for your girl, everything else naturally falls into place. Daily routine fosters the same qualities that creativity requires: Safety and security Confidence and independence A container that encourages a flow state Healthy habits Consider Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, one of the best-known theories of motivation and often displayed as a pyramid. Your child needs you to cover the basics at the very bottom of her pyramid (physiological). If you do this, you’re gifting her with the confident structure required to succeed and space/support to move up her pyramid (safety, love/belonging, esteem, self-actualization). In other words, your girl needs you to hold down the fort with basic daily care routines. It’s deceptively simple. The Four Daily Care Routine Pillars  Sleep “Sleep is the Swiss Army knife of health” – Matthew Walker, scientist and author …