At the beginning of a new school year, conversations with our kids quickly move beyond homework, schedules, and school supplies. We start talking about friendships, confidence, exclusion, and one of the biggest questions so many girls are trying to answer: Where do I belong?
Mean girl culture may be part of that conversation, but underneath it is something even bigger. It is the difference between trying to fit in and knowing that you already belong.
Fitting In and Belonging Are Not the Same Thing
Fitting in often asks us to look around the room and figure out who we need to become in order to be accepted. Belonging is different. Belonging allows us to show up as who we already are.
Those may sound like similar goals, but they lead us in completely different directions. When we are constantly trying to fit in, we begin editing ourselves. We stop raising our hands because someone rolled their eyes. We pretend we do not like something because someone else made fun of it. We become quieter because somebody told us we were too much.
Little by little, we can start shaving off pieces of ourselves just to earn a seat in the room.
You Should Never Have to Audition for Belonging
Any room that requires you to stop being yourself in order to stay there is probably not a room worth staying in.
That is something I want my daughters to understand early. They do not have to audition for belonging. They do not have to become quieter, cooler, funnier, prettier, or more like everyone else to deserve friendship and connection.
Confidence does not mean being the loudest person in the room. Sometimes confidence is simply the quiet decision that you are not going to become someone else just to be accepted.
Mean Girl Behavior Is Rarely About Confidence
As a counselor, I have learned to become curious about what may be underneath someone’s behavior. When someone is excluding others, creating social hierarchies, or making another person feel small, that behavior often comes from insecurity rather than confidence.
Secure people do not need to diminish someone else’s light in order to feel brighter.
Understanding that does not excuse hurtful behavior. But it can help us recognize that another person’s decision to exclude us does not determine our worth.
Be the Girl Who Opens the Circle
Exclusion is powerful because so many girls are afraid of becoming the next person left out.
Someone starts gossiping, and everyone nods. Someone decides another girl is not cool anymore, and no one speaks up. Silence can quietly become agreement.
That is why I want to challenge our girls, and ourselves, to be different.
Be the girl who says, “I actually like her.”
Be the girl who changes the subject.
Be the girl who scoots over.
Be the girl who notices when someone is standing alone.
It takes courage to open the circle, but there is room for all of us.
Someone Else’s Greatness Does Not Take Away From Yours
There is enough beauty, intelligence, leadership, creativity, success, and joy to go around.
Another woman succeeding does not mean there is less success available for you. Another girl being beautiful does not make you less beautiful. Someone else being funny, talented, athletic, or popular does not take anything away from who you are.
Comparison tells us that someone else’s gifts threaten ours. They do not.
We can teach our daughters to celebrate what makes other people different instead of making them feel embarrassed by it. The world becomes a much more interesting place when people are allowed to become themselves fully instead of copies of one another.
Links & Resources
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