If you or your daughter are struggling right now, these six ways to help your girls through difficult times might be just what you need today. Let’s look at how you can be there for your daughter in her time of need.
6 Ways to Help Your Girls Through Difficult Times
Nothing will grow you, test you, or bless you like being a parent. This doesn’t mean that parenting is always beautiful. Sometimes our children go through hard times and look to us for support, guidance, and nurturing. As moms, there are ways to reach out to our girls with help and hope when they need us most. Let’s look at six ways we can help our girls through difficult times.
1. Arm Them with Scripture Ahead of Time
When we are overwhelmed, it’s hard to absorb information. The time to arm our daughters with the Word is before they will need it. Teaching our girls to know and love God’s Word is the first defense in a world that is seeking to destroy their confidence in themselves and the God who loves them.
You can be an example for her today. Let your daughter see you reading the Bible and tell her the verses that have given you strength. Help her to hide God’s word in her heart so that she won’t sin against Him. Even when you can’t be there to protect her, the Word can give her a place to stand when all things seem shaky.
2. Pray With Them and For Them
Now, more than ever, our daughters are looking to us for reassurance. They need to feel not only our strength but the peace that passes understanding–the peace only Christ can provide. When we pray for our daughters we are prompting our Father to move on their behalf. But when we pray with our daughters we are showing them how to turn to God when life seems overwhelming and we don’t have the answers.
Pray not only changes situations, but it changes us and it will change our daughters as well.
6 Ways to Help Your Girls Through Difficult Times
If you struggle with knowing what to pray with your daughter start simple. Ask her to share one thing that she feels concerned about. You can also make a list of family and friends she wants to pray for and then pray for them by name. Finally, praying the scriptures is a great way to claim God’s promises. Simply chose one or two scriptures you feel speak best to your (and your daughter’s) needs and verbalize them as prayer. Remember, your Heavenly Father isn’t expecting perfection and neither is your child. If you messily, lose your train of thought or even giggle, you are modeling for her transparency and sharing our inner thoughts helps us heals. He is always listening and ready to show His love.
3. Be An Encourager of Her Soul
We all need soul care. Our daughters are no different. Rest and stillness recharge our minds, hearts, and bodies.
Now is the time to let your daughter see you pursuing a thriving relationship with God and others.
Share with your girl what your devotional time looks like. Our devotional Loved and Cherished was created to get her started with a regular practice of connecting with God. We’ve even included a small space for her to write to introduce journaling.
Tell her about times when God has answered your prayers. Support her by giving her space to build community and teach her why it’s important to have Christian friendships. We are made to build each other up. Build up your daughter in her faith and you’ll be building up her bond not only with you, but also with God.
4. Meet Them in Their Space and Their Time
We have reached a time when our kids face more distractions than ever before. School, friends, social media, news, all the things that pull at us daily pull at our girls as well. Don’t wait for your daughter to come to you with her worries and fears. Go to her! Step into her daily life and meet her where she is. Can you set aside a special time every day to check in and see how she’s doing? Maybe a girls lunch once or twice a week would be a special way to let her know you value her and you’re there to support her.
5. Consult and Listen to the Counsel of Wise People
Research says we become most like the five people closest to us. In Titus 2, verses 3-4, we see Paul instructing the older women to be good examples and to, “encourage the young women to love their husbands and their children.” Raising kids takes a village. Maybe you are struggling yourself or worried about your girl. Reaching out to others takes courage but helps us not carry our worries alone. We were created to live and thrive in community. Our girls are watching us. I know I want my teen to reach out to other wise adults when my voice falls on deaf ears.
6. Be Intentionally Curious About Them So You Will Notice Changes
Distraction–it’s everywhere. If we’re not intentional we can fly through our days only to close our eyes and realize we missed the most important things, and people. It’s easy to make excuses about schedules, deadlines, priorities. But knowing our children intimately should always be at the top of our list. We make time for what’s important. Show your daughter that she is important and worth your time. Make time to listen to her and truly see her. Ask the hard questions. Find out what she thinks and how she feels and validate her feelings. Kids today need a soft place to land first. Take a moment if tend to want to correct and judge first.
Let her know you want to be there for her in every situation. Time passes quickly. In the blink of an eye our daughters will be grown following God’s call and plan for their own lives. The relationships we build today will affect our family for generations to come. Let’s leave a legacy of love.
6 Ways to Help Your Girls Through Difficult Times
So often, girls and women give in to the lies that how they look and how popular they are determines their worth. But as children of God, we can have the confidence that we are loved, protected, secure, whole, and valuable because God is our heavenly father.
Loved and Cherished equips girls ages 8–12 to:
- Discover perfect, unconditional love in God, and that she doesn’t have to perform or be perfect to receive that love.
- Know she has God’s protection, despite living in an often-scary world.
- Let go of heartaches, fears, and failures, because she has the love she needs to face it.
- Build a strong foundation of faith on the love who will never leave her so she can face the challenges of growing up.
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