Building character

Girl Scout Mission

Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.

The third facet of the mission statement is to build character. Girl Scout program has this in spades. Our promise and law serve as a basic character building foundation for the organization.

What exactly does the mission statement mean by "character"?

Merriam-Webster defines character as one of the attributes or features that make up and distinguish an individual. By this definition, everyone has their own unique character. Later on the same page we come across this definition: moral excellence and firmness.

While the latter definition more closely describes what we think of when we read the mission statement, we need to remember the earlier definition as well and understand that our job is to help girls develop their own unique self expression of moral integrity.

Use the Promise and Law
Can you and your girls recite the Girl Scout Promise from memory?
Can you and your girls recite the Girl Scout Law from memory?

Many of us would say yes to the first question, but no to the second. I've found that knowing the Girl Scout Law by heart has made it much easier to identify character building situations with the girls. When your girls need moral guidance to make a decision or resolve a conflict, a quick reference to the appropriate Girl Scout Law can help them to think through their response. Remember that these situations will rarely be planned. They will come up spontaneously in the course of your meetings and other activities. Being ready with a good knowledge of the Girl Scout Law will enable you to make good use of opportunities for character building.

Let Them Do It
Keep in mind that building our girls means letting them do things themselves to learn from the experience. Don't lecture the girls and tell them what is the right thing to do. Simply point out the appropriate Girl Scout Law and let them apply it. Not every moral dilemma has a straightforward or single right answer. By deliberating on the situation with the Law as a guide, the girls will be developing their own sense of character, not simply following your orders.

Set an Example
Careful the things you say, children will listen. Careful the things you do, children will see. And learn. - lyrics from Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim

In the "Cookies" episode of the TV sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, Ray gets into a war with his daughter's scout leader over cookie sales. In a climactic scene, Ray takes over the leader's top cookie boothing site. When she shows up at the booth they get into a fight. But before they do, they send their daughters away into the store to get ice cream. While I can hardly condone the behavior of the adults in this episode, at least they understood that this sort of stuff isn't the example you want to set for your children. I've seen some horrible behavior in front of girls over similar issues.

Don't forget to apply the Girl Scout Law to your own dealings with the troop and other adults. Perhaps the most common violation I see leaders make is to ignore the Law to "be a sister to every Girl Scout." One way we can show girls that we believe in this Law is to welcome new girls into the troop regularly. While I understand that troop size is limited by adult/girl ratios and meeting space size, we can show girls how to "be a sister" by allowing the troop to change and grow. It shouldn't be a clique that forms in first grade and doesn't welcome newcomers for 12 years. The challenges involved in getting along with different members - girls and their parents - can be tremendously character building.

How do you build character with your girls? Share your experiences in the comments.


Smitty

Building confidence

Girl Scout Mission

Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.

The second facet of the mission statement is to build confidence. Confidence matches nicely with courage. When a girl is confident she needs less courage to move forward. When a girl lacks confidence, she will need to draw on her courage. Possessing both traits will help a girl to tackle whatever challenges she may face. 

So let's define confidence. While multiple definitions exist, this one seems to meet the meaning within the context of the Girl Scout Mission:

Merriam-Webster defines confidence as a feeling or belief that you can do something well or succeed at something. 

When I started this post, I thought I knew what I would write. Girls gain confidence by having skills. So be sure your program builds skills and you'll be building confidence. As I researched the topic of confidence, however, I found that the truth is much more complex than this and that confidence may be more important than I thought.

Consider the following scenario. You are staffing at a weekend camp with a group of girls. You have been setting up camp and are running out of time before you need to be at a scheduled activity. One tent still needs to be pitched and you are busy with another task. You ask the girls who knows how to put up the tent. One girl raises her hand high and says "Oh! I know how. I did that one over there," and points to a nicely pitched tent. Another girl says "Well, I helped with that one too, but I made a mistake once before, so I'm not so sure." Which girl will you put in charge?

If you're like most people, you'll choose the first girl, the one who projected confidence that she could do the job. In fact, research shows that people are often promoted or given opportunities more on the basis of their confidence than their actual competence. This is aggravated for women by the fact that there is a gender gap in confidence. Men and women with equal levels of competence are likely to have differing levels of confidence. Specifically, men are more likely to be overconfident in their abilities while women are more likely to underestimate themselves.

To build girls of confidence we need to provide ample program opportunities to build a wide variety of skills, but we also need to pay attention to how we structure our response to these activities so that they are confidence building.

Important keys to building confidence:

Risk-taking and failure
Confidence is directly related to taking action. A confident person is not afraid to take action when given an opportunity. This creates a feedback loop where that experience then helps to build more confidence. We need to let girls take risks and especially take the risk that they will fail at something. It is important when girls are learning new skills that we don't expect perfection and that we let them fail - possibly multiple times - so they learn that failure happens, but success will come with perseverance. Knowing that they can be successful, even after failing, will build confidence.

Praise and Criticism
The feedback that a girl gets while learning a new skill will also affect her confidence level. Research shows that women are likely to be perfectionists - having high confidence levels only when they feel they are perfect at something. This creates the situation indicated earlier where women's confidence levels are below their actual competence. It's important that our feedback helps girls to understand that they don't have to be perfect to feel competent. 

Praise should always be aimed at a girl's effort. Praise them for working hard, praise them for sticking with it, praise them for facing a failure courageously. Don't tell them they are smart, or "good at this." Children who receive praise for their effort end up believing that they control their acquisition of skills and knowledge and they will gain confidence that they can improve. Children who receive praise for innate ability end up believing that they don't have control. When they encounter hurdles, they may shut down and simply decide "I'm just not good at this," destroying their confidence.

Criticism should be constructive but present. In line with risk-taking and failure, it's important that a girl receives criticism and learns that she can work past it. Some psychologists believe that boys gain confidence through criticism and punishment in early school grades. They learn to be resilient in the face of criticism, which translates into confidence when faced with criticism later in life.

Do It!
A main focus of this blog. Building confidence will come from actually doing activities. These are the times when girls will choose to take risks and face failures. This is where girls will build skills that they know others don't have. Confidence is not built by reading about it or by talking about it, but by doing it.

Let's revisit the tent-pitching girls. It turns out that the two of them together put up that well-pitched tent. The second girl has a lot of experience and really knows how to pitch a tent, but her leader always hovers over her while she is working, points out every minor error, and expects perfection, so her confidence is low. The first girl has only put up one tent in her life, the one that the second girl just showed her how to pitch. But the two of them did it together, got past whatever problems they encountered, and she built confidence through her success and is eager to go again. Let them go at it again together with little supervision, tell them they worked hard and did a great job, and help them fix any major safety issues and you'll help them grow to the confident women we want them to be.

How do you build confidence with your girls? Share your experiences in the comments.

Smitty

References:
Katty Kay and Claire Shipman. "The Confidence Gap." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 14 Apr. 2014. Web. 14 July 2015. <http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/04/the-confidence-gap/359815/>.
Barker, Eric. "How to Be More Confident: 5 Research Backed Methods." Time. Time, 30 Apr. 2014. Web. 14 July 2015. <http://time.com/81811/how-to-be-more-confident-5-research-backed-methods/>.