190-SYNCPodcast_TeenGirls

[00:00:00] Jenny Swisher: Welcome friends to this episode of the Sync Your Life podcast. Today we’re diving into the role of parenting your daughters as it pertains to hormone health, specifically those of you who have teenage girls. While I don’t have teenage daughters yet myself, I have been coaching and consulting with dozens of women who do have teenage daughters, and I feel that my perspective could be potentially helpful.

[00:01:18] Jenny Swisher: I get asked this question quite a bit, right? How do I teach my teenage daughters the same things I’m learning at the age of 30 or 40 or 50? Well, my daughters are only three and seven, But in our house, we start by how we refer to our bodies and how we refer to our food. And that’s where I want to start today on the show.

[00:01:35] Jenny Swisher: We talk about food in our house as fuel. As my good friend, Dr. Paige Gutiel, who I’m partnering with for these health consults, for all of my course takers, she says, food shouldn’t be a project that we manage. I couldn’t agree more. If you find yourself counting calories, counting macros, using a food scale, obsessing over ruling out entire food groups, if you’re making your food too much of a project, Guess what?

[00:01:59] Jenny Swisher: Our daughters see that. , they watch how we live in the world and they emulate so much of it from a young age and even into their teens. So remember when your child was small and would mimic your behaviors? Things like facial expressions, dance moves, right?

[00:02:13] Jenny Swisher: Unfortunately, my daughters try to mimic my dance moves, which is not so great. But it turns out, that while they may now give you more eye rolls, apparently that starts happening around age seven, they still watch what you do, how you treat food is absolutely a vital lifestyle action that your daughters will likely emulate.

[00:02:32] Jenny Swisher: So this also goes for how you speak to yourself as the daughter of a mother who was always braiding her arms, her stomach, her thighs. I assure you. Your daughters are watching how you speak to yourself, and they may struggle mentally with the same issues if this is all they see is the negativity and the lack of confidence.

[00:02:51] Jenny Swisher: Society gives us enough comparisons, right? We’ve got social media, we’ve got television, have you seen the crop tops that simply won’t go away these days? For your daughter to experience your disgust or discomfort over your own body is very counterproductive, both to you and to her. It’s interesting that most women are quick to make changes for their children before they would do it for themselves.

[00:03:15] Jenny Swisher: If that’s you, great! Let your daughter be the instigator to the way that you think about food, exercise, and most importantly, your body. I will link up in the show notes for you an interview that I did on overcoming body dysmorphia. It’s such a great interview, in case it could be helpful for you. But one thing that she says on the podcast is how she changed her own inner narrative first.

[00:03:37] Jenny Swisher: She asked herself, what is really true? Now in this case, my guest was a spiritual person, a God person, a faith based person, and she believed that what God says about her is what’s true, not what her own inner narrative necessarily was saying during that phase of her life. She changed her own inner narrative by asking herself, what is true?

[00:03:56] Jenny Swisher: And what is true for you as well, my friends, regardless of your spirituality, is that you are worthy, you are enough, you are beautiful, and you were really meant to just be you. . So I ask you, what is your inner narrative? How do you think of yourself when you look in the mirror? What thoughts run through your head throughout the day as it pertains to your clothes, your food, your exercise, your energy?

[00:04:20] Jenny Swisher: Take note of these things. Maybe even write them down physically in a journal or a book and start to work on using neuroscience to change that narrative. We have the ability to change our thoughts, my friends. The number one thing that I’ve heard from moms of teenage daughters is something like this.

[00:04:37] Jenny Swisher: Well, she needed to hear it from you or from someone other than me. Interesting. So let’s start there today. I know it’s probably not news to you, but your daughter doesn’t tap into your speeches. She may enjoy listening to my podcast, for example, or other podcasts on the subject of hormone health. She may enjoy listening to the Sync Your Life podcast or other podcasts on hormone health, maybe even dialing into the Sync Digital course and hearing from other references in the hormone health space. Sometimes hearing about these things from other credible sources is what gets our teenage girls to understand.

[00:05:11] Jenny Swisher: They don’t necessarily always want to hear about it from you, especially when it comes to sex and hormone health. I want to share a story with you guys here, which I think will make the connection, uh, make it funny, right? So, my oldest daughter has always hated tacos.

[00:05:25] Jenny Swisher: And I know what you’re thinking, how could anyone hate tacos? I have made them a hundred different ways. I’ve used beef, chicken, fish. I’ve used hard shells, soft shells, you name it. How could anyone hate tacos, right? Recently though, she had a sleepover at a friend’s house. And her friend’s mom made, you guessed it, tacos.

[00:05:46] Jenny Swisher: And guess what? Now tacos are my daughter’s most favorite food and she’ll eat them any way. Hard shell, soft shell, any meat, anything on the inside for toppings. I think this proves my point, right? So anyway, one question that I get is what resources do you recommend for teenage girls? If they won’t listen to me, who do you recommend that they listen to?

[00:06:07] Jenny Swisher: So I want to share with you my favorite people to follow and all that sort of stuff here. And I’ll make sure, of course, that I link it up in the show notes. My number one new favorite account to follow on Instagram, and my new favorite device for teenage girls, is called Teena. They are, we are Teena on Instagram, but it’s T E E N A.

[00:06:27] Jenny Swisher: They have some great content, mostly done by teens for teens, and the device itself that corresponds to their app, help your teen to understand where she is in her menstrual cycle. her changing moods, her cravings, the way she’s feeling and really help her tap into that hormonal energy and superpower.

[00:06:45] Jenny Swisher: Body literacy from a young age is so, so key and Tina helps teenagers make that correlation and connection. I also like a recent teen female health workshop Bryden and Kira Sutherland, which I’ll link up in the show notes as well. You can register for that workshop. It’s a great informative educational tool, perhaps for both you to listen to and your daughter.

[00:07:09] Jenny Swisher: Another favorite of mine is Dr. Stacey Sims. She has a very active Instagram account. She’s very active on social media. She’s done lots of podcast interviews and her book Roar is really great, especially for teenage girls who are training, who are athletes. Lots of valuable information from her.

[00:07:25] Jenny Swisher: And of course the Sync Your Life podcast and the Sync Digital course. As it turns out, age 16 is the age that most women start on oral contraception. Same was true for me. Actually, I started even earlier than age 16. While I do believe that oral contraception has its place in the world, I also know that 78 percent of women using birth control are using it for reasons other than birth control.

[00:07:51] Jenny Swisher: Things like painful periods, irregular cycles, acne, the list goes on. So this means that in our puberty years, our hormones are fluctuating, our cycles are changing and shifting, they’re rarely regular, our body shifts, acne can appear, and suddenly it feels easier to go on birth control pills versus learning our unique bodies.

[00:08:12] Jenny Swisher: This is where I’m looking to change the narrative. We shouldn’t put a band aid on a bullet hole. Instead, we need to be helping our daughters learn their cycles, to use it as a superpower, and to get to the root of what’s going on for them. So often I see nutritional issues pop up in teenage girls. Things like low ferritin and iron, especially for teen girls having heavy menstrual cycles. Low B vitamins, very common in girls taking hormonal contraceptives and even in vitamin D3.

[00:08:39] Jenny Swisher: I also frequently see not enough protein being consumed by teenage girls or healthy fats. Usually it’s a lot of junk carbohydrate. But so much of what our teens are struggling with comes back to their food and their lifestyle. And here’s the beautiful thing. That is within our control. So it starts with how we speak to ourselves.

[00:09:00] Jenny Swisher: which our daughters in turn see and repeat. From there, it moves into how we learn about ourselves, because health is individual, right? Stepping into our own self advocacy and understanding our body on a different level. And then finally, it moves to how we love ourselves, our nutrition, our lifestyle factors.

[00:09:19] Jenny Swisher: One of the things that my husband and I have focused on with our young girls is the encouragement of things that make them unique. They both have big, and I mean big hair . If you follow me on social media, you’ve probably seen a photo of them. We like to say big hair, big personality, and just recently I overheard my seven-year-old tell a friend in the backseat of the car.

[00:09:39] Jenny Swisher: I love my big hair. Point out what makes your daughters unique in a loving way. Highlight it, applaud it. Let them know that standing out is the point, and fitting in was never the goal. I will also link up a podcast for you that I did with Aaron Tarr on building confidence in young girls. It’s such a fantastic episode.

[00:10:01] Jenny Swisher: Take a listen when you have a chance, maybe even right after this one. This is a topic that we need to discuss more, my friends. And a lot of times as mothers, we’ve got to go inward first. How are we treating our own bodies? Where are we obsessing where we need to maybe let go? How can we start treating ourselves in a loving way so that our daughters see that first?

[00:10:20] Jenny Swisher: And then how can we actually help our daughters step into that confidence and energy? We do it by empowering them, by equipping them with tools and resources so that they can learn it on their own. We can’t live this life for them, but we can equip them the best we can. And it starts with ourselves. I’m seeing this on a daily basis.

[00:10:38] Jenny Swisher: This cycle of what grandmother passed on to mother is now being passed on to daughter. Things like self disgust, under fueling, over training, being never enough. It starts with us. What we model, we see repeated. Thank you so much. My friends, lots of resources and valuable information here on the podcast.

[00:11:00] Jenny Swisher: Scroll through. We’ve got almost 200 episodes here for you. Lots of information that both you and your daughters can learn from. So please share it with them. Let me be the one to speak into them or others that I’ve shared here. But as always, my friends, thank you so much for listening. Thanks for tuning in until next time.

[00:11:16] Jenny Swisher: We’ll talk soon.