Enough As She Is: How to Help Girls Move Beyond Impossible Standards of Success to Live Healthy, Happy, and Fulfilling Lives

Jessica Flaxman of Nashoba Brooks School in Concord, MA writes “Rachel Simmons’ new book presents a persuasive argument about interventions adults should make to try to alleviate some of the pressures that students in general, and girls in particular, have internalized. In the era of what Simmons calls the “College Application Industrial Complex,” school-related stakes are high for all but especially, says Simmons, for girls who “look exceptional on paper but are often overwhelmed and anxious in life.” Why do so many girls feel that no matter their accomplishments, they are still failing? Simmons identifies “role overload” – the idea that girls try to play more roles in their lives than they are able to be successful in – and “role conflict” – the fact that more often than not, these many roles are at odds with one another. What teachers and parents can do to help is quite simple, says Simmons. Rather than tell girls to stop being perfectionists, be more confident, or take more risks, Simmons suggests we engage in honest conversations with girls about the culture we all live in together and seek to redirect their catastrophizing when it occurs.”

“This book is an essential resource for educators committed to building girls’ resilience as learners.” (Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Successand Professor of Psychology, Stanford University)

“A brilliant and passionate call to action that reveals how girls and young women are suffering in our toxic culture of constant comparison and competition.  This is the book parents need to change girls’ lives and guide them to truly become happy, healthy, and powerful adults.” (Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabees)

“This book is a rare find for any parent or mentor of a girl child. It exposes the abject harm of today’s perfect-at-any-price childhood, and illustrates how a girl’s anxious, busy, self-deprecating performance strategy is entirely normal yet further harm-inducing. Packed with conversational specifics you can deploy with the teen girls in your life, this book is your chance to be who she needs you to be. Buy it. Read it. Live it. Help the girl you love realize the most important of all certainties: that she truly is enough as she is.” (Julie Lythcott-Haims, author of the New York Times bestseller How to Raise an Adult, and Real American: A Memoir)