Parents.com Covers the 2023 Girls’ Index
Today's Confidence Crisis Has Tween and Teen Girls Struggling With Mental Health
Social media, school, relationships, and family all major sources of stress, according to the 2023 Girls' Index.
OCTOBER 20, 2023
By Lauren Brown West-Rosenthal
A new survey shares alarming stats about the current mood, mindset, and confidence of girls in grades 5-12. Yes, we have a female Vice President as a role model and megastars, namely Taylor Swift, encouraging girls everywhere to be fierce and true to themselves. But there’s still a shocking number of girls throughout the nation reporting feeling sad, depressed, insecure, and unsure they’re good enough or smart enough to follow their dreams.
The stats come from the results of 2023’s The Girls’ Index, the nation’s largest survey designed to understand the experiences of girls in grades 5-12. First conducted in 2017, The Girls’ Index, produced by the nonprofit organization Ruling Our eXperiences (ROX), shares a nationally representative look at the thoughts, opinions, behaviors, and perceptions of girls in the United States.
The principal investigator of The Girls’ Index and ROX founder and CEO Lisa Hinkelman, PhD, says the most surprising finding of their 2023 survey is that the youngest girls are the ones reporting the levels of stress, self-doubt, sadness, and insecurity that have typically been reported by much older teens. For example, just 68% of fifth-grade girls described themselves as confident—down from 86% in 2017.1
“While we knew that the last several years have been challenging for girls with the COVID pandemic, we did not expect to see the sadness and depression increase so dramatically or the confidence and self-perception to deteriorate so quickly among the youngest girls,” Dr. Hinkelman explains. “Girls’ reports of sadness and depression increased in every grade, however, the rates of daily sadness tripled for fifth and sixth-grade girls.”
The Social Media Factor
Dr. Hinkelman believes it’s tricky to pinpoint exactly why today’s fifth and sixth-grade girls are faring worse than their middle-school and high-school-age peers were just six years ago. Not only are 5th grade girls reporting confidence significantly lower than it was but 6th grade girls report confidence levels at 59% now vs. 78% in 2017. Additionally, their reports of sadness and depression are substantially higher (”significant” and “extreme” reports of sadness and depression tripled for fifth and sixth-grade girls).1
The 2023 Girls' Index. Ruling Our eXperiences. 2023.
“One factor may be the steep increase in the amount of social media that fifth and sixth-grade girls are consuming on a daily basis. Since 2017, the largest increase in social media use was reported among fifth and sixth-grade girls. In 2017, 9% of fifth-grade girls reported spending six or more hours a day on social media. Today that statistic is 46%,” she explains. “Additionally, we found that the girls who spend the least time using social media are 25% more likely to describe themselves as confident when compared to the girls who spent the most time on social media (10 or more hours per day).”1
The numbers tell us what we already know—social media is at the epicenter of girls’ lives—95% of fifth and sixth-grade girls and 99.9% of high school girls use social media.1 Dr. Hinkelman reinforces that The Girls’ Index showed “girls who spend the most time on social media are more likely to dislike their appearance and more likely to want to change how they look and are the least likely to describe themselves as confident.”
Social media is responsible for negative impacts on mental health for all ages but especially teens.2 This age group has an even harder time than adults deciphering what is “real” and what is not among the edited-down versions of their friends' lives only showing the “highlights”. This makes it easy to assume they’re getting the full picture and compare their own life to a small glimpse of someone else's.
“It’s so important for parents to have these conversations with their teens so they are aware and can know the difference between real life and life online,” says parenting expert and positive psychologist Reena B. Patel, LEP, BCBA.
She recommends parents set and enforce social media limits to help manage social media addiction. “Scrolling for hours on end is not healthy for anyone. Both physically and mentally," says Patel. "If you are sitting on your phone chances are you are not being active. Setting limits can help make sure teens find other activities to do in their free time.”
Girls Are Feeling The Pressure
While social media is a major stressor and factor in declining mental health, there’s more to the story. Girls cited grades, school, relationships, and family issues are top sources of pressure. However, 89% said they feel pressure to fit into specific roles or stereotypes.1
The Girls Index discovered that 75% of fifth and sixth-grade girls are under such intense pressure, that they feel like they’re going to “explode.”1 “It seems that everywhere girls turn they are navigating expectations and feeling inadequate, or as though they are ‘not enough,’” explains Dr. Hinkelman.
How to Help Girls Build Confidence
The key to helping girls build their confidence and ease the pressure is helping them cultivate supportive relationships with other girls and with caring adults in their lives.
“Girls who have supportive relationships are at lower risk for specific negative outcomes, including confidence and leadership challenges, dislike of school, and reports of sadness and depression,” says Dr. Hinkelman.
"Bottom line it’s so important for parents to say out loud what they love about their kids," explains Patel. "Verbally communicating to them their love for them is so important for their self-confidence."
While many girls did report having supportive friendships, the Girls Index showed that 68% believe their relationships with other girls are “competitive.” Dr. Hinkelman says girls’ relationships are often characterized by high levels of conflict and ‘drama’ as a result of difficulties with assertive communication, boundary setting, and confidence.
“These relationship skills are important for girls to learn as they develop meaningful and reciprocal relationships with friends and with dating partners,” says Dr. Hinkelman. “Creating opportunities to teach and practice these skills gives girls the chance to develop comfort in standing up for themselves, setting and enforcing boundaries, communicating their needs, and engaging in brave conversations.”
It’s up to parents of teen girls to ensure they have access to opportunities that cultivate leadership and provide them with a safe space to share thoughts and opinions without fear of judgment.
Many girls surveyed for The Girls Index expressed a fear of being called ‘bossy’ as a major factor in shying away from leadership roles. Even though 59% of girls said they like to be in charge, Dr. Hinkelman says the opinions and perceptions of others can negatively impact their perception of themselves as leaders.
To build up confidence, Dr. Hinkelman believes it needs to happen through experiences, not by compliments.
“Bolstering girls’ confidence does not happen by simply telling them how smart or pretty they are. It’s fostered by trying a new skill or activity and growing our competency and comfort in that area,” she explains. “Allowing girls to ‘give it a go’ on their own can foster curiosity while creating space for a follow-up conversation to support her next try!”