The Wisdom and Power of Teenage Girls (with Chelsey Goodan)

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Introduction – 0:00

 

BLAIR HODGES: Welcome back to Relationscapes. This is the podcast where we explore unfamiliar life landscapes and hopefully start to feel more at home here than we ever expected. I'm journalist Blair Hodges in Salt Lake City, and our guide in this episode is author Chelsey Goodan.

CHELSEY GOODAN: [Quote from later in the interview] Lots of times it's actually just a teenager trying to explore who she is in the world, and she needs some space to do that without judgment. When you put your own fear-based judgment on her, that's when she closes off and shuts down. And you know, there are so many reports—CBC had one—about how anxious and depressed girls are, and it has a lot to do with them not feeling understood.

BLAIR HODGES: Chelsey Goodan says that for too long, teenage girls have been undervalued and overlooked. Having been a longtime tutor and mentor to hundreds of girls from many different backgrounds, Chelsey realized why so many of them were anxious and hurting. People often treat teenage girls as problems to be solved, which is why Chelsey decided to write the book Underestimated: The Wisdom and Power of Teenage Girls.

Instead of seeing teens as a problem, Chelsey invites us to realize how many solutions they have to offer on all kinds of things—like perfectionism, friendship, identity, shame, power, and much more. This is a must-read for anybody who has teenage girls in their life. And Chelsey Goodan joins us to talk about it right now on Relationscapes.

 

Not the Teen Girl Whisperer – 01:54

 

BLAIR HODGES: Chelsey Goodan, welcome to Relationscapes.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.

BLAIR HODGES: So, you've been working as an academic tutor and a mentor for 16 years, and this has really given you an up-close and personal experience with teenage girls from all kinds of backgrounds. Like Brianna, for example. This is someone that we meet in the book. She's 13 years old. You say she was having a hard time getting to her first period class because she was sleeping in. Her parents and teachers couldn't figure out how to get her there on time—but you figured it out. We'll talk about how you did that maybe later on.

But Brianna’s mom was amazed. And like a lot of parents you’ve known, she praised you as the "teenage girl whisperer." That’s a description you rejected right away. So I wanted to start with that—the idea of being a teenage girl whisperer and why you say, actually, no.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Oh, I love that I am not the "teenage girl whisperer," because I'm not trying to quiet them in any way. I'm actually trying to give them a voice. They are not wild horses that need to be subdued, contained, or controlled. They need a voice to share their needs, their wants, their perspectives. So by no means am I quieting them.

BLAIR HODGES: Right. And you talk about it in the book—this idea of girls being like wild horses, or out of control—that’s not an uncommon thought. I think a lot of adults dismiss teenage girls as being crazy, hormonal, or dramatic. And everyone's probably heard a parent say they're relieved to have a boy because teenage girls are just so hard to handle.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Exactly. The book is about subverting that idea—that stereotype—and it's a harmful one, these labels we put on girls. Because they just feel criticized. I would say, in general, girls feel so judged. And what that does is, again, silence them. It makes them shut you out, close off, disconnect from their own voice and authenticity.

And, you know, why are we saying these things like “mean” or “hormonal”? It’s actually more about your own issues, and not about meeting the girl where she’s at and understanding what she’s going through with empathy and care. Lots of times those triggers we have inside of us, when we’re kind of annoyed with the teenage girl, it’s actually about your story. It’s your own inner teenager being triggered, and you’re projecting your story onto her. Lots of times a girl’s just like, “That’s not my thing. Just—will you listen to me and what I’m going through right now?”

BLAIR HODGES: And that’s not to say that teenage girls don’t have a lot of passion or can be hard to parent. It can be hard to relate with them.

CHELSEY GOODAN: I’m fine saying they have big feelings. But I love reframing big feelings—that actually, their big feelings are quite wise, because all human beings have big feelings. We just, as adults, learn how to contain and squash and repress and shove them deep down inside of us until someday they explode in therapy many years later.

I would actually say teenage girls are connected to their feelings. And what happens is, when they’re not heard and understood and listened to, they can be a little more chaotic. But I have found that when you just hold space for a girl’s feelings and say, “Yeah, that sucks. That sounds hard. I understand why you feel that way,” there’s an immediate calm and gratitude. They’re usually like, “Oh, thanks for listening. No one understood me.” And all I had to do was just listen to her feelings. I didn’t need to fix them. I didn’t need to give her my advice or my solution or slap positivity onto it.

BLAIR HODGES: I like how you also talk about—for the parents, caregivers, or teachers—a lot of times they’re interacting from a place of fear. There’s a lot of fear-based control that parents and others try to exercise. Maybe give an example of what that sort of fear-based control looks like when it comes to teenage girls.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Oh my goodness, it shows up in so many ways. It could be with what she's wearing, with social media, with whether she’s doing well enough in school—checking up on her, kind of the helicopter parenting of it all. We keep thinking that if we just protect every choice of hers, then she’ll be okay. Or we’re constantly “teaching” her what’s best, rather than empowering her to find her own solutions.

And this fear—let’s take her outfits, for example—you project fear onto it. Lots of times it’s actually just her trying to explore her own expression of her identity and who she is in the world. And she needs some space to do that without judgment. And when you do put that kind of fear-based judgment on her, that's when they close off and shut down. And you know, there's so many reports, a CDC report came out about how anxious and depressed girls are and it has a lot to do with them not feeling understood.

BLAIR HODGES: When you see those studies, do they make sense to you? There are studies that talk a lot about anxiety right now, especially coming out of the pandemic. There's talk of an epidemic of anxiety. And from your vantage point—you’ve been thinking about these things for years.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Oh yeah, I was not surprised at all by the report. Girls are really grappling with anxiety, and it has a lot to do with perfection and pressure—the pressures and expectations for them to be perfect and also to be pleasing to everyone. They're constantly taught to put on a show.

It's this performative kind of state of being—“Everything’s fine, right?” You hear them say, “I’m fine, I’m fine,” and that’s not true. Every human being is going through some struggle. No one is perfect. Perfection doesn’t exist. So the more I give a girl permission to feel whole even in the imperfection of her humanity, that’s where I see a lot of that anxiety reduce. And she’s just like, “Oh, okay. Well, you know, perfect doesn’t exist anyway, so I can just be me.”

 

L-O-V-E: Let Others Voluntarily Evolve – 07:29

 

BLAIR HODGES: Right. And I want to get back to the perfectionism in a minute, but let’s talk about the kind of attitude you’re inviting parents to cultivate. Your book isn’t a list of do’s and don’ts—you’re actually trying to change mindsets. Because if we can change mindsets, our actions will more naturally flow from that. Then we don’t have to remember, “Oh, if they do this, then…” It’s not a flowchart of, “If they do this, then I’ll say this.”

The phrase you use is “trusting curiosity.” Let’s go back to Brianna, who we mentioned earlier, and talk about how approaching her situation of being chronically late for school—how your approach of trusting curiosity could make a difference.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah. And with genuine curiosity—no secret agenda, you know? I say, phrase everything as a question with that genuine curiosity. I asked her, “Do you want to be at school on time? Like, do you want that? Let’s just start there.” And she was like, “Yeah, I do.”

I’m like, “Okay, so, you know, why aren’t you then?” And I just keep asking questions. She knows that I’m putting the true source of answers and responsibility on her because I respect her. It’s actually a sign of respect—for her to develop her own solutions and thoughts about things, her own choices. When she makes her own choice, then it’s going to stick.

So I was like, “Well, is there anything else that could wake you up?” She hated her mom waking her up. It just created this fight every morning. And they kept taking away her phone, which had her alarm clock on it.

BLAIR HODGES: Right. Consequences, yeah.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah. And I was just like, “Okay, well, is there anything else in the world that could wake you up?” I’m not about to just jump in and tell her. So eventually she’s like, “Well, you could get an alarm clock.” And I’m like, “Oh my goodness, what an idea!”

But it’s playful—there’s levity to it. It’s not me trying to judge or control her. And then I’m like, “Why haven’t you used an alarm clock?” More curiosity.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, yeah.

CHELSEY GOODAN: And she’s like, “Well, I just hate all the buttons. I always get confused.” And I’m like, “Oh, that makes sense. Let’s pull up the internet with options and have you pick one out yourself.” And so she did—she picked out the one that worked. And of course, that ended up working. You give her a sense of agency in these situations.

BLAIR HODGES: Right. And here’s where it gets hard: what if Brianna had said, “I don’t really care,” or didn’t want to come up with a solution, or came up with a solution that you didn’t think would work? Because you say sometimes, even when they’re making wrong choices, there’s a particular way that can be approached.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yes. Gosh, your questions are so good. [laughs]

BLAIR HODGES: They’re from your book!

CHELSEY GOODAN: So, I actually believe that even if she’s not making a choice that you are in full agreement with, there are more benefits to just holding space for that and letting her make the choice. Because if it doesn’t end up working out, it’s her mistake to learn from. I’ve learned that when girls make the choice, then they actually feel the pain of the mistake and are like, “Oh, that wasn’t the best choice.”

Whereas if we keep buffering and padding their not-so-great choices, they’re never going to learn. I have plenty of girls in college who had very helicoptering parents who buffered all their choices. And then when they were in college, they kind of went reckless. They’ve actually shared with me, “I kind of wish I understood cause and effect better in high school and had a little more safety to make not-the-greatest choices.”

And it was quite wise of her to share that—what her needs might have been. Because we’re all human beings learning, and that middle ground space where there’s discomfort—the discomfort of maybe watching a kid not make the best choice—is a growth space. It’s where they learn. But again, we always look at these binaries of black and white and think there’s a perfect choice and a terrible choice, and no in-between. That’s a really gripping, fear-based mentality.

I talk about the gray zone between the black and white. It’s not a term I came up with, but it’s a term that has helped me very much in this space—meeting girls where they’re at and helping them grow and learn in their own way.

BLAIR HODGES: See, I appreciated this so much about the book because one of my fears going in was that it might pedestalize teen girls. I mean, the subtitle says the wisdom and power of teenage girls. It’s called Underestimated. And I agree—they are underestimated. But they’re also kids. They’re still figuring things out.

You use this acronym, L-O-V-E: Let Others Voluntarily Evolve. I love that, because it recognizes that they’re going to get things wrong sometimes. They’re human. Talk about that attitude—let others voluntarily evolve—and how it’s different from just permissiveness or disengagement. Because someone might hear that and think, “Oh, so you’re saying just let kids do whatever they want.” But you mean something else.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah. It’s actually an act of love to offer someone the dignity of their own choices. When we try to control someone’s choices—it usually doesn’t work anyway. They shut you out, they don’t trust you, and you lose connection.

So “let others voluntarily evolve” is really about creating a respectful conversation. It’s not, “Do whatever you want.” It’s, “I trust you enough to think through your own choices.” When we lead from control, it’s like, I have the power, you don’t, and you’ll do what I say because I know best. That’s where we underestimate girls.

I’ve seen incredible solutions come from girls when they’re given space and time to think. Parents sometimes say, “Well, I asked her what she thought, and she just said, ‘I don’t know.’” And I say, “Okay, great. She can say that.” She probably hasn’t had much space to think for herself.

BLAIR HODGES: Or maybe she has given answers before and got shut down, so now she’s like, “Why bother?”

CHELSEY GOODAN: Exactly. So when she says, “I don’t know,” I’ll say, “Okay, well, think about it. I’ll come back in a week or two—I can’t wait to hear your smart ideas.” You’re showing that you believe in her, that you trust she has good thoughts. And almost every time, the girls rise to the occasion.

 

Holding Space for Feelings – 13:34

 

BLAIR HODGES: Let’s talk about feelings. You have a chapter on this where you use the phrase “holding space.” I don’t remember hearing that term growing up, but now I hear it everywhere—especially around grief or emotional support. What do you mean by holding space for someone?

CHELSEY GOODAN: So often when we see someone in pain—disappointment, anger, frustration, sadness—we want them out of that pain. We rush to fix it, to reframe it, to give advice. But research and experience both show that what people need most is for us to hold space: just listen and reflect.

You can mirror their exact words—“That does sound frustrating,” or “That sucks.” That kind of validation helps them feel seen. Without it, they start to internalize, “I’m bad for feeling this way.” Then there’s no room for them to process hard emotions, which harms mental health.

Holding space takes patience—it means you can sit with someone’s discomfort. But when girls can express their full humanity, including the “unpleasant” feelings, it’s deeply healing. Just naming a feeling helps. That’s why I included a feelings wheel in the back of the book. People often just say “I feel bad” or “I feel sad,” but the wheel helps find more specific words.

For example, “disappointment” is a really powerful one. When you name it, it clicks—“Oh, that’s what I’m feeling.” And once you name it, it can move through you. Research shows that the chemical process of an emotion lasts about 90 seconds.

BLAIR HODGES: I love that. When you brought that research in—the physiological side of emotion—that was so helpful. That initial rush that floods your system and clouds your thinking only lasts about 90 seconds. It doesn’t mean the feeling’s gone after that, but if you just let that wave pass, then you can start processing.

We’ve been working on that in my family—helping our kids build a vocabulary for feelings. Emotional intelligence really grows from that.

CHELSEY GOODAN: And certainly with boys. Like, I have worked with boys too, and I found it really helpful, lots of times when I'd work with a boy, I'm like, well, how are you feeling? They look at me like no one has ever asked them that. And same thing—when they expand their vocabulary, it really helps.

BLAIR HODGES: And with holding space too. I like the word “holding” because it means you're still connected, but you're not hovering. You're just there—holding space. It somehow hits this really good in-between of not clutching someone so they can’t move, but also not letting them go so they're totally on their own. Holding space is intimate, but it also gives people room to be who they are.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah, totally. And then oftentimes, once you develop trust and respect, you can say, well, do you want my thoughts on this? Just ask—phrase it as a question. And she may say no, or she may say sure. Right? It’s about letting her lead her own healing. That’s the “let others voluntarily evolve” part. It’s a loving act to let her find it for herself.

BLAIR HODGES: I liked your metaphor of the punk rock band versus the muffled flute. You ask parents or other folks to picture themselves at a concert—as an audience member, a supporter, enjoying the music and being part of that vibe rather than shutting down the show or criticizing it. I like that metaphor a lot.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah. The punk rock thing—it’s like you need someone to jam out to your punk rock band of feelings. You just want someone to be like, “Yeah, totally!” Whereas, you’re trying to play your music and someone’s like, “Turn it off, it’s too loud.”

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. Or like, “I’m scared of that—whoa, whoa, whoa.”

CHELSEY GOODAN: Exactly. I think, again, it comes back to the fear of feelings. Everyone’s scared of teenage girls’ big feelings.

BLAIR HODGES: That’s Chelsey Goodan. We’re talking about the book Underestimated: The Wisdom and Power of Teenage Girls. Chelsey’s also a mentorship director at DemocraSHE—a nonprofit that guides girls from underrepresented communities into leadership positions.

 

Talking About Sex – 18:23

 

BLAIR HODGES: Chelsey, let’s talk about the parts of the book that focus on sex and sexuality. I think this is a really important part of the book. You say that sex and sexuality are where the most alarming, toxic, and gripping fears are found. And sex education in schools is failing. A lot of parents are floundering. Kids maybe don’t feel comfortable talking to adults about this stuff. So when you’ve been in girls’ confidence—really just side by side with them—what are they bringing up about sex and sexuality?

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah, it has so much to do with shame and blame. There’s just no space for them to explore any kind of healthy exploration. They just can’t get it right—they’re either too much or too little. And so much of the narrative placed on them is about protecting them from boys. It’s really messed up because why are we putting all the blame and responsibility on girls and not focusing on boys? Boys are very capable of being responsible and controlling their inclinations, but we don’t talk about that. Instead, 90 percent of the conversation is about what she’s wearing. I see it again and again in all types of communities.

And when we talk about sex education in schools—only eleven states require that consent be taught in their curriculum. So we’re failing boys too. They’re feeling lost in this conversation, and that helps explain a lot of the sexual violence we see. Girls feel like they’re going crazy. They’re like, “Why is no one talking about this? This is a male violence issue, not a me-being-too-sexy issue.”

It’s hard for a girl to find herself in that, because honestly, it’s an age-appropriate time for her to be figuring out who she is in that space. As much as parents want to shut that down, it’s pretty normal for a girl to be exploring her identity that way. So girls talk to me a lot about the control, blame, and shame they feel—and how they wish it wasn’t so constant. They just feel judged in every choice they make.

A lot of it comes down to curiosity—meeting her where she’s at. You can’t come hard and fast into this conversation with your kid. I’ve suggested that parents could bring up that consent statistic, for example—approach it intellectually. I talk to girls about sexual assault on college campuses, and they really appreciate that I respect their intellect and care about the issue. They can feel that I’m on their team.

BLAIR HODGES: So you might bring up a news story or something and say, “Hey…”

CHELSEY GOODAN: Exactly. Like, “Hey, what do you think about that? Do you think that’s an issue? What do you think about your sex education curriculum at school—do you think it’s doing a good job?” That kind of more intellectual approach helps them start trusting that you’re on their team about this, because they feel like no one’s on their team—that they’re just going to be judged.

BLAIR HODGES: You also say there are issues they don’t see being brought up at all, which is troubling. For example, harassment. They don’t see good conversations happening about it. They might see it among peers—on TikTok or Instagram—but not from the so-called responsible adults who are supposed to be teaching them about sex and how to interact with other people. You mention consent already, but harassment was another one. And another issue you bring up is double standards. 

CHELSEY GOODAN: Oh my gosh, they go on and on about gender double standards with me. Like, how much the boys get to… they get to run free. They feel more affirmed when they’re exploring their sexual identity. It’s like, “Oh, hey, dude, he’s doing great out there.” There’s a male masculinity culture that really affirms men and boys for pursuing women and being a player. And there’s nothing positive for a girl in that space. She’s slut-shamed. And so girls bring that up over and over with me—how they’re slut-shamed in so many different contexts. And yeah, the harassment too, like grown men looking at their chests, and it’s like, “Oh, shrug your shoulders. That’s the way men are,” or “Boys will be boys.” No. We are capable of change and growth in this space. That’s why I’m trying to focus the conversation on that. One of the girls in the book goes, “Go talk to your boys. Stop making this my problem.”

 

Talking About Sexuality – 22:39

 

BLAIR HODGES: And it’s not just about the boys. Another thing your book points out is that not every girl is worried about boys to begin with. There are queer kids, other identities, asexual kids. This is another thing you’ve learned from girls. What have you learned about sexuality?

CHELSEY GOODAN: Gen Z—without a doubt, they identify much more on the spectrum of sexuality. Many girls aren’t tying their sexuality to any identification with a boy’s attention. It’s much more expansive now. That’s part of the shift—one of the girls talks about the fairy tale being over and now it’s just them navigating societal narratives and finding their own individuality within that. The more I can permission that exploration… lots of times when I say to a girl, “If we talk about romantic interests, do you have a crush on anyone?” what they hear a lot is, “Do you have a boyfriend? Do you like a boy?” And they’re over it. They’re like, “Maybe my whole identity and worth isn’t whether I have a boyfriend.”

BLAIR HODGES: You also say they’re really good at detecting covert agendas. If a parent comes in thinking, “I need to stop her from getting pregnant, that’s my number one goal,” they’ll sniff that out immediately. And it probably won’t even seem relevant to the girl.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Exactly. Yes. Girls love radical honesty. They’d prefer you just cut through and tell the truth. In general, if you’re feeling insecure about bringing something up, they’re going to sniff it out.

One of the biggest pieces of advice in the sexuality chapter is: deal with your own sexuality baggage. That’s going to be handed down to the girl. She’s going to feel it. You’ll cast down the same wounds you experienced. The only thing truly in our control is our own healing. And the last thing—the girl is just like, “That’s not my story.”

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

CHELSEY GOODAN: The more you can be honest—“Hey, I struggled with this, or this was a thing for me, but is it for you?”—and phrase it like a question, with curiosity.

BLAIR HODGES: So you talk about introducing ideas like consent. You mentioned earlier that this needs to be a bigger focus in curriculums and in how parents and trusted adults talk to kids. You talk about respect as being really important.

Another one, perhaps the trickiest, is pleasure. More conservative people might shy away because they’re focused on reproduction. More progressive people might shy away because they feel uncomfortable or unsure how to talk about it. But that means a lot of young girls are growing up without a sense that pleasure is an important part of being sexual.

CHELSEY GOODAN: I so appreciate you bringing that up. It’s part of the chapter—why is this considered a bad thing? I’ve found that as much as people are scared of words like STD or teen pregnancy, they’re just as scared of words like “pleasure.”

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, or like “orgasm,” right?

CHELSEY GOODAN: Exactly. They don’t even teach girls their anatomy. And we’ve seen it—almost every grown woman will tell you that sexuality baggage is because pleasure wasn’t a focus. Girls are told, “It’s going to be painful,” or “You just gotta bear with it, get through it.” There are so many horrible narratives we latch onto at a young age. The truth is it’s supposed to be a pleasurable experience.

Boys are often permissioned by media to approach it that way—why do they get that, and girls don’t? It comes down to a girl being truly comfortable with herself, knowing her needs and wants. That history—pleasing a man—has shaped societal narratives. And we are deconstructing those now.

BLAIR HODGES: When it comes to kids who are coming out, how have you dealt with it with people you've mentored whose parents aren't supportive? Like, you're kind of in a different role when you're a tutor or in a different kind of mentorship role with a girl. It's different from being a parent. There's a lot of thought about parental rights and disclosure—how have you navigated some of those tricky situations?

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah, interesting. I was definitely the first person a girl came out to quite a few times before her parents. And I focused on supporting her exactly where she was at—not being like, "You have to go tell your parents right now. You have to go do this." It’s really important to meet a kid where they're at in their process and journey. If you force it, they'll just go back into the closet, shut everything down, live in shame, and carry unnecessary trauma for years.

When I first start working with a family, I always said: if there's ever a dispute between you and your kid, I will always take her side right out of the gate. So they know—even when hiring me or bringing me into their kid’s life—that I'm fully on the child’s team. There’s always something that comes up, and it's important they know I’m fully on her side, or this is never going to work. They're never going to come to me if they don't trust that I'll be in spaces they aren't invited into, but that the kid will invite me into.

You want an adult in that space, not a peer. You want my words in that space. This rare space of trust that I’ve been invited into—thankfully, parents have been generous in giving me that space. When girls come out, it's really hard. Definitely some felt their parents wouldn't be supportive. It's traumatic to navigate and find your authentic self.

One girl I think of in particular is out of college now. Her parents know, she tries to live openly, but she still carries wounds from that time because her parents didn’t handle it well. She still thinks, "Oh, they don’t get me or know me." I do think the parents have maybe tried to do better, but initial reactions—your first reactions—set up patterns and wounds for the kid. That’s why I talk about it. The immediate response should just be, "Oh my gosh, I love you," instead of, "You're so young. How would you know?" That’s not true. The average age now for kids to come out is around 14, when they hit puberty and have a better sense of their romantic interests.

It’s frustrating because we'll look at little girls, like seven-year-olds, and say, "Do you have a boyfriend?" and that’s fine. But heaven forbid a 14-year-old understands herself better—that's treated as unreasonable.

BLAIR HODGES: Definitely a lot of queerphobia happening there.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah. And I get it—it’s a different time. Our parents' generation didn’t have kids coming out this early. But let’s look at the harm that happened. My generation came out in their 20s, sometimes older—sometimes not until their 40s after their first marriage. It was so hard and traumatizing. The trauma is real. Suicide rates are very high for LGBTQ+ youth, and that's what we're up against. Everyone has other fears, but the number one risk is suicide for an LGBTQ+ kid.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. And when you say you're on the kid's side, your book encourages parents to join you there. Stay in your parent box. Not everyone has a Chelsey Goodan in their life, obviously, but you’re showing that parents can do this too. They can be in their child’s confidence and gain their trust and love that way.

CHELSEY GOODAN: I’m trying to be a bridge, a translator: "This is what they say. I'll translate it so you can join me." Of course, I’d prefer a world without sides.

 

The Problem of Perfectionism – 30:56

 

BLAIR HODGES: Okay, I said we’d come back to perfectionism. Let’s do that now. You say perfectionism is one of the biggest problems that a lot of teen girls face. The statistics you give are pretty stunning here: 38% of teenage girls are diagnosed with an anxiety disorder right now, and there’s a huge leap in that number between ages 12 and 13.

How do you see perfectionism manifesting in girls? What kind of signs and clues do you get that parents could pick up on and be like, “Oh, perfectionism’s a problem here”?

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah, probably the two main places are in their academic achievement. They think that they have to get straight A's to have worth and value and to succeed in this world. And the pressure on them—whether they're getting the A's or not—they know that for a girl to succeed, she has to do well in school type of messaging. It came from a well-intentioned place, like how we've been trying to empower girls to be just as smart as boys, go to college just as much as boys. And we've done a better job at that.

But now we're at this place where we're thinking that's the only route. She has to get straight A's and go to an amazing college to succeed in life. And they feel so much pressure. Oh my gosh, I could go on endlessly about them being up until 2 a.m. doing their homework and having nervous breakdowns over homework and getting a B on a test.

Whereas, with boys, they really don't absorb it into their identity the same way. A girl is like, "I am a failure." A boy's just like, "Oh, whatever, I'll do better next time." They learn from their mistakes, and that's all it is. It's a learning and growth space.

And then the other one would be through beauty and their looks—the pressures on body image. Everyone loves to blame social media, and we could talk about that, but what I see actually starts way, way earlier. If you think about how we see a little girl, like a five-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy, we say to the little girl, "Oh my goodness, what a pretty dress you're wearing. Look how cute you are." And we do it with good intentions.

But to the boy, we say, "Oh, what's your favorite subject in school? What sports are you playing?" We're teaching a girl from such a young age that her worth and value is tied to what she looks like. And the average age for a girl to start dieting is eight. These things are happening really early.

And what girls tell me is that the women in their life are constantly degrading their own beauty, looks, and bodies in front of them. First of all, commenting on a girl's body is never good. Even if you're complimenting it, the girls are like, "Stop commenting on my looks and body." They need that boundary for sure.

But the next layer is women being like, "Oh, I look bad in this," or perpetually dieting for two decades of their life. What does that communicate? What does that model for a girl?

BLAIR HODGES: Let's come back to beauty and social media in a minute, but let's talk first about how to address this perfectionism. What are some suggestions you have about how we can start breaking that perfectionism down?

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah. So a lot of this is about giving voice and creating a conversation because every girl is going to be different. Some things I've done: I've said to a girl, "What if you got a C on that paper? You have nothing to prove to me. I already think you're amazing and brilliant. What if you got a C?"

She looks at me like I said the most radical thing. I've had girls get emotional, and I just want to permission more space. Interestingly, they usually don't actually end up getting a C. But by giving a lot more permission to that space, they just relax. It's that anxiety where they're not gripped to this idea.

I constantly say to them, "Perfect doesn't exist." If they push back and say, "Oh, well, 100 on a test is perfection," I'm like, "That's fleeting. It's transitory. It's only going to last a day. There's always another test." I talk to them about how I've seen people reach that perfect 10 in life. They want an Oscar, they're the CEO—they always have another goal post. No one arrives and is done.

But there's this idea that you go from 0 to 10 and are just striving for that 10, and then you'll finally be happy once you reach that perfect world. It's not the truth. The more I tell girls about it, I share my own story. I try to show up imperfectly, so they can model that for themselves and see healthy tools. It has a lot to do with self-compassion and self-acceptance, teaching those types of things.

BLAIR HODGES: You also encourage them to avoid black-and-white thinking. And that's important because kids are at a developmental stage where black-and-white thinking is more common. It takes time and experience to move out of that. How can we help kids avoid that?

CHELSEY GOODAN: That same idea of 0 to 10—I permission them to live in steps three, four, and five. Live in those steps and know they have worth and value in that gray zone. A lot of it comes from not feeling enough until they hit that 10. I tell them, "You have nothing to prove. You have worth already innately." I also bring awareness to black-and-white thinking. When they're like, "It's wrong or right, good or bad," I ask, "What could exist in between those extremes?" I call out, "That's pretty extreme thinking," but with levity and no judgment.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. Laughter, you say, is an important tool.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Oh my gosh, yes. Keep everything lighthearted. Put yourself into it too, in a humble way. They respect that radical honesty around it.

 

Navigating Social Media – 36:31

 

BLAIR HODGES: Okay, now let's get to social media. You mentioned this earlier, and a lot of parents and even lawmakers now are really worried about the impact of social media, especially on teenage girls. I mean, there are studies that show engagement on Instagram or TikTok can increase anxiety and depression for girls. And you acknowledge those kinds of studies, but you're also not suggesting an outright ban on TikTok and Instagram, and suggesting that this is just, again, a black-and-white issue. So talk a little bit about your view of social media.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Right. Well, again, I always say, of course there are harmful things on social media, but it's not going anywhere. I think it's a futile war to just get rid of it. I don't think that's going to happen. Also, I've been in the trenches with girls, looking at posts with them and actually understanding their perspective. We are underestimating them in their ability to make healthy, responsible choices for themselves.

If we are just telling them to fear, fear, fear, and that they are victims of social media, then they will be victims. They're going to be what you tell them. Instead, I love to pull up posts and ask their thoughts, ask if they feel bad about their body by looking at that, rather than making assumptions and projections onto them.

Or I like to ask, does it feel healthy how much you're using it? What would feel healthy? What do you get out of it? What do you like about it? I actually seek to understand first their relationship to it. When they feel heard and respected in this dynamic, then they're like, "Oh, my parents respect me to make responsible choices. I could do this, I could do that." They want to be part of the conversation.

What's happening instead is they are just told what they can and can't do, controlled out of fear. The parent is really scared. They hear it all and think, how do we…? There are reasons for fear, but what's the next choice beyond fear? It has to do with listening, understanding, respect, trust. That's the space where you're going to feel more connected to your daughter.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, I loved your advice about teaching media literacy. A lot of this coaching comes down to asking what they think about stuff and getting them to reflect: how does this make you feel? After you doom-scroll for a while, sit in your body for a second and just ask yourself how that feels—and let them be honest about it.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah, and create an environment where it's safe to tell the truth. That is so important, because they will tell the truth if they feel safe. If they feel like you're going to jump on them—like, "You asked that good question, but see, it was bad. You did feel bad"—they won't tell you.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Instead, you ask that good question, and she's like, "It didn't feel good." And you say, "Oh, yeah, I get that. I felt that too." Just live it with her. Be like, "Yeah, I struggled with that too."

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. Social media can be an opportunity to explore values and teach. I like taking the opportunity to talk about media representation, capitalism, whose interests are being served, how an algorithm works. If they know someone is pulling the strings behind the scenes to make their feet look a certain way, and they can take some control over that, that's important.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Girls know how to control the algorithm. I always tell people that you can teach the algorithm what you want to see. If we're just telling her that she'll look at skinny girls and feel bad about her body, that's the reality she'll experience.

Whereas if I say, "Look at these cool mental health infographics from psychology accounts," or "Look at these climate activism or social justice accounts," they love these and learn so much. I learn from them. This generation loves psychology and mental health in a way previous generations weren't. It also has to do with access on social media and giving them agency to seek out things that interest them, like feminism. Girls love finding different empowering women accounts. It's great.

Also, media literacy can be as simple as watching a TV show with them, genuinely enjoying it, no secret agenda, and creating conversations that would be hard to bring up otherwise. You can ask, "Why do you think she likes him? Why do you think he likes her?" and get her thoughts. That helps you gauge where she's at on these types of conversations.

 

Beauty Standards and Privilege – 40:54

 

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. This connects into beauty. You mentioned going through a feed and asking, "How do you feel when you see this?" That reminds me of how you say when you first began working with teenage girls, you personally were kind of on an anti-beauty feminism kick. The rallying cry was that inner beauty matters.

Teen girls you worked with actually changed your perspective. You thought you had this empowering, anti-makeup view, or that many different body sizes are great. True enough, all that stuff's great, but you also learned that maybe you were going about it the wrong way, or that you could be more nuanced.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Exactly. I was judging them too. I was judging their interest in makeup. I was judging because I grew up under a wave of feminism that said, "I want to be taken seriously, I want to be considered smart, so I need to hide beauty and fairness." That was my generation to a large extent. That is not fourth-wave feminism.

Fourth-wave feminism is very much: women can be pretty, smart, athletic. That’s the idea Gen Z really wants to put out there, and I love it. Great—let's permission women to be their authentic selves. Some women like makeup and beauty; it makes them feel good. Why am I judging them? I know girls who are truly into it, and it's not a bad thing.

They helped me understand that what we're really looking for is permission for girls to explore their authenticity and what lights them up. I don't like putting on makeup as much, but they've given me ideas and tips. I've really glammed up sometimes, and I'm like, "Oh, this is fun." There's playfulness to it. Exploring who I am in this space—there's nothing wrong with that. Why are we so judgmental?

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, it seemed like you were able to get a great boost from teen girls by seeing their attitudes about those things.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah. Or just seeing where they struggle too, and then realizing I’ve been struggling that way too. A lot of times, actually, they helped heal me because I was like, oh my gosh, I was struggling with that as a teenager, and I’m still struggling with it as an adult woman. When does this healing start? That was a big reaction to the book—this acknowledgement of healing your inner teenage girl—because so many of these wounds started in the teenage years. I was like, oh my gosh, when do I finally choose to stop that narrative within myself? What if we moved upstream and helped these girls at this age? We could change the trajectory for all women—habits of people-pleasing, perfectionism, self-doubt, body image. So many of these things disempower women as they go into adulthood.

BLAIR HODGES: And before we go to people-pleasing, I also want to say you take time in the book, as a white, cisgender, heterosexual woman, to acknowledge privilege and the ways beauty standards are sometimes shot through with racism and other things. You also note that social media can be a powerful tool for marginalized people. Sometimes critiques against social media as being completely unhealthy come from a place of privilege that doesn’t recognize what a lifeline social media can be for queer kids or for—

CHELSEY GOODAN: For people of color. Yeah. The number of LGBTQ kids who’ve told me their life has been saved by social media is incredible, because they are in communities where they don’t feel safe to come out, have no support within their community, and find people to support them on social media. I know that can feel scary, like, oh, but they’re strangers—but it’s not like that. It’s them finding friends who see them for who they are and like them for who they are. Back to the suicide rate—that’s why they say social media saved their life. For people of color, there’s more representation. They can choose who to follow, fashion, types of women they want to emulate, who look like them, rather than relying on a very white-centric media landscape that exists in traditional media.

BLAIR HODGES: That’s Chelsey Goodan, and we’re talking about her book Underestimated: The Wisdom and Power of Teenage Girls, which has been featured in Oprah Daily and on Oprah’s Book Club page. She also serves on the board of A Call to Men, a nonprofit working against gender-based violence. So, Chelsey, you’ve got a lot going on.

 

Chronic People-Pleasing – 45:27

 

BLAIR HODGES: We mentioned people-pleasing. This is where I want to go next. It’s related to perfectionism. It’s one of the areas where you say girls really taught you a lot about yourself. Give some examples of people-pleasing in your own life that you started to recognize as you worked with teen girls.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah. It has so much to do with being taught to put other people’s needs before my own. Girls will say, “It’s fine, it’s fine.” When they say that, it’s because they’re making sure you’re okay first and hiding their own pain, thinking no one can hold space for it anyway. Those bad emotions—no one wants to sit in the discomfort with you.

People-pleasing is also very performative. They’re not connected to their authenticity; it’s really a barometer measured by external validation. A good example is 15-year-old Marley in the book. She was a star volleyball player, made varsity as a freshman, and got a lot of affirmation for it. I noticed, though, she was getting migraines and stomachaches. I asked her, “Do you like playing volleyball?”

She looked at me like no one had ever asked her. She said, “Well, I like that I’m good at it.”

I said, “Yeah, okay, back to that achievement-focus.”

I asked, “Does it bring you joy?”

She said, “I like that I can bond with my mom about it.”

I asked, “Wait, are you playing volleyball to please your mom? To please everyone around you?” She looked at me wide-eyed, realizing I was right. I asked, “What lights you up? What brings you joy? What pleases you?” She said drawing fashion sketches in her notebook on the bus rides, and I said, “Cool. There’s a sewing class on the weekends when you want to do that.”

And she’s like, “Oh my gosh, I’d love that,” you know, and thankfully we brought her mom into the conversation. She ends up quitting volleyball. It was just crazy because she was so good at it.

But this whole idea of girls getting affirmed for one thing and then just going down that track instead of giving space to explore what lights them up. She ended up being amazing in fashion design. Fashion is such a good example of how we minimize and dismiss teenage girls’ interests as superficial and silly. “Oh, she’s into fashion, oh my gosh.”

By the way, there are plenty of fashion jobs in the fashion industry. I have plenty of girls now in their 20s who have those jobs. Whereas being a professional volleyball player is actually way harder. It’s funny how we don’t listen and support interests in girls that might not fit traditional achievement narratives.

BLAIR HODGES: And I also think some kids might still play volleyball, but they can take the foot off the gas a little or reframe it. It doesn’t have to be stop or start. Your book allows space for them to think about it and either reframe their thinking or change their mind altogether.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Right, exactly. Every kid’s different. It’s really about letting them be the source of answers for what’s best for them. Oh, I should also mention her migraines and stomachaches went away because she was more focused on what was authentic to her—what brought her joy—rather than making everyone else happy.

People-pleasing is also a state of tension. When you’re really people-pleasing, it makes you uncomfortable. You’re like, “I don’t know, what do you want from me?” You see it in adulthood, too. Women hosting a dinner party, making tons of dishes because they want everyone happy, and they don’t enjoy the evening. What if a woman decided, “You know what, it makes me happy to only cook three dishes, and if people don’t like it, that’s their problem”? Really understanding and checking in with yourself.

BLAIR HODGES: About the three dishes, some people might say, “I’m sorry I only did this dish.” The apologizing—I hear it so much, especially from women and girls. There’s an epidemic of “I’m sorrys.”

CHELSEY GOODAN: I know. I talked about it in the book. Those “I’m sorrys” are just trying to make sure everyone’s okay, everyone’s needs are met, people like you, and accounting for anyone who might not like you because you said “I’m sorry.” It’s really uncomfortable. I bring awareness to it when working with a girl. I’m like, “Hey, when we say ‘sorry’…” because I was doing it too. I invited her to call me out on it. Sometimes I’ve had a girl do a tally in a day of how many times she says it—like, “Whoa, I said it 20 times today.” That awareness wakes them up and jolts them into new choices.

BLAIR HODGES: Trying to shift them from external validation to internal validation, maybe?

CHELSEY GOODAN: Exactly.

BLAIR HODGES: Describe the difference there.

CHELSEY GOODAN: It’s helping them connect to their inner voice, their true inner voice. That’s a mechanism. Often with people-pleasing, that gets cut off. Asking, “What would make you happy here? What do you need?” helps them look within and answer that. A lot of women and girls don’t even know their own needs. We’re not used to asking ourselves what would please us.

It takes time to develop the mechanism of looking within, understanding how intuition creates spaces to connect to that inner voice and wisdom. Some girls do that through journaling, listening to music, or hiking. I always ask what works for them. It’s also about the relationship to self-doubt—the mean voice in our head that’s not our real voice. What is that voice, and what is your true inner voice that makes you feel whole and happy?

BLAIR HODGES: This was a big choice in the book. You didn’t have a chapter called "Confidence." You called it "Self-Doubt." Talk about that decision.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Everyone’s always like, “Confidence, confidence, confidence, it’s about girls, right?” I’m like, actually the conversation is about unraveling their relationship to self-doubt and finding self-acceptance. A lot of it has to do with the voice in our heads.

I ask the girls, “Whose voice is it?” because it’s not their true voice. The number one response is society’s voice—what they should look like, do, how they should act. It ties back to perfectionism and people-pleasing, making choices based on those “shoulds” and then beating themselves up for not doing it perfectly or well enough.

You have to bring awareness to that voice first and then actively try to make a different choice. There are many tools and modalities of therapy to do that, but I always try to source what works best for the girl.

 

Avoiding Toxic Positivity – 52:05

 

BLAIR HODGES: And in your work as a tutor and mentor for over 16 years, you've really tuned into some of the biggest self-doubts that a lot of these girls are facing. The two biggest ones you identify in this chapter are that they won’t be successful or that no one will love them for who they really are. Those are like the two biggies, right?

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah. I mean, everyone listening, right? Can’t you relate? Don’t we all have fear around those two things? They’re pretty part of the human experience. Certainly not being loved for who you really are—and that kind of comes back to authenticity.

First, you have to actually be expressing who you are in the world. And so many people are just scared of even doing that because they’re afraid of judgment.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. You’re inviting people to let girls figure out who they are, to reflect on what voices are in their head and what their interests are. You invite us to ask girls: What do you care about? What do you actually enjoy doing? What do you want to do more of? If you could wave a magic wand and do the thing you wanted to do.

CHELSEY GOODAN: That’s the thing that builds confidence, right? I’m trying to give actual working tools to build confidence rather than saying, “You should be more confident,” or just slapping a “girlboss” label on them. It’s also self-trust. The ability to trust themselves, to look within and make a choice that’s theirs and see it go well, have it well-received. That shows them they can develop smart thoughts, smart choices. Oftentimes, you need the parent to trust your ability first so that you have space to grow.

BLAIR HODGES: How do you suggest people avoid the toxic positivity approach? Because when addressing self-doubt, we might say, like you said, “Go girl,” or “Girlboss.” But you also want to teach girls to sit with real discomfort, learn how to fail, and avoid toxic positivity.

It’s funny because you’re such a positive person yourself. You have great energy, but I don’t get the sense that you promote a fake “put a smile on everything” approach.

CHELSEY GOODAN: No, so true. I had to find that for myself too—my own dark space where I felt safe, because that’s the full human experience. No one is happy all the time. It’s about feeling emotionally and psychologically safe in those harder spaces and feeling loved and whole there. Where positivity comes in is affirming—not in a “girl boss” way.

In my "Compliments" chapter, I get specific about how to affirm better. I say, increase specificity. Instead of saying, “You’re amazing,” you say, “Oh my gosh, I really see how you’re juggling all your AP classes, then going to tennis practice, taking care of your little brother because your parents aren’t home yet. I really see you showing up as a good friend when you supported your friend through a hard time. What a thoughtful thing to do.”

I bring a ton of positivity to that type of affirmation. Increase frequency and length—try sending a compliment in three sentences. It pushes you into specificity. Anyone in your life will like you more because people see themselves through your eyes. The more you say, “You’re so smart and insightful,” and describe how that shows up in their life, they recognize it. Give energy—what you give energy to grows. It’s not just blatant positivity; it’s specific. Enthusiasm helps, too. Find it for yourself. I’m naturally enthusiastic, and teenage girls love it—they’re the queen of exclamation points, and I love them for it.

BLAIR HODGES: This is one of the hardest needles for me to thread—not wanting a kid to get hooked on external validation, but also being validating. That’s a really hard needle to thread.

CHELSEY GOODAN: It comes back to specificity—they feel seen when you compliment something they chose to do, something sourced from them.

BLAIR HODGES: Okay.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Not, “You met my expectation.” The barometer isn’t your assessment. You’re seeing how she did something—she made a choice herself that was great, beautiful, and responsible.

 

Building and Balancing Resilience – 56:51

 

BLAIR HODGES: Okay, now, I think a lot of people might be wondering about this next question, which is how to get girls to push through hard things. Because there’s also a risk of them letting go of the rope too early—something gets hard. We want to build resilience too, right? So how can caregivers, teachers, and parents work with kids on building that kind of resilience, while also respecting their autonomy and recognizing when they could make a choice?

For example, a hypothetical kid who I will not name, who may be stopping piano lessons right now, much to my great disappointment, because I did the same thing when I was a kid and eternally regret it. Go.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Oh, wow. I mean, it’s hard because every kid is going to be really different. I always say you’ve got to just listen first and seek to understand what’s going on for them. A lot of the resilience tools I’m talking about are the things we’ve been discussing: holding space for feelings, empowering them to make their own choice, giving them trust and respect, and then affirming when they make a good choice—like all of those things. Not leading with judgment, leading with curiosity. Those are really the toolbox of empowerment.

BLAIR HODGES: They’re definitely not quitting forever. They’re just done for now. They want to switch to guitar or drums. I just remember myself doing the same thing, and today I so much regret it. I don’t want to put my own regrets on my kids. So I’ve come to it and affirmed, “Okay, this is your choice.”

But I also wonder if I could ask them something like, “Do you think it’s worth working through a hard thing when it gets boring or difficult? Do you think there’s value in it?” But I think your book would tell me I have to ask from a place of real curiosity, not expecting the ‘right answer’ from them. That’s hard for me, because I do want the right answer, but I also want to ask honestly and get their honest opinion.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah. You’re working through it. You’re asking all the right questions. I love how you’re looking within. Also, it’s okay to be vulnerable yourself and say, “I just want to get real with you. I’m feeling vulnerable because I realized, as an adult, I regret quitting piano lessons.”

You have your whole story going on over here. When you see your kid quitting, you might project onto them that they’ll regret it. That may not be their thing, but let them know that’s what’s going on for you. A lot of times, the kids will say, “Oh, okay, thanks for explaining that.” They respect even the next layer of honesty.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, okay. That’s helpful. We’ll see how it goes. Maybe they’ll come back to piano too. 

CHELSEY GOODAN: And I have compassion for parents too. Of course. It’s hard. There’s going to be a lot of imperfection—no parent’s going to get it all right, and that’s okay.

 

Authenticity and Relationships – 59:56

 

BLAIR HODGES: We’ve talked a lot about authenticity throughout the interview. This part’s really important to me—your chapter about friendship. To be an authentic person, I think a lot of online advice focuses on being authentic from a very individualistic perspective. That approach, to me, doesn’t give enough attention to relationship give-and-take.

For example, in a marriage, I’m going to give up some things I otherwise would have wanted, or I’ll be a different person than I might otherwise have been, and I hope my partner does the same. It’s an ongoing negotiation. When we think of authenticity separated from relationships, it can become isolating. Your chapter on friendship is a good place to explore that concern.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah. I say, you’ll attract the right people—friends or a partner—by being your most authentic self. I actually lean into being weird, and I use that word specifically. Lots of times “unique” feels achievement-focused. “Weird” accesses insecurities in an interesting way. Sometimes we’re insecure about our full weirdness, but that’s where a lot of beauty is. I always encourage parents to affirm anything that makes their kid weird. It helps them feel seen, and you’re bringing positivity to it.

When a kid is having a hard time finding friends, I tell them to let their “swan song” or “bat signal,” whatever term you want to use, shine. You’ll start attracting the right people into your life. Trying to be “normal” or fit in is a manipulation of yourself—it feels inauthentic and doesn’t feel good. You might fit in, but you don’t really like those kids, and it doesn’t feel right. It can be hard when friendship access is limited in high school or your town.

I tell kids adulthood is awesome in that way—you can find your people, there’s more space to do it. The first step is making sure that when you do have autonomy and you’re not in a relationship, you let your full authenticity shine. That way, you attract someone who appreciates that, and there’s less conflict.

Of course, everyone is different. In a marriage or relationship, you really respect how someone sees things differently than you. That’s a sign of respect and humility, which is a really important part of the dynamic.

BLAIR HODGES: Of course, a lot of these friendships can get extremely intimate, like kids can just give themselves over to their peers. Some of these strongest bonds can form. What about parents and caregivers who are worried about codependency developing between their kids and other kids?

CHELSEY GOODAN: My goodness, you are just hitting all the smart questions.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, I've got an 11-year-old, so I’m thinking of these things.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah. Codependency is an issue, and it’s something we’re finally shining more light on. I did not grow up really knowing that term. I thought I was a really strong, independent, powerful woman, and I realized how codependency can show up—just putting other people’s needs before my own, or being like, “I’m fine, I’ve got it all handled, let’s deal with your issues.” Making it all about the other person. It can show up in a lot of sneaky ways.

When a kid morphs their identity into another kid, another relationship, or with a parent, it’s often hard to unwind and unwrap that. Honestly, with how smart kids are about psychology these days, I would teach them about codependency—what it looks like and how it shows up.

Girls particularly love knowing how their brain works; they love being smart about psychology. I’ve talked about trauma responses with them. I had a girl bring up her mother wound with me. That’s not something I learned about until much later in life. They can handle conversations like understanding how that might show up.

And again, it’s without an agenda. You can bring in your own experience, like, “Yeah, I was learning about codependency and realized how it showed up in my life growing up. What are your thoughts? Do you see that happen with kids your age?” It doesn’t have to be about their issues—it can just be curiosity about the topic.

BLAIR HODGES: Right, you’re respecting the intelligence, interest, and emotions of teenage girls. You’re letting them be part of it. What did you learn about your own friendships from being closer to the friendships of teenage girls? What have you gotten out of this?

CHELSEY GOODAN: Well, yeah. There are a couple aspects to this chapter. One is the “ride or die” beautiful feelings of how teenage girls show up for their friends. They let each other just be a mess around each other. Adults learn to contain it all and put on a show, and we’re kind of starving for deep emotional connections. We don’t really get those unless we do, like, a girls trip or weekend away, where all the walls finally come down after a day or two, and we start sharing in a real way what we’re struggling with. Teenage girls, man—they will sob with each other.

BLAIR HODGES: They can do that after school.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah. They’ll call each other and spill every detail, and the other wants to hear every detail. There might be a concern about codependency, but there’s also this beautiful aspect of being a mess together and having friends willing to show up for you in that mess.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. I loved seeing you talk about becoming a better friend or trying to experience friendship more fully as an adult. In my own life, and many of the adults I talk to, friends often say we just don’t have enough time. We aren’t spending enough time finding room for our friends.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah. It’s so important. They found that relationship. We put a lot of focus on family, but family is very much an obligatory love—I know that sounds different from a chosen love. 

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, yeah.

CHELSEY GOODAN: You choose your friends, and there’s great power in that. The more you actively choose people who help you feel seen, understood, valued, and cared for, the more you live in community. It’s not about external validation. I fully believe in living in community with people.

BLAIR HODGES: That’s Chelsey Goodan talking about her book Underestimated: The Wisdom and Power of Teenage Girls. It’s a terrific book, and I’ve learned so much from it. It’s a book I’m going to keep going back to.

 

Repair and Reconciliation – 01:06:36

 

BLAIR HODGES: Alright, Chelsey. I imagine some listeners might be thinking that all this advice sounds great, and they’re interested, but they might feel like things are already too far gone with their kid. Maybe things are too broken for your book to make a difference at this point. Or maybe their kids have already grown out of the teen years, so they think, “Oh, I don’t know, maybe that’s not even relevant. My kids aren’t teenagers yet.” Right?

What’s your advice for people who feel like it’s too late, that there’s already too much dysfunction in their relationship for this kind of approach to work?

CHELSEY GOODAN: Wow. Thankfully, I really do have something specific that lands in my conclusion, in the Liberation Challenge chapter. It’s about making amends. I did not expect to write about this, but all the girls told me over and over when I asked them, “What do you want most from your parents?”

They would say, “I just wish they would say, ‘I’m sorry.’”

BLAIR HODGES: Wow.

CHELSEY GOODAN: I was like, whoa, okay. What do you mean? I leaned in. And these weren’t just a flurry of “sorrys”—these were serious amends. Parents who want a restart—what I call asking for a restart—first should actually ask for it. Say something like, “Hey, I just read this book and I learned a lot. I realize I want to create some healing between us. We have a dynamic and pattern that hasn’t felt good. It feels contentious. You probably feel the same way. I want to take the lead and ask how we can make it better. I’m going to try doing things a little differently. I want you to be able to trust that. This may feel new, and I want to say I’m so sorry I haven’t done this earlier.”

It can be really specific: “I didn’t handle the divorce well,” or “I criticized you a lot growing up.” Try to identify something tangible to make amends for, or ask the kid, “Is there something I can do to make you feel emotionally safer around me?” Most of the girls, as you can see in the back of the book, share quotes saying this is all they’ve ever wanted from their dad.

BLAIR HODGES: I want to read one from Riley. I have it right here. Riley said, “My dad’s never apologized to me for anything. It’s actually all I want from him. I know we’ll never work through everything, but an apology would heal those things we may never talk through. If he were to apologize and recognize his role, I would feel so much better rather than feeling like I have to just forget in order to move on.”

CHELSEY GOODAN: Right. All of them—like, what, seven in a row? They were gut-wrenching. I end with a girl whose family did end up going to therapy together. They learned how to apologize to each other. She used to hate her parents, but now she says she feels so much safer telling the truth herself—to be real with them and to say sorry herself because they’ve modeled loving behavior. That’s the best way to start changing dynamics and patterns: repair. Repair has been a talked-about concept in psychology lately.

BLAIR HODGES: I think just trying it is what really matters. And this may be one of the hardest things for parents to do: to truly give kids autonomy, even if they want to put a wall between you. In other words, if you extend an apology and try a repair and it doesn’t work, you also honor your child’s decision and hold space, even if they’re not going to enter back into your space.

CHELSEY GOODAN: The priority isn’t you getting what you want or need, because a parent-child dynamic is unidirectional in that way. You have to be the adult in the room holding more love. They’ll hear it. They’re on their own journey of accepting it, and there may have been harm done in their experience. They need a beat—a beat to process and trust that you mean it.

 

Regrets, Challenges, & Surprises – 01:10:38

 

BLAIR HODGES: Well, I mean, this is a terrific book. Like I said, I think it’ll help parents, caregivers, and teachers better connect individually with girls. On a wider scale, it could help change some societal perceptions and some of the social scripts around teenage girls—who they are. So on both an individual and social level, I think your book is doing crucial work.

It made me wonder, though. The book is so new, and I always end with this segment, “Regrets, Challenges & Surprises.” I wonder if you have any regrets yet at this point, or if you’ve thought about the challenges—the hardest parts about writing it—or if anything surprised you while creating the book. You can speak to one, two, or all three of those. It’s up to you.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah, I think I’ve been surprised by how many people have loved it who don’t have teenage daughters, and how much women in their 20s—or women with grown children—have felt like it healed their inner teenage girl. And then, I mean, I haven’t been surprised. But men have really loved the book. Dads have really loved it.

I think that’s because I had a really great dad, and I put a lot of healthy masculinity into it. It’s not like, you know, here we are empowering girls but saying something bad about men and boys. I’m inviting them into this journey with us. Right. Like, you—you’re such an amazing model of that, and I’m thankful for the men who step up and do that.

In terms of regret, it’s such a big, big word. But part of me feels like it’s been hard because I could only write so much in the media chapter, right? Everyone has really specific social media questions, and they wanted so much more. I could have been, I guess, more thorough, but probably not, because you can only write so much in a chapter.

But there’s a part of me that’s like, “Well, guys, that’s not the whole conversation. There’s more to this.” So there’s a little bit of that going on.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. You mentioned the acknowledgments. I was so moved by your acknowledgments. You thank your dad. You thank your editor for advocating for your voice. I see a lot of the things you’re suggesting we do with teen girls coming through there. You thank your best friend, who was there for celebrations but also for struggles. You talk about your PR team, who took someone like you, who didn’t have a platform at the time, but believed your voice could be heard everywhere. And you also mention some readers and a writer’s roundtable that really changed some big things about the book.

What was the biggest thing that changed, do you think, from the early stages?

CHELSEY GOODAN: I had a ton of people read it—whether it was that writers’ group or friends. I’m really into having people read so I can gauge what’s landing and what’s not. I don’t know if it’s really specific, but I would say having that humility as a writer—to be open to feedback—was huge. It’s kind of actually a similar thing to the parent-child dynamic, right? Where it’s not like I’m just the one in power. No.

It’s in community, where you listen and say, “Oh, I didn’t see it that way,” and understand that you can’t see everything. It’s impossible. I can’t write a perfect book from moment one. Getting people’s perspectives, better understanding, asking questions—really helped me fine-tune the book to hopefully elevate it to its greatest purpose.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. And I just want to close with this one: the acknowledgment you close with to your high school drama teacher, Jodi Paproth. You say, “When I was a teenage girl, you were the non-parent adult who sought to understand me, always listened, never judged, helped me discover my quirky, authentic self, and let me be me. Thank you.” That is a beautiful way to end it.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah. That ends the acknowledgments. I landed on her, and then when I was on my book tour in Colorado, I had her at my event there, where she moderated it and stuff, which was so special.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, that rules. Well, Chelsey, thanks again. The book is called Underestimated: The Wisdom and Power of Teenage Girls. It’s a terrific book, and I loved this conversation. Chelsey, thanks for joining us.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Me too. You are so good at this. You really care and provide incredible questions to get to the next layer and the next layer. Thank you for that.

BLAIR HODGES: That’s what I want the show to do. Thanks for saying that.

CHELSEY GOODAN: Yeah. Oh my God, it’s so great. Thank you so much, Blair.

 

Outro – 01:14:45

 

BLAIR HODGES: Thanks for listening to another episode of Relationscapes.

I want to give a special shout-out right now to Keith Rex, Alison Squire, and Liz Redd. These are some of the people who so often are sending me positive vibes on Instagram. Thank you, my friends. Thanks for that. Thanks for interacting with the posts. You can follow me on Instagram at Relationscapes. I’m also on TikTok too—check me out on TikTok, @_Relationscapes.

If you’re enjoying the podcast, would you please rate and review it? It’s really easy to do. I wonder, I’m not sure if my wife has done that yet, and I’ve brought this up before in other outros: honey, have you reviewed it yet? If you haven’t, it’s free to do. It’s not going to cost you anything. I’ll help you do it. I’ll show you where it’s at on your phone. You just go to Apple Podcasts, look up Relationscapes, scroll down to ratings and reviews, and there it is. You can put it in there. I love seeing new reviews come in.

In fact, I saw a new one from LJ—actually, LJ with a heart emoji in particular. I see you, LJ heart emoji. Thanks for the five stars. You can also rate the show on Spotify.

Mates of State provides our theme song. I’m your host, Blair Hodges, a journalist joining you from Salt Lake City, and I’ll see you in another episode.