Girls on The Run: Week 1 Recap & Challenge

We wrapped our first week of Girls on the Run practice! ??

This is not just a running program, it’s also a team building and personal growth curriculum. Confidence begins to decline after age 9 for many girls and this program and curriculum for 3rd - 5th grade is designed to help reverse that trend. The program is full of life lessons and tools that could be useful for everybody: building a strong team, improving self-confidence, practicing self-reflection, creating healthy friendships and resolving conflict, to name a few.

I plan to share a weekly recap with a spotlight on what we did & how you could take it further. I'll share prompts for what to: “Ask your daughter” + offer a Bonus Activity/Conversation starter that could be helpful for anyone building a team (at work or at home).

My hope is to: 1) better communicate the depth and power of this GOTR program/curriculum, 2) help parents raise bolder, braver girls/kids, by sharing ways to reinforce these lessons through weekly challenges and 3) serve as a resource that can inspire & support other youth coaches.

I am always looking for ways to apply leadership lessons from work, at home. Here I'll be looking to take leadership and growth mindset lessons from GOTR coaching into the office AND home. I hope you'll follow along!

WEEK 1 RECAP:

What we did this week, besides running:

Session 1: Set “Our Team Agreement” & played games to learn each other’s names and developed a team cheer: Girls On The Run is really fun!

[This was all about aligning expectations and camaraderie.]

• Ask your daughter: What are the ground rules in your team agreement, how did you come up with them? ?
• Bonus activity: Consider having a family discussion about what your family agreements/ground rules?are. How do you want to operate with each other?

GOTR Sample Team Agreement:

?

Session 2: What’s makes YOU unique: What makes you, you? And what makes your teammates, them??

[This was all about building confidence and valuing diversity across the team].

“We did fun activities to think about yourself and think about questions you haven’t thought of before.” ??

We ran laps and paired up with someone new each time to something unique about ourselves by completing this sentence: “if you really knew me, you’d know….”. As an example, I shared “If you really knew me, you’d know I was really close with my grandpa. I wish I could go back in time and get a few hours with him in his workshop where we would spend hours making things together whenever I visited.”? ?

• Ask your daughter: “What did you share that makes you special/unique? What else?? Share a few things that you notice about what makes her special and unique.? Share what you think makes you unique Consider doing this around the table for every family member
• Bonus Activity: Use “if you really knew me, you’d know….” ?In a team icebreaker at work or around the family dinner table. It helps if a parent or the leader shares first and shares something that others don’t know and that’s a little vulnerable to set the tone.?

GIRLS ON THE RUN, LET’S HAVE FUN,

Coach Megan

?