Empowering Tween Girls to Have More Confidence

A few weeks ago, we had a magical day for 53 tween girls between the ages of 9 and 12 years old and the imapct will stay with me forever. Girls walked onto our flower farm, not entirely sure what the day would hold. Some were quiet. Some were bouncy and excited. Some had that look I recognized immediately… the one that says I’m not sure I belong here. By the end of the day, something had shifted in almost every single one of them. And one phone call the following morning at 7:00 a.m. told me everything I needed to know about why this work matters more than words can hold.

The Age Nobody Talks About (But Everybody Should)

There is a season in a girl’s life that our culture tends to rush past.

Ages 9 to 12.

She’s too old for the little-kid stuff. Too young to be taken seriously as a teenager. Society has a word for it – “awkward” – and that word does more damage than most people realize.

Because here is what is actually happening inside a girl during those years:

She is looking outside of her family for the first time to figure out who she is.

She is starting to compare.

She is starting to doubt.

She is watching social media, listening to what her peers say, absorbing messages from a world that tells her she needs to be prettier, thinner, more interesting, more likeable – and also completely effortless about all of it.

How to help young girls feel more confident

If she looks outward to find her worth, she will never feel like enough.

That is not an opinion. I have seen it with my own eyes, year after year, for the past seven years that I have been doing tween empowerment work. As a professional photographer for 28 years, I have seen it behind the camera and have realized that as photographers, we can make a difference and help give girls confidence.

This is not an awkward in-between season to skip over. This is one of the most emotionally significant seasons of a girl’s entire life.

What Happened When We Passed the Microphone

This was our third year hosting the tween empowerment event here on the farm.

The whole space is transformed into something magical – soft, boho, full of color and warmth. Girls rotate through stations with a high school leader by their side all day. Each station is run by a trained adult: therapists, counselors, women who know how to hold space for young hearts. The topics are real ones.

Loving yourself.

Your uniqueness is what makes you incredible.

Comparison will steal everything.

Healthy friendships and how to build them.

How to understand and cope with your emotions.

Truths versus lies – and all the head trash that piles up when nobody helps you sort through it.

At one point in the day, I asked if any of the girls wanted to share.

One after another, they took the microphone.

They shared the lies they had believed. Words from bullies. Messages from social media. Thoughts they had been carrying around completely alone, convinced they were the only ones who felt that way.

And then one girl – soft-voiced, completely serious – said, “Until today, I didn’t want to live anymore.”

Silence fell over the entire room.

Nobody moved.

She kept talking. And then another girl took the microphone. And then another.

The next morning, my phone rang at 7:00 a.m. A mom on the other end of the line, crying. She told me her daughter had come home, called a family meeting with her 8th-grade brother and her mom, who had recently been through a divorce, and said:

“Mom and brother, I used to hate myself. But then I learned so much yesterday and now I am a different person today. I know I am worthy, beautiful in my own way, and I deserve a great life living as me. I want you two to find a program just like this so you could feel this too.”

That is a 9 to 12-year-old girl.

That is what happens when someone pours into her before the world convinces her she is not worth it.

Our Young People are Struggling

I want to be honest with you about something.

The numbers are not getting better.

Suicide rates among young girls are rising. Bullying – especially online – is happening at younger and younger ages. Cutting. Eating disorders. Girls in elementary school already learning to hate what they see in the mirror.

This is not something that is coming. It is already here.

And ages 9 to 12 are not just a prelude to the harder years. They are the years when the foundation gets set. The years when a girl either begins to build a sense of who she is, or begins to quietly let the world build it for her.

What we do in this season matters. What we say to these girls matters. What we create for them to experience – safely, joyfully, in a space where they are genuinely celebrated – it matters in ways that reach far beyond one afternoon on a flower farm.

That mom’s phone call was not a coincidence. It was what happens when a girl feels truly seen, maybe for the first time.

Help Pre-Teen Girls Feel More Confident

Whether you are a mom or a photographer, there is a place for you in this work.

For moms with daughters ages 9 to 12:

If you are watching your daughter start to lose the confidence she used to carry so easily, you are seeing exactly what I have been talking about. You are not imagining it. And you do not have to wait for middle school to get harder before you do something.

Here are some of the ways we are currently pouring into tween girls: https://cedarhillstudios.com/2024-tweens-empowerment

• The Tween Empowerment Photo Experience – an intentional, celebratory session that honors who your daughter is on the inside, not just how she looks https://cedarhillstudios.com/2024-tweens
• The Tween Team – a monthly workshop series where girls come together, build real friendships, and talk through real topics in a safe and fun environment. They become a team. They learn to uplift one another – even when it is hard. https://cedarhillstudios.com/2024-tweens-empowerment
• Tween Empowerment Summer Camp – right here on the flower farm, with nature activities, flowers, and the same mission woven through every single day https://cedarhillstudios.com/2026-tween-camp

I am also working on building a platform so that girls everywhere – not just here in Georgia – can access these workshops and experiences.

Photographers can help young girls feel more confident:

Seven years ago, I created something that completely changed my business and my life. And for the past several years, I have been developing a course to teach other photographers how to do the same thing – how to use your camera to impact tween girls through empowerment photo experiences that celebrate their inner qualities.

If your business feels like it is missing something. If you want your work to mean more. If you are looking for a niche that is genuinely underserved and genuinely needed – this is it. https://cedarhillstudios.com/2026-photographers

The girls are waiting. And so is the version of your business that actually feels like it is doing something that matters.

This Season Will Not Wait

Time keeps moving whether we are ready or not.

The 9-year-old who is starting to compare herself to her friends will be 12 before you have a chance to blink. And the window to reach her – before the world does it first – is exactly now.

The girl who stood up and passed that microphone did not have to be brave alone. She had an entire room of girls who had been sitting with the same fears, carrying the same weight, and finally, finally found a place safe enough to set it down.

That is what we are building here.

If your daughter is in this season, I would love to have her here.

And if you are a photographer who wants to be part of this kind of work, I would love to show you how.

Reach out. Come to the farm. Let’s do something that matters.

For more information about the rising mental health crisis, see this Parents Magazine article https://www.parents.com/how-instagram-face-is-hurting-girls-self-esteem-11828316