Raising Girls with Strong Intuition: Six Things Every Parent Needs to Know
I believe one of the most important things I can do for my daughter is teach her to trust herself.
This clarity didn't come from a parenting book. It crystallised during an ordinary conversation with my husband about online predators, the kind of conversation no parent wants to have but every parent needs to at some point. As we talked, I realised that the values I had been trying to instil in her from the very beginning were all pointing at the same thing: helping her to trust her own inner guidance, her own judgement, her own knowing.
The keystones I kept returning to were four: nurture emotional intelligence. Develop intuitive intelligence. Build honesty. Teach boundaries. From there, she can find intuitive clarity on who to trust in friendships, which direction to take in her career even when it's counter-cultural, when it's time to leave a relationship, and maybe one day, which stranger to trust or avoid to keep her safe. At least that's the hope.
Here is why these four things sit together. To make good decisions, we need to be able to feel and name our feelings. To do that, we need to feel safe enough to be honest, with ourselves and with others. That safety in the body is what lets us hear our intuition rather than think our way around it. And that same honesty is what gives us the ground to stand on when we need to set a boundary or take a decisive step. Each one enables the next.
So here are six things I believe we can teach our girls, and the younger we start, the better.
1. Make intuition part of everyday decisions
We don't have to wait until our children are teenagers to introduce them to their intuitive intelligence. We can begin when they are tiny, through the simplest of choices.
I ask my daughter questions like "What does your gut tell you?" when she's deciding which friend to call or choosing between two activities. "What ideas does your intuition have for today?" isn't a strange question in our house; it becomes completely natural when it's woven into the everyday.
She still asks for my input too. "Mummy what do you think?" I encourage her to try to decide for herself first, but she tells me: "No Mummy, hearing your thoughts helps me decide." So I give an open answer, and something usually lands for her. She might even do the opposite of what I suggest, which is exactly the point.
Asking her intuition when the stakes are low builds the muscle. The more she uses it, the stronger and more reliable it becomes. And this matters for the bigger reasons later: knowing whether it's safe to get into a car, whether a situation feels off, whether someone can be trusted. But it begins here, in the small moments of daily life.
We are also teaching her something else: that her inner knowing is a valid source of information. Not something to be dismissed, explained away, or overridden.
2. Don't convince them out of their feelings about people
If your child doesn't like someone, don't talk them out of it.
It can feel rude, or socially awkward, or unfair to the other person. But when we say "Oh, she's really lovely once you get to know her" or "You're just being shy," we are teaching her to override a signal her body is sending. We are teaching her that her internal data is wrong.
That vague discomfort, that shadow of unease, that "I don't know why but I don't want to be near them": that is the kind of signal we want her to trust when she is older. We don't want her to have been trained, for years, that listening to it is rude or socially unacceptable. That training is hard to undo.
She doesn't need to be unkind. But she doesn't have to override what she feels. Tell her: trust your gut. It's information.
3. Her body is hers
This connects directly to the above, and it matters for her understanding of consent.
Forcing a child to hug, kiss, or sit on the lap of an adult she feels uncomfortable with, even a family member, even a kind adult who means absolutely no harm, teaches her that her body's signals about physical contact can be overridden by social politeness. Her discomfort is not less important than someone else's feelings.
If she doesn't want to hug someone, she doesn't have to. A wave, a smile, a quiet "she's not feeling like cuddles today" from you is enough.
She needs to know: you don't have to hug anyone you don't want to, a wave or high five is always fine. It's okay to move away if someone is standing too close and you don't like it. Your body is yours and you get to decide who touches it. This is something we can teach her early, and it will serve her in every relationship she ever has.
4. Never deny their feelings
Emotional intelligence and intuitive intelligence are deeply connected. A child who has been taught to know and name what she is feeling is far better equipped, later in life, to distinguish between her own emotional responses and genuine intuitive information. The two are not the same, but we can't learn the difference if we've been taught that neither is valid.
So we don't say "you're fine" when she isn't. We don't say "there's nothing to be scared of" when she is scared. We don't say "you don't really feel that way."
Instead: "What's happening in your body right now?" "That sounds really hard." We let her sit with the discomfort rather than rushing to fix it.
I know it's not always easy. But a woman who has been taught that her feelings are wrong, irrational, or too much will spend years second-guessing herself. We want her to know, from the beginning, that what she feels is real.
5. Be honest yourself
Sensitive children notice a great deal. If you are upset and say you're fine, she will feel the gap between what you say and what your body and energy are communicating, and she will learn to question her own perceptions.
This doesn't mean burdening her with your adult emotions. There is a middle way: "Yes, I'm a bit sad today, but it's nothing to do with you and I'm okay." "Mummy is feeling frustrated right now. It's not about you." Acknowledging the truth without making her responsible for it.
Being honest about how we feel is one of the most valuable things we can offer a sensitive child. It teaches her that what she senses is real, that her perception can be trusted. The opposite teaches her to doubt herself. And a woman who has been taught to doubt what she senses is more vulnerable than one who has been taught to trust it.
6. Model what boundaries look like
Our children learn what is normal by watching us. If we want her to know that she is allowed to say no, to remove herself from people who treat her badly, to choose relationships based on how she is made to feel rather than obligation, we have to show her what that looks like.
In our house, that might sound like: "Mummy doesn't want to spend time with X, because X doesn't speak to her with kindness and respect." Or: "I'm not going to that gathering because it doesn't feel right for me." Or simply: "Not everyone will be your friend, and that's okay. What matters is how people make you feel."
This isn't about teaching her to be unkind or dismissive. It's about showing her that we are allowed to respond to how people make us feel, that our instincts about who deserves our time and energy are worth listening to, that relationships should leave us feeling better, not smaller.
When she sees us live this, she learns it's possible. When she only hears us tell her to do it, it stays abstract.
It starts with us
All of this begins with our own willingness to trust ourselves. The more honestly we live these things, the more naturally they pass to her. She doesn't learn self-trust from being told about it. She learns it by watching someone she loves do it every day, imperfectly and consistently, over years.
That's the work. It starts with us.
Further Reading
From 'Too Sensitive' to Intuitive Superpowers
Receiving Intuitive Information but Not Taking Action: The Solution
Six reasons you might be struggling to develop your intuition
Intuitive Development Course
The more we do this work ourselves, the more naturally it passes to them. If you would like support in developing your own intuition, you can find out more about my Intuitive Development Course here.
