What started around a kitchen table has grown into Fearless Girls Club, an award-winning UK social enterprise that’s inspiring thousands of girls aged 8-12 to grow up bold, brave, and unapologetically themselves. This Christmas, their message is simple: give more than a present, facilitate life-long confidence.
Each month, Fearless Girls Club delivers a themed activity box designed to spark creativity, courage, and conversation. Every box centres around a different empowering theme - from friendship and bravery to body confidence and kindness - and includes a colourful mini magazine filled with uplifting stories, hands-on challenges, and practical tips to boost confidence. Girls also receive crafts, affirmation cards, collectible stickers, and a small themed gift that ties it all together.
More than just something to unwrap, these boxes are keepsakes that remind girls to be brave, kind, and proud of who they are. Parents describe them as a monthly ritual their daughters genuinely look forward to - a moment of calm, creativity, and connection in a noisy, digital world.
Co-founders Elle Wilks and Kate Cooper created the club after seeing how social pressures, school stress, and body image ideals were affecting their daughters. Today, their community is helping families across the UK nurture resilience, kindness, and courage - one fearless box at a time. As Elle says, “Our boxes are an investment in confidence and self-worth that lasts a lifetime.”
I had a chance to learn more in this interview with Elle Wilks
What factors contribute to girls losing confidence in the pre-teen years?
‘The answer is a perfect (and raging!) storm of developmental, social and cultural shifts colliding all at once.
At this age, girls are moving from late childhood into early adolescence. Their bodies, brains and social worlds are changing rapidly, and so is their sense of who they are. They become more self-aware, more attuned to how they’re seen and more sensitive to social evaluation. For girls, those changes often arrive earlier and more intensely than for boys - puberty, even in its early stages, heightens self-consciousness and comparison. Suddenly, the outside world feels louder, and they start measuring themselves against it.
The data backs this up. The Girlguiding Girls’ Attitudes Survey 2023 found girls’ confidence and happiness at record lows, with the steepest decline between ages ten and twelve. By that point, girls are already significantly less likely than boys to describe themselves as confident, and the gap keeps widening as they move into their teens.
However, it’s not just biology or comparison. Around this age, girls begin to absorb a lifetime’s worth of gendered expectations - how to look, behave, achieve, even how to feel. They’re praised for being kind and careful, but rarely for being bold or assertive. They notice that being liked often matters more than speaking up. That’s what psychologists call internalised socialisation: girls learning, often unconsciously, to self-monitor and self-limit. Over time, that quiet self-editing erodes confidence more than any single event.
While boys face their own challenges, girls also experience additional layers, including early exposure to appearance culture, online scrutiny, and the first experiences of sexism or feeling unsafe in public spaces. By the time they reach secondary school, many girls have learned to shrink a little to stay safe, or to fit in.
So, when we talk about the confidence gap, we’re not just describing a phase; we’re describing the cumulative effect of how girls are seen and socialised. At Fearless Girls Club, we see these years as a window of opportunity - before self-doubt hardens into identity, when girls can still practise bravery in small, supported ways and discover that confidence isn’t something you 'have' (or don't have) but something you work hard to build and maintain.’
What are some of the pressures girls are facing today that may not have been an issue for previous generations?
‘Girls are growing up in a world that’s both more connected and more complex than ever before. They’re navigating pressures that many of us didn’t face until adulthood and they’re doing it in full view of a digital audience.
Social media plays a huge role. Platforms designed for connection can quickly turn into spaces of comparison and performance, especially when appearance and approval are the currency. Algorithms push perfection (filtered faces, idealised bodies and curated success) and it all lands at an age when girls are developmentally wired to compare. What once happened quietly in the school corridor now happens 24/7, online, with global reach.
Meanwhile, offline pressures matter just as much. Academic competition starts earlier for young people today, and girls consistently report feeling they must excel in every area – school, friendships, looks, behaviour. That 'be everything to everyone' pressure is exhausting. Add to that the growing normalisation of sexualised content, early exposure to misogyny online and ongoing safety concerns in public spaces, and it’s no surprise many girls describe feeling anxious or 'not enough'.
Previous generations of girls and women fought huge battles - for our right to vote and own land and property; workplace rights; reproductive rights; representation. We are still fighting those same battles today, and in some cases, they are under renewed threat. Girls today also face a new arena: living in a fishbowl, constantly observed, judged and compared, especially online. The pressures of growing up female now combine enduring societal inequalities with this relentless scrutiny. Today’s feminism is about navigating multiple, overlapping battles at once: asserting rights, claiming space and developing confidence and self-belief in a world that still treats girls differently simply for being female.
The good news is that awareness is growing and when we teach girls to question what they see, to separate image from reality and to focus on who they are rather than how they look, we start to loosen those restraints and give their voices power.’
How can parents and educators build traits like resilience and self-confidence?
‘Building resilience and self-confidence in girls comes through creating experiences where they can practice, fail safely, reflect and try again. Small, consistent moments where a girl feels capable, seen and supported matter more than big, dramatic interventions.
Parents and educators can do this in everyday life by giving girls agency: letting them make choices, solve problems and take the lead on projects or activities. Praise effort over outcome; noticing persistence, creativity or courage teaches girls that confidence comes from action, not perfection. Scaffolded support is key: offer guidance just enough to hold them steady while they learn, then step back so they can stand on their own.
Safe risk-taking is another powerful tool. Encourage girls to step out of their comfort zones in ways that are manageable, then reflect with them on what they learned. Even small risks like speaking up in class, trying a new hobby or navigating a tricky friendship become building blocks for resilience.
Emotional literacy is just as important. Helping girls recognise and name their feelings, understand their triggers and learn practical ways to regulate their emotions gives them a sense of control and confidence that carries beyond the moment.
Peer connection amplifies all of this. Girls-only spaces, structured activities and supportive communities allow them to practice social skills, leadership and bravery without fear of judgment. Research shows that girls in these environments report up to 23% higher confidence than the national average, which is why our after-school clubs and subscription box programme exist.
For parents and educators looking for practical exercises, reflection prompts and small, everyday ways to nurture confidence and resilience, we’ve shared a lot of ideas on our blog. It’s full of tips you can use at home or in the classroom to create these moments consistently, so girls build belief in themselves before self-doubt takes hold.’
Elle Wilks is the Co-Founder and Director of Fearless Girls Club, a non-profit club dedicated to boosting young girls' confidence, supercharging self-esteem, and strengthening resilience so they can be bold and live fearlessly.
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