I've tried my best to not post anything further and stay non-involved on this post
but fwiw, I want to add one final thought from me - and it's just that, one thought from me.
There are a lot of things that affect what children expect from themselves. I think the biggest contributor is what their parents expect from them. My daughter is 3, and I'm already convinced that she has great potential. Thus I will have high expectations for her, and hope to influence her to have high expectations for herself.
I agree that if we as parents have high expectations of our children, they will have high expectations of themselves. But one thing that we can't alter as parents is how the world sees our children, and that too will have an impact on our kids.
As an example, two of my children are Asian, and I'm Caucasian. I do not for one minute believe that color and/or race defines a person. I have no preconceived notions about the ability or lack of ability or where a person fits into society or the world or whatever based on the color of their skin. I believe that by sharing my values and showing by example that I *hope* my children will also believe the same things. HOWEVER, I can't take away beliefs from other people outside of our family who believe differently, and my children are going to (and already have) run into people who either inadvertently or directly let them know they are being judged based on the color of their skin and their ethnicity.
Taking that concept back into the talk about girls and STEM careers - my dh and I are both career STEM folks with STEM degrees who are passionate about math and science, so my kids have role models at home. But when they visit our offices... they are going to see mostly men. At school the secondary science teachers are mostly men. Most of the women adults they meet aren't scientists. No matter what I teach my girls at home the outside world at large is sending them a different message, and I have seen the impact in my two dds at very young ages.
So that's the last of my 2 cents.
To the OP, thanks for posting the link! I am going to sign my dd up. I am going to look for something similar for my ds. It's a great concept, and I'm glad the program is out there for girls
polarbear
