What's Important to Girls and What Parents Can Do to Make a Difference
By Renee Spencer, LILSW

WHAT YOU CAN DO AS PARENTS

1. Exactly what you are doing now -- learning about what is going on for girls at this time in their development and following your own daughter's developmental process.
2. Focusing at least as much, or more, on who your daughter is and what she does, rather on what she looks like.
3. Helping your daughter keep track of her victories -- things she's proud of.
4. Helping her to keep track of things she likes about herself, and telling her things you like about her. Serving as a mirror to reflect herself back to herself in a positive fashion.
5. Encouraging her involvement in some type of activity -- school clubs, athletics, hobbies, drama, band, volunteer work, etc. Group activities seem to provide girls with a buffer.
6. Helping her "critique the culture" and hang on to her voice. Encouraging her to express herself and reflect on her experiences.
7. Talking with her about sexism. Making her realize that what she observes is indeed, real, and not the result of her own failings. Supporting her in expressing her anger about unfair circumstances outside her control. Encouraging her to fight back, if that's what she feels she wants to do.
8. Serving as role models. How are girls and women talked about in your household?
9. Encouraging the development of her own value system and resistance to gender-role stereotyping. For example, acknowledging that her intelligence may feel like a liability, acknowledging how hard it is to be valued mainly for what she look like, and being held to an impossible ideal of female attractiveness, helping her to stay connected with her anger when she is frightened of doing so, the pressure to be popular rather than honest, to be feminine rather than whole.
10. Letting her know that you will love her and will be there for her.
11. Getting involved at school when you hear about classroom policies that do not foster and encourage your daughter's development. For example, English classes without works by women, weight requirements for cheerleading and athletics, teachers who are not calling on girls proportionately to boys, etc.

This site was last updated on 11/24/2004.

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