Raising Girls

Mirrors and Maps
Raising Girls: Summary
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Published by Zondervan Publishing Company in 2007
ISBN-10: 0310272890
ISBN-13: 978-0310272892

"My six-year-old fusses with her hair for hours. Is this normal?"

"Yesterday my seventh grader was all sunshine. Today she's wearing black and won't leave her room."

"I'm worried my teenager may have an eating disorder."

In today's complex world, parenting a girl is harder than ever. It takes more than love. It takes insight into the things that make your daughter tick as she grows from childhood to young adulthood.

Drawing on the authors' fifty-plus years of combined counseling experience, Raising Girls takes you inside the mind and soul of your girl. You'll obtain seasoned, expert insights on

  • Your daughter's different stages of development from ages zero to nineteen
  • How you can effectively relate to her at each stage
  • What is normal behavior, what isn't, and when and how to intervene
  • How to deal with self-destructive behavior such as eating disorders, cutting, or experimentation with alcohol
  • and much more

Spiced with stories, humor, and much reassurance, Raising Girls will help you encourage your daughter, challenge her, love her, and help her discover who God is creating her to be.


Raising Girls: An Introduction

"That's what a girl is: potential. She knows few limits. A girl is strong. She knows little of fatigue, only her own boundless energy. A girl is a comrade of other girls, all hard at the business of becoming."
- Barbara Cawthorne Crafton, The Sewing Room

"You're not as pretty as your sister, so you're going to have to learn to make something of yourself." The eight-year old girl who heard this comment is now eighty, and has never forgotten it. She has spent the last seventy-two years trying to accomplish something of which she, and, ultimately, her dad would be proud.

Her father's unawareness, however, stopped him from seeing his daughter's potential. He missed the impact he could have had by calling out all of the good God had placed inside of her. Unwittingly, he used his greatest source of influence-his relationship with her - for harm, rather than good.

This type of unawareness is one of the reasons we are writing this book. As we have heard countless parents say, girls don't come with an instruction manual. And raising the girl you love will be, by far, one of the most complicated jobs you will ever hold.

The purpose of this book, therefore, is to enlighten you, as a parent or grandparent, or other adult in the life of a girl. We hope to offer you insight as to why your daughter, who is six, says that she hates herself when she can't fix her hair just so. We want to help you know how to respond when your granddaughter comes home from school several days in a row in tears because she has been left out of her triangle of "friends." And we want to help you understand your niece, who the rest of the world thinks is delightful, when all you see is her rage and indifference.

Raising girls can be a daunting task, and it is daunting in different ways in today's world than it has ever been before. For countless generations, girls have worried about who to sit with at lunch, what dress to wear to a dance, and what boy they are going to marry in twenty years. They have also, for many years, wrestled with weightier issues such as depression, suicide, abuse, and eating disorders.

Today, however, things have taken a darker, more complex turn. Girls follow their friends to the bathroom to make sure they are not throwing up after lunch. Phrases like self-mutilation and internet relationships are a normal part of any parenting class for girls. The issues are much the same, but they are out in the open and seem to have grown in intensity with each generation. Add these to the age-old "typical" issues of girls...the insecurities of adolescence, the meanness of middle school girls, and the dangers of high school boys, and you end up with more than a few concerned parents.

We see a lot of these parents in our offices. As counselors at a counseling ministry for children and adolescents, we see children in grades two through twelve and their families. The children we see are dealing with a myriad of issues...most of which are prevalent in any school in any state in our country. They are struggling with social issues such as being made fun of, family issues like divorce or loss of a family member, self-esteem issues, and issues involving self-destructive behavior such as experimentation with alcohol or eating disorders, to name a few. Many families are even there for preventative purposes. Whatever their reasons for coming to Daystar Counseling Ministries, these parents are probably much like you. They are concerned about the children they love and want our support in helping those children become who God has created them to be.

Each section of Raising Girls is based on the three areas of concern we hear most often from parents: What's normal behavior and what's not? What is going on with her? How can I help?

Part One: What Is Normal and What's Not?

The first question is "What's normal and what's not?" We spend a great deal of time talking to parents about the developmental stages of girls, explaining what to expect as their daughters mature. Understanding the typical behaviors of any given stage of development can help you know that your daughter's behavior is not a sign of her flawed character, but a normal part of her development.

Part Two: What Is Going On with Her?

Parents are also asking, "What is going on with her?" In this section, we take a deeper look at what is going on inside her heart and mind. We also look more closely at the culture around her and the pressures coming against her.

Part Three: How Can I Help?

Understanding what is going on in their lives helps us to better answer the final question - "How can I help?" This helping comes in several forms. You help your daughter as you learn to believe in her, enjoy her, and see her clearly past the haze of your own fears. In this section, we hope to help you discover not only who God has created your daughter to be, but also how you can call out her unique identity - a process we refer to as naming.

Although the sections are sequential, we want you to feel the freedom to roam throughout the book. In the first section, we have included information about your daughter's physical, spiritual, and emotional development at every age. The more preventative parent may read the entire book from cover to cover. Another parent may only read the sections that pertain to his or her daughter. We would encourage you to do whatever feels most helpful for you.

The latter two sections, however, are helpful for any adult in the life of a girl. If your daughter is young, they will give you the foresight to know what is coming and wisdom as to how to handle it. If she is in middle or high school, you will get a glimpse into all that she's not talking about: who she is, what she's thinking, and how you can help. We would suggest reading these sections thoroughly.

You may be surprised, however, to find yourself as well as your daughter in these pages. We hope you do. In counseling girls, the parents are just as much a part of the process as the girls themselves. Raising Girls follows this same idea. We want to give you practical and insightful tools as you raise your daughter. And we want to give you the encouragement and reassurance that helps you grow right alongside her.

We are blessed to be able to do this year round. As counselors, we have a unique opportunity to have a voice in the lives of both the children and parents that walk through the doors of Daystar Counseling Ministries.

As children grow up, the voices in their lives change in intensity. It is usually the parental voices that become quieter and other voices that become louder. We say on a regular basis that, at Daystar, we are simply a new voice. We often tell children and adolescents the same things their parents are, but we are a different voice and are heard a little more loudly because of it.

We also believe that parents need other voices, as well. Parenting is a challenging, delightful, heart-wrenching journey that can feel profoundly overwhelming and lonely at times. Parents need guides who understand the worlds' of their children. These guides are much more effective when they have earned the trust of a child who will speak directly and honestly to them. We have the honor of being these guides within our community at Daystar. Basically, we have a foot in each world.

Melissa has been caring for children and adolescents since the age of 16, when she first became a youth director. That makes almost forty years of loving, encouraging, and disrupting the lives of kids. Sissy has done the same, particularly with girls, for the past 13 years. Combined, we see approximately 50 children and adolescents per week. Mathematically speaking, we have been able to have a voice in the lives of more than 10,000 children and adolescents...between the two of us.

This would simply not be possible if we each had our own families. Because of our places in life, we are able to spend our summers with the children and adolescents that we counsel. And, we are able to stand in-between the children and parents who come into our offices. Kids relate to us because we're not parents. Parents relate to us because we are adults and have spent years working with children and adolescents.

We believe that works in our benefit. It gives our collective voice a different perspective. We know what is going on in the lives of girls from the mouths of girls themselves...and a lot of them. And we know the struggles and joys of parenting, because we sit with weary, concerned parents day in and day out.

You may be one of those weary and concerned parents. But, we know without a doubt that God has specifically and purposefully chosen you to raise the girl you love. He has chosen you where you are to be who you are...rather than a perfected picture of yourself. If you were a perfect parent, you would expect a perfect daughter. And that would cancel out any uniqueness contained within either one of you.

And herein lies the importance of this book. It is a journey into the heart of girls. It is a journey that takes you through the world around her to the depths of what is happening inside of her. It is designed to equip you with a voice to call out who God has uniquely created her to be.

It is our privilege to guide you in this process of raising girls. As you read, we hope you will ponder, wrestle, laugh and discover the unique identity God has given your daughter...and maybe even a little more of the identity he has given you.