How to Raise Girls

Practical Tips for Bringing up Daughters

Sep 27, 2008 Wei Yin Wong

Parents need to nurture and guide their daughters to become well-balanced, optimistic and happy women.

Girls and boys are different, right from the start, and the differences between them become more obvious in the first few months of life. For instance, baby girls often want to be touched more than baby boys and many girls can play independently earlier than boys. They also speak earlier and are more inquisitive. Later, as toddlers, girls will have better developed motor skills, allowing them to grip and hold pencils and scissors. This in turn helps them to do better in school in earlier grades.

Clearly, raising boys and raising girls present different kinds of challenges. Here are some issues unique to nurturing and raising daughters and how to tackle them.

Saying No

Gisela Preuschoff, family therapist and author of Raising Girls [Australia: Finch Publishing, 2004], believes that while parents should love their daughters unconditionally, they should also know when to say “No” to the little ones. Many parents, particularly fathers, tend to give in to their daughters. Some girls learn how to manipulate their parents from a very young age. “Don’t allow your daughter to wrap you around her little finger, but don’t reject her abruptly either when she goes too far. Tell her clearly you don’t want that,” she writes.

Breaking Out of Gender Stereotypes

Society conditions the way girls and boys are treated. The good news is that parents and teachers can join forces to make schools more free of such prejudices. The use of role-play in school, for example, is a good idea because it can encourage boys and girls take up roles that are different and opposite from what they are used to. Parents who are active in their daughters’ school can contribute ideas to help them break out of the constraints of gender stereotypes.

Schools and Learning

Girls and boys learn differently and so need to be taught differently as well. Unfortunately, many schools have not considered that at all. Running same-sex classes for maths, science and technical subjects may help increase girls’ potential and opportunities in subjects traditionally monopolized by boys. Choosing a girls’ school is an option parents should consider. If that’s not possible, find a girl-friendly school with the following criteria:

• Counselors or specialist teachers that girls can approach to discuss personal matters
• Policies on equal opportunity, gender equality and bullying that are actually enforced
• Availability of same-sex classes for certain subjects
• Equal gender representation on student committees
• Practices that comfort and relieve girls during menstruation -- being allowed to leave class, sanitary pad disposal units in female toilets, sick room, etc.

Trouble with “Learnt Helplessness”

Many girls appear helpless in certain matters – they don’t do so well in maths and science or they can’t fix things as competently as boys. This is termed “learnt helplessness”, a belief that one can’t do anything right no matter what one does. But it doesn’t have to be so. If a girl makes mistakes, her parents should encourage her to learn from them instead of reinforcing the helplessness belief by saying the task is too hard or worse, telling the child to just give up!

Reaching Puberty

The onset of puberty can be a terrifying and confusing experience for a young girl if she doesn’t know what to expect. Parents should talk to their daughters about menstruation and the physical changes that come with puberty before these happen. Assure her it’s not a curse but a cause for celebration. After all, it marks the transition from girlhood to womanhood.

Avoid broaching the subject of menstruation after it has occurred. The child may get upset and flatly refuse to discuss it at all.

Risk of Over-Protectiveness

In general, girls are more over-protected than boys simply because they are perceived as the weaker sex and therefore need more protection. While it’s true that some girls have become victims of sex and violence, the reality is that parents can’t protect them all the time. It’s better to prepare them to face the real world. Enrolling them into self-defense classes not only helps girls protect themselves but also give them the confidence they need in a world rife with crime and ill intent.

Strong parental love and encouragement are essential to raise girls to become happy, optimistic and successful young women. Parents should arm themselves with the knowledge to teach, guide and prepare their daughters to break away from old handed-down roles and face the challenges that young women encounter these days.

References:

Steve Biddulph. The Secret of Happy Children. Sydney: HarperCollins, 1998.

Dr. Janet Irwin, Susanna de Vries and Susan Stratigos Wilson. Raising Girls: the Pleasures, the Perils, the Pitfalls. Brisbane: Pandanus Press, 1998.

The copyright of the article How to Raise Girls in Parenting Methods is owned by Wei Yin Wong. Permission to republish How to Raise Girls in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Strong Parental Love is Essential to Raise Girls