By Steve Biddulph
It’s an interesting time to be a parent.
We are learning that every boy and girl is on a gender continuum, and it’s important to let them be just who they are, and never put kids into boxes.
At the same time there are differences, for most kids most of the time.
The average girl develops far quicker than the average boy, even in the womb, and there are parts of their brains that are 20 months ahead by age five. They take to school much better, they start puberty a couple of years sooner, and are more likely to go to university.
But its far from being a girls’ world.
Part of the problem is that girls have greater awareness of other people, their feelings and responses. You’d think that was a plus, but in the craziness of the modern world, that can take its toll. Girls are twice as likely as boys to get anxious or depressed. One girl in five will be on stress medication during her teens. As many as one in three have self-harmed, and suicide is going up. We have a mental health crisis in girlhood.
To make your daughter strong, you have to change things around.
Protective factors are the ones that allow her to grow at her own pace, and not be pressured into conforming. Despite 60 years of feminism, girls are being ever more told how to look and behave because social media, and in fact almost every media blasts them with pressure to look good, be seductive, be tame (though it’s framed as wildness), drink this, eat this, wear this. Advertisers know that if they can make a girl anxious, they can sell her anything.
What helps?
It’s all in the way of life we create for our children (and the same goes for boys too). Lots of nature – plenty of peace, a rhythm to our lives that has big spaces doing nothing. Having plenty of plants, animals and open space. Few screens, the least possible TV, loads of books, stories, and being physical and free.
Parents who have plenty of time to just chat.
A dad who clearly lets her know she is more special to him than life itself, who talks to her about everything, asks her opinion, has fun and spends time.
She needs role models of different kinds, so that from toddlerhood she can admire and emulate that gutsy auntie, that oh-so-unconventional family friend. So when a boy in the playground runs over and bellows “you’re fat” she can rise to her full height, tilt her head, and reply “I love my body. Race you to the fence”, because she’s heard an adult say that, and liked the feeling.
Stay away from shopping malls, diets, talk of weight or looks, clothes beyond what keeps you colourful and warm and yourself.
Op shops are good for this. Be outdoors, make and do things with your hands, don’t take school marks too seriously, but take learning very seriously. If your family really has bad signs of stress (and the kids are usually the first to show this), consider having a year off and drive round the country as a family. The modern human world is crazy and we ought only to dip into it sparingly.
Making strong women is fun, and slow, and joyous, and it will make you want to change your life too.
Steve Biddulph wrote Raising Girls in 2012 and Ten Things Girls Need Most in 2017, He will be speaking on Raising Girls across Melbourne this winter. www.stevebiddulph.com
Ten things girls need most (from Steve’s book of the same name!)
1. A secure and loving start (parents who take time and are safe and peaceful for her).
2. Time to be a child – being messy, wild, and in nature a lot. And not rushed to grow up too soon.
3. Friendship skills – learning by discussion with you how to navigate their tricky social world
4. The respect and love of a dad (or substitute dad figure) who lets her know she is special
5. Spark – an interest, hobby or activity that captures her spirit and engages her in the larger world
6. Aunties – yes, someone you can talk to other than mum, who shows a different way to be female
7. A happy sexuality – knowing she owns her body and what happens to it, and that its a joyful thing.
8. Backbone – being able to endure, persist, hold to her principles, and sees you doing that too.
9. Feminism – knowing that the problems of her and her friends are part of a big picture of women fighting for respect and equality. She’s not alone.
10. Spirit – feeling connected to the universe, to nature, and to life, part of something larger that carries her through life.
Steve Biddulph AM, Author – 10 Things Girls Need Most, Raising Girls, Raising Boys.
Complete Secrets of Happy Children, and The New Manhood. Visit www.stevebiddulph.com for details.
