Raising Girls

This month our agency hosted a workshop "Girlwise: Exploring the Lives of American Girls" in collaboration with Alpine County Behavioral Health. During this workshop, our Parent Educator Carol Ledesma shared some information about brain studies which revealed the differences between girls' and boys' brains.

In the womb, a baby girl is bathed in large amount of estrogen in the womb. For boys, the womb bathes them in testosterone. These chemicals hard-wire their brains even before birth. Girls have more synapses (active pathways for brain signals) than boys and girls use both sides of the brain for language, where boys mainly access synapses for language on one side of their brain. Girls also tend to develop fine motor skills sooner than boys. With the increased brain connections for language and greater strength in fine motor, girls tend to be better readers and writers than boys. On the down side, girls tend to have lower spatial awareness skills, when compared to boys, for tasks like building structures. Girls are more sensitive to tone of voice and volume and talk more freely about their feelings than boys. Girls are also wired during flight or fight to flee rather than fight so asserting themselves may be a challenge.

Now that we described some of the general differences between boys and girls and their brain development, it is important to note that not all girls or boys will fit these stereotypes and certainly not for each category. However, it is important to notice some of these general traits associated with girls in order to create an environment that sets them up for success despite (or in addition to) what nature started them out with.

According to Mary Pipher the author of Reviving Ophelia be sure their needs are being met.
She asks you to think of the girls in your life and ask....
"Do they feel good about themselves?"
"Do they have one or two close friends that truly care about them?
"Does she have useful skills that she enjoys using?"
"Does she have the ability to defend herself?" (not necessarily physical)
"Does she have the ability to deal with stress in a positive way?"

The following are tips for raising a powerful girl but many will translate to all children so we divided them into two categories.

For all of your children:

• Involve them in making family decisions.
• Model the qualities you wish your children to have. Fathers can model qualities for daughters and mothers can model qualities for sons. There need not be a division among genders between parent and child. 
• Make regular time to connect with each of your children and listen more than you talk during this time.
• Encourage them to solve problems on their own rather than jumping in and rescuing them. 

More specifically for girls:

• Encourage her to take physical risks, pushing just a bit beyond her comfort zone each time.
• Encourage your daughter to join a group of girls to learn how to work together. This could be a team or club such as Girls Scouts or 4H.
• Help them deal with conflicts with other girls in constructive ways rather than resorting to or tolerating gossip, rumors and group exclusion.
• Let your daughter know you love her for who she is and be sure to give her positive comments on traits, attributes and character rather than her appearance.
• Allow your daughter to disagree with you and to show anger. She will need to be able to do this in the future, in other settings so give her guidance on how to disagree and express strong emotions in appropriate ways. 
• Continually address inequities in how girls and women are portrayed in the media with your daughter. Media messages about women can be very powerful, especially without your guidance. 

Give them no limits when it comes to their potential.