Girls Will Be Girls: Raising Confident and Courageous Daughters

• Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys
• Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know
• Raising Confident Girls: 100 Tips for Parents and Teachers
• 200 Ways to Raise a Girl's Self-Esteem: An Indespensable Guide for Parents, Teachers & Other Concerned Caregivers
• Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls

Mary Pipher told us about the problems girls face in Reviving Ophelia; now in Girls Will Be Girls, JoAnn Deak gives us the solutions. Deak looks past the "scare" stories to those that enlighten parents and enable them to empower girls. She draws from the latest brain research on girls to illustrate the exciting new ways in which we can help our daughters learn and thrive. Most telling of all, she gives us the voices of girls themselves as they struggle with body image, self-esteem, intellectual growth, peer pressure, and media messages. The result is a masterly book that addresses the key issues for girls growing up; one that fulfills a desperate need for clear guiding principles to help mothers, fathers, and their daughters navigate this chaotic contemporary culture.

This book was referred to me by a child psychologist in California(helping my daughter deal with my divorce) when I was trying to get an understanding of the "tweens" behavior. I think it's a fantastic book. It's been a great reference for me, and I just bought this copy for my ex-husband. As we only have one daughter, and times are different today than when I grew up, I am lacking the experience in parenting to understand a teenage girl.

Plenty of tiresome and unenlightening 'real-world examples' are used as padding to make up for the book's lack of anything that can be called substance.* Indeed -- but only if one doesn't bother to look any further.In short: don't be a sucker. This book does not stray an inch from the usual 'Raising Daughters: For Dumb***es' formula, which consists of the following:1) Pop-science involving the brain and hormones is used to 'confirm' the most banal stereotypes about females. If you've heard the ones about how they are supposedly all more 'empathetic' and 'relational' than males, you have heard the basic premise of this book. Hopefully this review will be of help. The author even mentions something about how she believes that stereotypes 'usually hold truth'.*2) The sort of trite parenting advice that was once called 'common sense' but is now called 'marketable'.

A must read for anyone raising or working with young girls. She'll knock your socks off. And if you think this book is phenominal, don't pass up an opportunity to hear her speak.

We're privileged to have Dr. I feel that we're aided in a more conscious form ofchild-raising through the ideas laid out here and may findthat a more positive impact is made on this future generationas a result of our implementing them. Deak's experience in the crucible of girlhood, an educator/psychologist in the publicschool system, to inform us of the facts and superstitions of young 'femaleness'.We're presented with current neurological theories of thechemical differences between boys and girls and givennumerous ways of accomodating these differences. Examples are varied and there's a clear delineation of the needs and cultural conditions that today's young woman ispresented with.This is an important work for all parents, including the parentsof boys.

I truly enjoyed this practical, funny, touching and true guide to parenting girls from a real expert. We can all learn how to help our girls grow up to be the women we all wanted to be. She really knows how to keep your attention with real stories and get her point across with humor and detail.