Steve Biddulph’s Raising Girls

Steve Biddulph’s Raising Girls
Steve Biddulph

Steve Biddulph’s Raising Boys was a global phenomenon. The first book in a generation to look at boys’ specific needs, parents loved its clarity and warm insights into their sons’ inner world. But today, things have changed. It’s girls that are in trouble.There has been a sudden and universal deterioration in girls’ mental health, starting in primary school and devastating the teen years.Steve Biddulph’s Raising Girls is both a guidebook and a call-to-arms for parents. The five key stages of girlhood are laid out so that you know exactly what matters at which age, and how to build strength and connectedness into your daughter from infancy onwards.Raising Girls is both fierce and tender in its mission to help girls more at every age. It’s a book for parents who love their daughters deeply, whether they are newborns, teenagers, young women – or anywhere in between.Feeling secure, becoming an explorer, getting along with others, finding her soul, and becoming a woman – at last, there is a clear map of girls’ minds that accepts no limitations, narrow roles or selling-out of your daughter’s potential or uniqueness.All the hazards are signposted – bullying, eating disorders, body image and depression, social media harms and helps – as are concrete and simple measures for both mums and dads to help prevent their daughters from becoming victims. Parenthood is restored to an exciting journey, not one worry after another, as it’s so often portrayed.Steve talks to the world’s leading voices on girls’ needs and makes their ideas clear and simple, adding his own humour and experience through stories that you will never forget. Even the illustrations, by Kimio Kubo, provide unique and moving glimpses into the inner lives of girls.Along with his fellow psychologists worldwide, Steve is angry at the exploitation and harm being done to girls today. With Raising Girls he strives to spark a movement to end the trashing of girlhood; equipping parents to deal with the modern world, and getting the media off the backs of our daughters.Raising Girls is powerful, practical and positive. Your heart, head and hands will be strengthened by its message.

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Also by Steve Biddulph (#u1f73528b-8ea2-5b84-8f16-1a377b1f62cf)

Raising Boys

The Secret of Happy Children

Manhood

Raising Babies

Contents

Cover (#ubcde31d8-47c5-5309-ade0-6c05668e4f95)

Title Page (#ulink_4fc3bb2b-82a6-5f62-8787-9a18eda3ef43)

Also by Steve Biddulph (#ulink_e58859fc-0156-5df5-afd0-194a44a588d5)

A Letter from Steve (#ulink_1e99a828-1caf-597d-b470-7423cde5e69f)

Meet Kaycee and Genevieve (#ulink_74591bc5-87fa-5e83-b661-15dc71bec2c9)

Part One: The Five Stages of Girlhood

1 Creating a Total Girl

2 Right from the Start (Birth–2 years)

3 Learning to Explore (2–5 years)

4 Getting Along with Others (5–10 years)

5 Finding Her Soul (10–14 years)

6 Preparing for Adulthood (14–18 years)

Part Two: Hazards and Helps: The Five Big Risk Areas and How to Navigate Them

7 Too Sexy Too Soon

8 Mean Girls

9 Bodies, Weight and Food

10 Alcohol and Other Drugs

11 Girls and the Online World

Part Three: Girls and Their Parents

12 Girls and Their Mums

13 Girls and Their Dads

What Happened to Kaycee? (#litres_trial_promo)

Postscript (#litres_trial_promo)

Notes (#litres_trial_promo)

Contributors and Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

A Letter from Steve (#u1f73528b-8ea2-5b84-8f16-1a377b1f62cf)

Dear Reader

Let me tell you a bit about myself before you jump into this book, so that you can know the person behind the words. People often think I must have boys, because I wrote and campaigned about boys for many years. In fact our first child was a boy (a man now). When our friends asked what we wanted next, I said I didn’t mind, and I really believed that was true. But when our daughter was born – by emergency caesarean, with me in the theatre trying my best not to faint – I was overjoyed. I couldn’t believe how happy I was. That happiness has never gone away.

I wrote about boys for just one reason – they were a disaster area, and the ethic of my work is to go where the need is greatest. Back in those days, girls were doing just fine. But about five years ago that started to change. We began to see a sudden and marked plunge in girls’ mental health. Problems such as eating disorders and self-harm, which once had been extremely rare, were now happening in every classroom and every street. But more than this, the average girl was stressed and depressed in a way we hadn’t seen before.

Girls aren’t born hating their bodies. They aren’t born hating their lives. Something was happening that was poisoning girls’ spirits. It seemed to come on in the early teens, but was creeping younger and younger every year.

In response, a worldwide movement sprang up – of girl advocates, therapists and researchers – to try and mobilise parents and the community. Many of these people were my friends, and together we saw the need for a simple, parent-friendly book to help get girlhood back on track. That is the book you now hold in your hands.

Raising strong girls starts young. We have to love them well, and we have to fight the forces that would bring them down. We have to make good choices because the world today does not seem to care about girls as it should, and sees them just as a way to make money. Of course some of these things are timeless. Girls have always needed to be strong.

Girlhood is a quest, a journey of gathering the wisdom needed to be a woman. We are our daughters’ guides on that quest. To do this we need good maps, good examples, and good clear eyes.

Perhaps your daughter is just a little baby. Perhaps she is in her teens. Whatever age, I hope this book lifts you up, fills you with a fire to make the world a better place for her and for all girls. And helps you to give her all the love you feel.

Sincerely,

Steve Biddulph

Meet Kaycee and Genevieve (#u1f73528b-8ea2-5b84-8f16-1a377b1f62cf)

There are two girls that I would like you to meet. Their names are Kaycee and Genevieve. Both are 17, and both are in Year 12 at school. They are great kids, friendly and bright, you would enjoy talking to them.

These two have known each other since nursery. They were best friends all through primary school and everyone thought they would be that way forever. But around the time Kaycee and Genevieve moved up to secondary school, something went wrong between them. The reason is hard to say, I am not sure they could even pin it down themselves, but today, if they pass in the school corridor, there is that awkward feeling that comes from having once been friends, but no longer being so.