10 Things Girls Need Most: To grow up strong and free

□ 3. I am starting to reach out, make friends and get help from supportive people.

□ 4. I am connecting with other people a lot now, and it’s really helping.

□ 5. I am well-nourished emotionally, and now enjoy being a support to younger parents or others. I am passing on what I received, and it’s a joy to do.

Who is there, in your world, that could give you more support and comfort, encouragement and help?

Could you let them know you need that?

How would it go?

What would it take to get a more supportive network around you?

Or even just one friendly face that you regularly can count on?

If you are an older parent, are there young parents in your world who could use some help or encouragement?

How could you do that?

By doing these two things – having more time, and finding people who can be kind to you and getting their help – the first two years of your daughter’s life will go so much better. And at any age from two to adult, doing this can help repair or strengthen what you have to give her, and the bond between you that results.

“I was the ultimate loner. We moved from place to place. I didn’t trust other people. I wasn’t good at making friends, and once or twice I tried and was badly taken advantage of. But having a baby I realized I just had to, and luckily other parents I have met have been just great. Kids are a great excuse for making friends.”

Donna, 22

WHAT IF WE MISSED THIS STAGE?

Perhaps you have older children, but you noticed when you filled in the profile of your daughter’s girlhood at the beginning of the book that she did not rate very well on this stage? Don’t fret! The great thing about children and teenagers is that they give you many chances. If a stage has not been fulfilled, they unconsciously know that, and will show signs that they want something from you. It might not be obvious – often naughtiness or arguing or having problems in the big world are the language they use to say ‘notice me’. Here are some clues to what you can do.

In The Secrets of Happy Children (both the book and the talks I give) we explain how, around the age of twelve, kids start a second babyhood. This is caused by the neurological meltdown or pruning phase in the brain that marks the start of adolescence and puberty. (Brain puberty does not always occur the same as the physical signs of puberty. Breast development can now come much sooner due to environmental influences. Brain puberty is still usually around the age of twelve.)

The effect of puberty on the brain is so great that a teenager recycles right through the stages of growing up, between twelve and eighteen (and longer with boys). The great thing about this is that you get a second chance to get these stages right. As a rough guide, if you subtract twelve from your daughter’s age, you will pinpoint what age she is going through for the second time. So many thirteen-year-olds are like babies – confused, a bit lost, but also very emotionally open. You can rebond with a thirteen-year-old, cuddle them, feed them and comfort them, and they will let you!

Fourteen-year-olds go through another ‘terrible twos’ stage, and so you will need to keep your sense of humour, but also hold firm on boundaries, and not let them get you riled into shouting or making threats you can’t keep (special dad alert here).

In spite of their actual age in years, many children stay stuck at the stage where they didn’t get what they needed. They wait there until we are able to figure out and provide the missing experiences. The great thing about this is that we get a second chance (and a third and a fourth and so on). We can get in and repair the holes. A timid child can be gradually encouraged to be more adventurous, and see the fun in it, and loosen up and be messy and loud. A child who didn’t learn friendship can talk about that with you, and make strategies and learn to be social. And an insecure child can begin to trust and relax. We can always fix the past if we are logical and a little bit brave. There’s a lot more about this in the chapters still to come.

A Secure and Loving Start … In a Nutshell

1. Slow down your lives, so love has time to grow.

2. Get into the river of love by being with people who are kind to you. Then you will be filled up and have more to give.

Chapter Two (#ulink_f0ac949d-dade-594d-95d7-6bfcb675b015)

The Chance to be Wild and Time to be a Child (#ulink_f0ac949d-dade-594d-95d7-6bfcb675b015)

“Even as young as two, the world puts limits onto girls. We have to encourage our daughters to be adventurous and brave, to help them stay in touch with their wild nature. And we have to fight the forces that want to steal their childhood away.”

Get a group of parents together anywhere in the world today, and start them talking about girls. Within three minutes I guarantee you will hear these words: ‘They are growing up too fast.’

These parents aren’t talking about the age-old feeling that our children are up and gone before we know it, but something new and much more concerning. In just one generation, many childhoods have been snapped in half by new forces, unprecedented in history. Effectively, girls have lost four or more years of childhood. You will see the effects of this everywhere you go – ‘adultified’ girls of twelve or thirteen with cleavages self-consciously displayed and faces covered in make-up, dressed to kill (possibly from pneumonia), stressing out over how boys might judge them. And being neither happy nor free.

Mothers and fathers everywhere say that ‘fourteen is the new eighteen’. And given what we know about the massive changes in the brain in those four years, and all the learning that takes place – how very different we are at eighteen from fourteen – that has to be a problem.

Think back to your own teenage years. At eighteen you were starting to make choices about sex, drugs and alcohol, your own safety, and so on, which were complex and difficult. You were dealing for the first time with unpleasant or unscrupulous people, outside the safe circles of family and friends. And you were finding it a challenge. Even at eighteen, being eighteen is hard. But at fourteen (or these days, more often, twelve) girls are so ill-equipped – unpractised in separating emotion from thought, their confidence based entirely on bluff, their brains still not properly formed. They will struggle to deal with these choices, and so, increasingly, their lives may fall apart at this vulnerable age.

Let’s be clear – most girls still turn out fine. We help them, support them and arm them against the excesses of the culture, and they turn into wonderful strong women. Three out of five girls still do this. But one in five does not. They go so far off the rails that their adult life is really impaired.

Another one in five goes through some sort of a crisis, which galvanizes their family to action, and they pull through. But that still means way too many girls having way too hard a time.

A girl needs to be strong. Where that comes from is being tuned into her own nature, trusting her feelings and instincts. Having physical confidence. And growing slowly, getting all her abilities – mental and physical – unfolding as they were intended to through millions of years of human development. And it’s very early on – in the years from two to five – that we can make the most difference to her resilience. This is where we can sow the seeds of a girl who enjoys being the age she is, and isn’t rushed into fake grown-upness. If you grow slow, you grow strong.

HOW FREE AND WILD WERE YOU?

For younger mothers and fathers aged in their late twenties and thirties, some of these changes were already starting in your own childhood. We are not assuming here that the past was good. It’s important to look at what you bring to this stage from your own background.

Can you remember the time in your childhood when you were most happy and free?

What age was that?

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What was great about it?

What did other people do, if anything, to make it possible?

Was there a time in your childhood when you felt you were NOT happy and free? What age was that?

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What happened to make you feel that way?

What could others have done, that they did not do, to have helped you at that time?

It may be that this has reminded you of sad or hard times in your life. Breathe deep and notice that this was a long time ago. You are here now. Well done for having got through those times and becoming a loving and involved mother or father, wanting to do it better for your own girl or girls. Or it may be that you realized people really did pretty well in raising you. And you appreciate that more.

There is nothing better to help us be a sensitive parent than remembering what our own childhood was like. If you do that, you will know so much more about how to be the mother or father your daughter needs.

KEEPING HER FREE

It’s important to think about how great girlhood can be, and not settle for less. Girlhood – before puberty comes along – can be a wonderful time of life. Unworried by concerns about the opposite sex – or totally dismissive of them – free in her body, bold in her actions, able to be creative without fearing judgement, loving the world of animals and nature, affectionate with friends of both sexes, enjoying her parents’ company. How we wish this time would last for ever. And there is no reason why it shouldn’t.

But we parents have to do two things to make sure this is the case. First, we have to encourage and nurture her exploratory and wild self, so that it grows strong and lasts all her life. And second, we have to fence out the toxic messages that have sprung up around girls in recent years. This means we have to be choosy about what media we bring or let into our own home and even think about how our own attitudes can affect her without us knowing it. (For often the problems girls have also affected their mothers first.) Only by doing both these things-’powering up’ and ‘fencing out’, can we create the conditions for a strong happy woman to grow.

The age range from two to five is where this needs to begin. But you can work to correct this at any age. Remember when you filled in the profile of your daughter’s girlhood back at the start of the book? If you rated this second stage – exploration – at three stars or less, then there is plenty you can do at eight or fourteen or even later to help her bring her strong, ‘wild’ self to life.

In fact you may need to do some remedial ‘rewilding’ of yourself to be really happy as a mum or dad, and pass on this permission to your daughter as well.