Category: Parenting Girls
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Top 10 Books for Parent-Child Book Clubs with Tweens and Teens
Read Article: Top 10 Books for Parent-Child Book Clubs with Tweens and TeensAs the author of a book about mother-daughter book clubs, and as a parent who often read books with my daughter at home, I cannot speak highly enough about the transformative power of literature. My favorite part of sharing books with my daughter is having a discussion that begins with some aspect of the plot…
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How Highly Gendered Toys Present an Exclusively Heterosexual Worldview to Children
Read Article: How Highly Gendered Toys Present an Exclusively Heterosexual Worldview to ChildrenWhen girls and boys walk into a toy store in 2015, they see a significantly more gendered, heteronormative arrangement and selection of toys than I did as a girl forty years ago! Toys, grouped by gender, are prescriptive of gender roles. It is not only a problem of limiting the ways to be a girl…
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If Our Sons Were Treated Like Our Daughters
Read Article: If Our Sons Were Treated Like Our DaughtersCome with me. Let’s open the door to a parallel universe. You unlock this door with a key of imagination, just like on The Twilight Zone. Here in this parallel world, the rules are different because gender roles are flipped. Loving parents and teachers accept this strange culture as if it’s not so bad, or…
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Let’s Skip the Post-Holiday Fat Talk
Read Article: Let’s Skip the Post-Holiday Fat Talk‘Tis the season to bash our bodies in front of our daughters, talking obsessively about how many pounds we’ve gained over the holidays and the urgent need to shed them. Weight loss is a common New Year’s resolution, and one that receives much public discussion. Here’s an idea: Let’s not do that. If we decide…
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5 must-see movies for tween girls
Read Article: 5 must-see movies for tween girlsThe recent success of Brave and Frozen demonstrates that movies starring girls can not only succeed, but can also dominate at the box office. For much too long, the common belief among producers has been that female protagonists dooms a movie to commercial failure because boys won’t go see it. But, good news! This idea…
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The Amazing Impact of Mother-Daughter Book Clubs
Read Article: The Amazing Impact of Mother-Daughter Book ClubsOne of the most fulfilling and most memorable undertakings of my parenting journey was the formation of a mother-daughter book club, a collaboration with my then-eight-year-old daughter and four other mother-daughter pairs that would last for six years. We all discussed the need to counteract stereotyped and sexualized girl culture with positive messages about who…
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Eight Favorite Books Starring Interesting, Exciting, Daring, Adventurous Girls!
Read Article: Eight Favorite Books Starring Interesting, Exciting, Daring, Adventurous Girls!Google is full of girl-empowering book lists. Favorite female protagonists from the classics, like Pippi Longstocking, to more recent heroines, like Katniss Everdeen, abound on these lists, but I wanted to make my own after reading so many children and YA books to curate for recommendations to mother-daughter book clubs. Here are eight of my…
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A DAY IN THE CLASSROOM: ‘Super Tool Lula:’ The bully-fighting super hero
Read Article: A DAY IN THE CLASSROOM: ‘Super Tool Lula:’ The bully-fighting super heroI am devoting this month’s column to the new children’s book “Super Tool Lula” by Michele Yulo. It features a strong female protagonist, Lula, who is in the fourth grade and is not your “typical” girl. Read more…
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A DAY IN THE CLASSROOM: On mother-daughter book clubs
Read Article: A DAY IN THE CLASSROOM: On mother-daughter book clubsYears ago, as the working mother of a young daughter, I sometimes struggled to achieve that elusive work/home “balance” women often speak of wistfully and hold up as the ultimate validation of their success within the frameworks of modern feminism. Read more…