Family Life: Secrets of Raising Girls

What NOT To Do, From Those Who Know

1. Don’t Forget Her Brain is Female

"A hundred years ago, the observation that men were different from women, in a whole range of aptitudes, skills, and abilities, would have been a leaden truism, a statement of the yawningly obvious. Such a remark, uttered today, would evoke very different reactions. Said by a man, it would suggest a certain social ineptitude, a naivete in matters of sexual politics, a sad deficiency in conventional wisdom, or a clumsy attempt to be provacative. A woman venturing such an opinion would be scorned as a traitor to her sex, betraying the hard-fought 'victories' of recent decades as women have sought equality of status, opportunity and respect.

Yet the truth is that virtually every professional scientist and researcher into the subject has concluded that the brains of men and women are different. There has seldom been a greater divide between what intelligent, enlightened opinion presumes - that men and women have the same brain - and what science knows - that they do not."—From "Excerpts from Brain Sex" by Anne Moir Ph.D. and David Jessel

2. Don’t Expect to Hear Bang! Pow! Vroom!

"When it comes to sound, infant females are much less tolerant - one researcher believes that they may 'hear' noises as being twice as loud as do males. Baby girls become irritated and anxious about noise, pain or discomfort more readily that baby boys.

Baby girls are more easily comforted by soothing words and singing. Even before they can understand language, girls seem to be better than boys at identifying the emotional content of speech. From the outset of life, girl babies show a greater interest in communicating with other people. One study involves babies of only 2-4 days old. It shows that girls spend almost twice as long maintaining eye contact with a silent adult, and girls also look longer than boys when the adult is talking. The boys' attention span was the same, whether the adult was talking or not - showing a relative bias towards what they could see, rather than what they could hear. From the cradle, baby girls like to gurgle at humans. Most boys are just as talkative, but are equally happy to jabber away at cot toys or looking at abstract geometric designs. Boys are more active and wakeful than girls - the male-wired brain of activity at work.—From "Excerpts from Brain Sex" by Anne Moir Ph.D. and David Jessel

3. Don’t Take Away Her Peeps

"The brain biases persist and strengthen as children grow up, 'seeing' life through that particular filter of the brain which they find easier, and more natural, to use. That bias in girls towards the personal, for instance, shows up in experiments. A group of children was given a rather special sort of sight test. They looked through a contraption rather like a pair of binoculars, which showed the left and right eye two different images at the same time. One was of an object, the other of a person. The children had been shown exactly the same images, but when asked what they had seen gave different replies. Boys reported seeing significantly more things than people, and girls more people than things.

Because her self-esteem is based on her feelings of being in relationship and taking care of those relationships, a girl becomes cautious of what she says for fear of
"turning others off."

A newcomer to the playgroup - of either sex - will tend to be greeted with friendship and curiosity by the girls; with indifference by the boys. There is irritation if the newcomer follows the boys about; girls will tend to welcome the stranger into their group. By the age of four, boys and girls usually play apart, having instituted their own form of infant sexual segregation. Boys tend not to bother about whether or not they like any particular member of the gang - he's included if he's useful; girls exclude other girls because "they're not nice". Girls accept younger children into the group; boys tend to try to join groups of older children. Girls know and remember the names of their playmates; boys often don't."—From "Excerpts from Brain Sex" by Anne Moir Ph.D. and David Jessel

4. Don’t Neglect Her Need For Security

"As the months go by, and the child stands upright, the boys tend to show a greater interest than the girls in exploring the corners of their small world. Their greater muscle-mass helps them explore and range further than their sisters, and they make fewer journeys back to the reassuring base-camp of mother. Scientists have devised a test where a barrier is strung across the playroom, separating mother and child. The girls tended to stand at the centre of the barrier and cry; the boys made little safaris to the edge of the obstacle to see if there was a way round it.

Boys will make up stories of zap, pow and villainy. Girls' narratives focus on home, friendship, emotions; the boy will tell the story of the robber, while the girls tell the same tale from the point of view of the victim." —From "Excerpts from Brain Sex" by Anne Moir Ph.D. and David Jessel

5. Don’t Discourage Her Expression of Feelings

"Girls of nine and ten exhibit what Harvard researcher and therapist Annie G. Rogers, Ph.D. calls 'ordinary courage,' the ability 'to speak one’s mind by telling all one's heart.' By adolescence—twelve to thirteen—girls begin to lose this courage to speak the truth about their experiences and to push underground what they think and feel…

Because her self-esteem is based on her feelings of being in relationship and taking care of those relationships, a girl becomes cautious of what she says for fear of 'turning others off.' She begins to communicate her ideas as 'just my opinion.' 'You may not agree with this,' 'This may not seem right but…,' or 'I don’t know.' She is slower to raise her hand in classes at school and reluctant to express her opinions if they go against the status quo…

When we do not hear or respond to our daughter’s feelings and thoughts, she begins to feel that she is a problem, that the problems that develop between us are really within herself. She begins to believe that she is bad and unworthy of our love and attention, that her thoughts carry no value. She begins to disconnect and her feelings of isolation cause a sense of helplessness. When girls are threatened with isolation, they take any opportunity to make connection. They attempt to be very, very good, or act out their feelings of fear, anxiety, and anger in problematic ways."—Raising A Daughter by Jeanne and Don Elium.

Note: By request, this is a Chrysalis repost.

Related

Loquacious: Talkative or chatty, especially of persons given to excess conversation.—Wiktionary

• Read the reviews of Brain Sex: The Real Difference Between Men and Women.

• Thanks to Chrysalis readers, we created a simple wikipage, "Recipe for Raising a Daughter" last fall. It was really fun to cook up something meaningful (and loquacious) together! If you would like to add to this wiki, please leave me your thoughts in the comment box.

• In case you missed it, my article "Bringing Up Boys" will give you some of the skinny on raising a son.

Discover more family-oriented content at the Carnival of Homeschooling. Better yet, jump in and participate on Tues. Sept. 16, 2008.

Coming Soon—Bible Colors

What surprises you about your daughter's unique needs?

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