Raising Girls: Why girls are different – and how to help them grow up happy and confident

Find a quiet time to discuss with your partner what table manners you think are appropriate. Is your daughter allowed to leave the table when she has finished eating, or should she wait until everyone is finished? Can she play while she’s eating? Can she serve herself at a certain age? If so, what age? And must she then eat everything she has put on her plate?

There are no fixed or right answers to these questions. You develop your own family culture by seeking answers together and emphasising the things that are important to you. In days gone by, for instance, a prayer was usually said before meals, children weren’t permitted to speak at the table – unless spoken to – and everyone remained seated until everybody had finished eating. In many families, things have changed: these days there are some families who never sit down together for a meal.

What do you want for your family? How do you want to shape your family life in this respect? The moment your toddler sits at the family table, she learns something about food. What she learns is in your hands.

Important points about food for you and your daughter

Meals with the whole family are fun.

We should be grateful for our food – the amount and variety we have available are not things we should take for granted.

Healthy nourishment keeps us well.

Everyone can help with preparing meals.

Children learn table manners most easily through example and praise – not through criticism.

Everyone’s body belongs to them – each person should therefore choose (from a healthy range of food) what and how much they eat.

Fruit and vegetables should always be allowed as a snack.

In a nutshell

Accept and bond with the baby girl you actually have, not the one you might have been anticipating.

You are doing your daughter a favour when you say no to her for a good reason.

Good role models are vital for a girl’s healthy development.

Your daughter is more likely to have positive, healthy attitudes to eating if you start her off with fresh, natural food and limited sweets.

Not tied to the apron strings!

Everybody was busy in the kitchen when I announced that, instead of receiving presents for Mothers’ Day, I would not be cooking for three days over the Mothers’ Day weekend. I wanted a rest.

There was a sudden silence. Everybody looked at me, and then my two boys – aged 18 and 15 – and their father turned to the youngest, Jesse – aged ten, and the only other female in the house – and said, ‘Oh well, you’ll be cooking for three days, then.’

Jesse threw herself onto the couch, put her feet up and announced, ‘Sorry, I’m going to be a mother one day, so I need to rest now. I can’t do the cooking.’

Then on Mothers’ Day Jesse gave me a card she had made.

It said:

Happy Mothers’ Day, Mum Please don’t die until I get married Love Jesse

I think she could see nothing but years of cooking for her brothers and father ahead of her.

Lisa

THREE HER EARLY YEARS (#ulink_8b2197c3-0c1e-5dd9-943c-09fb606dd0db)

In this chapter we will look at important areas of little girls’ development, and see how parents can help this development. Again, the fundamental points here are that you should know what your own beliefs are, you should stick to them, and you should observe your daughter carefully and lovingly as often as possible so that you will know what she needs.

Language development

One area in which little girls are usually ahead of little boys is language development. According to one study, while girls can already speak three words at the age of ten months, boys the same age can only manage one.

(#litres_trial_promo) At the age of eighteen months, half of all girls have a vocabulary of 56 words at their disposal, while half of all boys use only 28 words.

These differences also appear in their passive vocabulary (that is, the vocabulary they understand but do not use themselves). At sixteen months, half of all girls understand 206

words, while half of all boys are getting by with 134 words. Boys catch up to girls around the age of 20 months.

So overall, girls have greater language fluency: their left cerebral hemisphere is activated earlier, and this is where the language centre lies. This brings us back to the differences between the male and female brain. Interestingly, parents tend to respond to this difference quite unconsciously, encouraging their daughters’ speech habits more strongly than their sons’. An American investigation showed that the number of words parents direct to their child – in other words, the amount of communication they initiate – gives a fairly precise prediction of a child’s intelligence, academic success and social skills.

(#litres_trial_promo) The more words, the greater the child’s ability in these areas.

Without a doubt, speaking stimulates the brain and assists in building connections that are indispensable to a child’s intelligence, creativity and adaptability. The language acquisition phase is therefore shaped by interaction – a link that becomes far more noticeable during the following years.

One language or two?

If you are in a position to bring up your child bilingually, do it. Young children are able to acquire language very easily and naturally in the first few years of life – and it is never again so easy for them. This ability not only leads to an improvement in your child’s competency in her first language, it also has a positive effect on her overall intelligence.