Also by Steve Biddulph

Raising Boys

The Secret of Happy Children

Manhood

Raising Babies

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Also by Steve Biddulph

A Letter from Steve

Meet Kaycee and Genevieve

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?

Postscript

Notes

Contributors and Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

A Letter from Steve

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

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.

Kaycee and Genevieve’s lives have taken very different paths. I’m going to tell you their stories, because they make really clear the dangers, and the hopes, of girlhood today.

Kaycee’s Story

Let’s meet Kaycee first. On first impression Kaycee seems a very grown-up 17-year-old. She wears carefully applied make-up and ultra-fashionable clothes, and she speaks fast and in a clear voice. This much confidence in a teenager may be quite genuine, but if you know young people well, you might wonder if Kaycee has possibly become ‘too old too soon’. And there is something else that you might notice. It’s in her manner. Her expression is world-weary. When she speaks she sounds rather cynical and hard. For a 17-year-old, she doesn’t seem to be having a lot of fun.

Back when Kaycee was 14, something big did happen. It wasn’t the stuff of newspaper headlines, but it was a significant experience that affected the direction of her life.

Halfway through Year 9, Kaycee was invited to a classmate’s birthday party. The parents hosting the party had implied a somewhat higher level of supervision than they actually provided on the night. So the party went pretty much as it would if 40 or 50 kids of varying ages were left in a house at night with lots of alcohol and no adults in sight: loud, chaotic and out of control. Kaycee found it very exciting; in particular because a boy whom she knew, Ciaran, aged 17 and two years above her in school, was there. Kaycee and her friends had often admired Ciaran at school, with his good looks and cool demeanour, but tonight there was something different – he was noticing her. Then, amazingly, it got better still. He sat with her, and they talked and had a few drinks. They talked and snuggled a little in the garden. She could hardly believe her luck (it was all she could manage not to take out her phone and text someone!). After a while, Ciaran stood up, took her by the hand and led her upstairs to one of the many bedrooms in this big, fancy house apparently devoid of adults. They had sex.

It all went faster than Kaycee had imagined her first sexual experience would, and it was less tender too. Blurred by the alcohol, Kaycee’s brain wasn’t really working very well; she was aware though of the shift from the excited feeling of being special and the centre of Ciaran’s attention, to physical discomfort and a sense of being pushed about, invaded, not really noticed as a person. When it was over, which was quite soon, Ciaran managed a kiss before straightening his clothes and leaving the room. When Kaycee got herself together and went out into the party, she felt unsure and shaky. Then she saw Ciaran, standing with a group of friends, who all looked at her and smirked. She realised in an instant that he had been telling them of his ‘conquest’. Tears burned her face, she fled from the house and ended up in the garden, sobbing. A friend tried to comfort her, but Kaycee wouldn’t say what had happened.

She went home that night in a kind of icy rage. She hated Ciaran now, and for a while boys in general. Kaycee was a spirited girl, she had been independent all her life, her busy parents valued self-sufficiency. She told no one what had happened. (When her parents finally learned about it three years later in a family counselling session, they were saddened and shocked.) But like millions of girls before her who had first sexual experiences they regretted or did not enjoy, Kaycee hid her wounds and got on with her life. But she was a changed girl.

Did the experience put her off boys? Not at all. What it put her off was vulnerability, being the one who was used. She began sleeping with boys on her own initiative, and on her own terms. She chose them, and she called the shots. By the age of 17, when she first spoke to a counsellor, Kaycee had had sex with seven different boys. Possibly eight, there was a night where some alcohol-affected confusion had occurred, and she wasn’t sure.

Now, in Year 12, Kaycee has stabilised somewhat, she has a steady boyfriend. But she doesn’t hold him in very high regard, and confides that she is ‘planning to ditch him sometime soon’.

We know from research, (and from most people’s recollections of their own teenage years), that Kaycee’s experience is not uncommon. Perhaps, one could argue, we just need to be less uptight about teen sex and let them make their own mistakes, and learn from them. (That is also a convenient argument for those parents who prefer not to get involved, or are too busy to keep a close eye on their kids.) But let’s stay with the story …

Kaycee’s life, at this point in time, isn’t going very well. Her parents sought help not because of her sex life, which they were only vaguely aware of, and in a sense didn’t want to know about. Their concern was that her drinking was getting out of control (she was not yet, of course, of drinking age) and she was failing at her expensive private school. She was halfway through Year 12 and the school was concerned about her poor marks and her many absences from class. The family had been advised to ‘see someone’ about her problems. When she arrived with her parents to meet with a counsellor, Kaycee looked angry to have been brought there. But within half an hour, and given a sympathetic listener, she was pouring out her feelings.

The family’s seeking help – not just for Kaycee, but for themselves – was a brave step, and in fact proved to be a turning point. We will return to Kaycee and her parents at the very end of the book, to let you know how it all worked out.

A Marked and Sudden Change

In the last ten years there has been a big change in the lives of girls. And it’s affecting them at every age, from babyhood to teens. While the same wishes and dreams are there for girls journeying towards womanhood that we had in our day, the world is forcing changes on them that are on a whole different scale. In particular, things are beginning to happen when they are younger.

This is a key point to keep in mind about girls’ situation today, and it was first made by Maggie Hamilton in her book What’s Happening to Our Girls? To understand our daughters, we have to realise that their childhood is not like ours. To put it bluntly, our 18 is their 14. Our 14 is their ten. That’s in terms of the pressures, the behaviours, and what they are supposed to be, and act like, according to the peer norms that exist today – and our failure to protect them, for we are partly responsible. We – and that’s all of us, parents, relatives, friends and society – are not supporting girlhood in the way we once did. We haven’t put enough adult time and care around our daughters, or taught them well enough.

In the last ten years a greedy corporate world has realised that girls, and especially pre-teen girls, are a soft target. Companies saw that there were enormous profits to be made in exploiting their anxieties (or in fact creating those anxieties) about everything from skin to weight to friendship to clothes to even making it into adulthood. In boardrooms and advertising agencies, magazines and media outlets, the war on girls began. And it succeeded. Everywhere she looks, today’s young girl sees messages that make her feel she is not good enough, that imprison her in cramped and narrow ideas of how she is supposed to look, think and act. Never before has girlhood been under such a sustained assault, ranging through everything from diet ads, alcohol marketing, fashion pressures, to the inroads of hard pornography into teenage bedrooms.

The result is that many girls have lost four years of childhood peace and development. They are being forced out of childhood when they have not yet completed it, or even fully enjoyed it. The result is girls in enormous pain and confusion. They try to act grown-up but they can’t. They are filling up the mental health clinics, the police stations and emergency rooms, the alcohol and drug treatment programmes in numbers never seen before.1

If we are awake to what is going on, we can prevent this. Partly it’s through the love we give, partly the environment we create for them with support and interests, and partly the protection from the stupid and exploitive media messages from the world around them. I have a favourite saying that has often helped me: ‘We can’t stop the birds of sorrow from flying through our lives, but we don’t have to let them make nests in our hair!’ We can live in this world, but we don’t have to swallow everything it offers us. We can choose for ourselves and for our daughters the experiences that make us strong, happy and alive. That’s what Genevieve and her parents did …

Genevieve’s Story

Genevieve, like Kaycee, is also 17, also in Year 12. On first meeting, Genevieve seems a little nervous and shy, but she soon relaxes when she gets to know you. Her conversation is full of ideas, concerns and funny stories and perspectives on things. She switches in a moment from excited child to thoughtful young adult, as is typical of someone just on the edge of womanhood. She doesn’t have the tough exterior of Kaycee, but then, perhaps she doesn’t need to. Her story is a very different one.

Genevieve does not have a boyfriend right now. She would love to, but is wary; she knows that young love is not always easy. Also, she finds the boys of her own age frustratingly hard to hold a conversation with, and longs to meet more mature, communicative boys when she goes to university.

Genevieve’s friends at school are a warm and friendly bunch, not the high flyers, but the quieter, more natural kids. They look out for each other and also, if there is a newcomer or someone left on the outer edges of the group, they are more likely to include them and make them welcome. As a result, they are a large, ramshackle group, slightly dorky and uncool but not too worried about it.

Genevieve did go out with a boy at 15, and this was an intense experience for her. Justin was her own age and they met early in the school year. They spent time together as often as they could, taking long walks, holding hands, having soulful conversations. He was more experienced sexually, though, and after a few months, began pressuring Genevieve to ‘go further’ when they were alone together. Other girls had had sex with him in the past and he really wanted this with Genevieve too.

Genevieve is close to her mother, and accustomed to talking over pretty much everything in her life with her. In fact, her mother joked that for every hour spent with Justin, Genevieve spent another hour discussing what had taken place, what he said, what it might mean, what she said back, and so on! While many girls do this detailed debriefing with their friends, Genevieve was used to discussing her innermost thoughts with her mum, and so this new problem naturally became part of their ongoing conversation. As a result, her mum was involved in dealing with this new sexual pressure on her daughter, and able to offer her help.

To her great credit, Genevieve’s mum did not panic, and did not try to take control of the situation by telling Genevieve what to do. She later told me that she would, if necessary, have brought in some limits on how and where the pair could meet, since they were below the legal age, as well as the wise age, to start having sex. In other words, she would not allow her daughter, at just 15, to be out of her depth in a situation where she might not be emotionally and physically safe. At the same time, Genevieve’s mum supported, cautiously, her wish to have a friendship with a boy. She would drive her daughter into town to meet Justin to go to a movie or meet up with friends, or bring him over to visit their house.

This remarkably sensible mother had a low-key but thoughtful response to her daughter’s questions. Instead of ‘laying down the law’ as a first strategy, she simply helped Genevieve to explore her own wants. What did she feel she wanted? What was her body telling her? What did she think was the course of action she would feel good about, long term?

She did this in a quiet, casual kind of way that gave Genevieve real space to reflect. Her mum had that knack of listening intently without pressure, so that Genevieve knew that she had her full attention, and so her thoughts and feelings tumbled out effortlessly.

Genevieve’s inner signals were quite clear. She really liked Justin, she liked being with him, but she felt uneasy and rather crowded when he was too physical with her. It was all a bit too intense. She hoped their relationship would strengthen and grow, but she wanted it to take its time. Her mother listened, and nodded, and reflected back to her daughter, ‘It sounds like you really aren’t ready to have sex with him, you don’t want it to go that way right away?’ Genevieve said no, but she was worried what would happen if she rejected Justin’s advances repeatedly. They talked over how she could let Justin know her feelings and wants.

Over the next few weeks, Genevieve and Justin did have a kind of debate about this. He basically gave his own ultimatum, in response to hers, and there was a real testing of wills. Justin knew plenty of girls who, though not quite as interesting or special as Genevieve, were willing to offer him sex, and in the end, he ‘walked’. Genevieve had known this was a real possibility, but that did not prevent her from feeling crushed. She was an open-hearted girl, almost totally without hardness or shell, and she took a long time to heal. But she did heal, and six months later, when Justin phoned to try to get back together, she was kind but clear in her refusal. She had moved on.

A Reality Check

When I was young I loved to travel and live in remote places. From tiny villages in Papua New Guinea to the slums of Calcutta in West Bengal. When I returned home, I was always struck by this remarkable thing: people living in tough places were happier. Life in these places was hard, but the locals still managed to laugh and be warm to each other. (When I came back to affluence, everyone seemed miserable.) The experience convinced me: we are supposed to be happy. We are not meant to be depressed. Especially not at 15 years of age.

Girlhood is supposed to be fun, with friends young and old, adventures in young love, mastery of new skills and abilities. Its dramas should be dramas of learning and growing, not being battered and damaged.

Compared to how girlhood should be, it’s clear something has gone badly wrong. Millions of parents are asking, why are our daughters so stressed? What should we do, so that their lives turn out well? As you will soon see, there is plenty that we can do.

Part One

Chapter 1
Creating a Total Girl

Two-year-old Mollie lifts a Tonka truck high in the air and is about to smack it down on her friend Jemima’s head. Even at two, she knows this is not really in the True Spirit of Playgroup, so she glances towards where her mother is watching to see how it might go down. Her mum has seen it all and is urgently flashing her a ‘don’t you dare’ frown. Ever … so … slowly, Mollie lowers the truck to the carpet and goes back to crayoning. Jemima remains blissfully unaware that anything has happened and goes on humming to herself while holding firmly onto the only yellow crayon.

Ten-year-old Elise looks at her computer screen, and sees the message bagging one of the girls in her class, a girl who is already shy and insecure. It’s mean and personal, and one of her own friends just posted it. Elise chews her top lip so hard it leaves a red mark. She hates bullying, but how can she intervene and not make enemies? She heads downstairs to talk to her mum.

Fifteen-year-old Samantha pauses during the maths exam, draws a deep breath and frowns. She has almost finished, with loads of time to spare. If she keeps going, she will probably top the class; she likes maths and always does well, but then she will be seen as a ‘brain’, which is highly uncool, especially with boys. She knows she can just stop now and leave out the last couple of questions. Nah! she exclaims to herself, then worries if she said that out loud? Nobody seems to have noticed. She gets on and finishes the exam.

Girlhood is a lot of fun, for parents and for girls themselves, but it also has its intense times. At each stage of their growing up girls have to deal with difficult decisions. They get confused and make mistakes, but eventually they learn and grow, and out of all this they become capable and strong adult women.

For you as their parent, it helps to have a map of the country of childhood, so that you know what to expect and what to do. The map in this book is drawn from the latest findings in child development and neuroscience, family therapy and parenting education, but it also comes from talking to mothers, fathers and teachers in many countries. I never quite trust experts, unless what they say matches my own heart and passes the test of common sense. That comes from talking to lots of people. Eventually, the map becomes clearer. You feel like you know where you are.

The Five Stages of Girlhood

While each girl is unique, there is still a journey that all girls have to make to grow up well. Girls seem to be different to boys in the stages they go through, and the ages at which they happen. In the chapters to come, you can look up the age of your daughter and dive into more detail about what is happening for her. But first it’s good to get the big picture and see where you are …

Stage 1: Security – Am I safe and loved? (birth–2 years)

Human babies are the most dependent babies on Earth. Born totally defenceless, babies instinctively know that the adults around them have to love them, or they may not give them proper care. It’s not enough just to be fed and clothed; machines could keep a baby alive, but she would not develop intelligence or kindness, she would be a very strange being indeed. It’s through her parents comforting her tenderly, singing and talking to her, jiggling and tickling and loving her, that a baby girl comes fully alive, and decides that life is good. In this situation her emotional as well as her physical needs are responded to. Out of all this, she makes a fundamental decision about life: I am loved and safe. And she carries that inside her, always.

Stage 2: Exploring – Is the world a fun and interesting place? (2–5 years)

This stage is when a girl learns to be confident and interested in the world around her, to be smart and creative. It builds on the secure feelings from Stage 1; if people are going to stay close and care for me, I can relax and check out the toys, play in the garden, toddle out across the grass, mess about with dirt and stones and leaves.

Babies who don’t feel securely attached to their mum do not explore very much, they are too afraid Mum or Dad will desert them.

This is the age when your daughter can be shown how to paint, poke, build, create and enjoy the world of things, animals and people. If the people who love her share some of these activities with her, she will pick up on their enthusiasm and pleasure in making and doing. Her brain becomes permanently switched on to learning. You will have taught her that life is an adventure. Strange, new and challenging things will be a joy for her for the rest of her life.

Stage 3: People skills – Can I get along with others? (5–10 years)

Other children, other adults, as well as Mum and Dad, brothers and sisters, can be difficult but are mostly fun. Your daughter finds that she can have better fun by sharing a little, giving way a little, co-operating and playing together, than if she is just on her own. This isn’t possible until about three or four years of age, and even then it’s hard. But by learning first from Mum or Dad, and then other people, she can work out that she is not the centre of the universe. Other people have feelings too.

Right through primary school, this most complex of skills – valuing yourself, but also valuing others and treating them with respect – is gradually being learned. Again, it builds on the earlier stages: being treated kindly, you grow kind; being treated sensitively, you grow empathy; being treated honestly, you grow honest.

She decides that mostly people are fine. I like them. Let’s play! Your daughter will be a ‘people person’. For the rest of her life she will know how to be with people in a happy and helpful way.

Stage 4: Finding her soul – Can I discover my deep-down self and what makes me truly happy? (10–14 years)

With the coming of puberty, a girl starts to experience a much stronger sense of being her own person, a separate and private self. She is far from being a woman, but she is no longer a child either. Like a tree in winter, she is building up reserves for when she is ready to blossom. These are the years in which she begins to strengthen the ‘inside’ of her deep self – who she really is. It’s a time when she needs help to think about what she stands for, and cares most deeply about, and also what her interests and passions are. Often at this age a girl finds her ‘spark’ – something that she loves to do and which gives her joy, purpose and a creative way to make a contribution. A reason to be alive.

By gaining an identity through doing and believing, and strengthening her inner world, a girl will be freer from the need for approval that haunts many teen girls and makes them conformist and dull.

A girl’s soul is like a wild animal, powerful and savvy, but wary too. It needs time and quiet to emerge. As a girl finds her soul, she will be equipped to face the big questions of life: choosing intimacy on her own terms, choosing her career path, knowing which peer group to hang around with. A girl who knows her own soul may be a gentle girl but also one who has steel in her, not easily manipulated by careless boys or false friends. She will be loyal, tough and protective of those around her. And of herself.

Stage 5: Stepping into adulthood – Can I take responsibility for my own life? (14–18 years)

At 18 your daughter begins to be a woman, and so at the age of 14 the preparation for that huge leap has to begin in earnest. It’s mostly practical – here’s how you manage money, driving a car, time, eating, clothes, health, safety – but it’s also a powerful shift in attitude. Sometime between 14 and adulthood a girl needs some kind of marker event, a growing-up rite, an experience or even misfortune which teaches her that she is now at the steering wheel of her own life. That she literally holds her life in her own hands. This is a frightening realisation, but frightening in a good way. By steadying herself, and by receiving the welcome and support of older women, she can leave behind childishness or harmful gullibility, and be accountable, connected to consequences and proactive in making her life worthwhile. While life itself can deliver this realisation to a girl, leaving it to chance is a hazardous and unreliable way for it to happen. She might come to serious harm. Also, some people never grow up and their lives are self-absorbed and wasted; they drift in misery, blame everyone else and never take responsibility.

Girls have to be deliberately and proactively launched into healthy womanhood. When this is done well, the results are impressive. A girl takes charge of her life and makes her unique way in the world.

Each Stage Asks a Question

I hope you’ll find the five stages clear and easy to understand. Remember that each girl is different, so the stages can vary quite a lot according to at what age they happen. Also, they overlap, because nature is efficient and starts one lesson while the other is still finishing. I hope you can live with that!

The key point is that as your daughter completes each stage, she comes to a decision about her life, which is going to either help or harm her. For example, imagine a girlhood where all five stages go badly. This girl would arrive at the following five decisions:

1  Life is uncertain, and nobody loves me.

2  New ideas and things are frightening.

3  People can’t be trusted, and they are impossible to get along with.

4  I have nothing of value inside me, I am a nobody.

5  Growing up is just too hard. I don’t want to be an adult. I don’t have any power or any choice in what happens to me. Stuff just happens.

Those are pretty bad outcomes, but they are familiar to anyone who works with girls. Every parent can look at their daughter, and her friends, and other girls in their town and city, and see the results of these stages being lived out. Some girls will make it, some will not. The decisions that girls make at each stage are profound and life-altering.

Fortunately (in case you are now paralysed with fear!), these decisions are made little by little, combining many experiences, so we shouldn’t panic about always getting things right. The stages last for years and we get lots of chances.

As a parent, what matters is that you don’t give up. Loving your daughter and keeping on trying are what will get you through. And if your daughter is already past some of the stages and you feel that she didn’t really get the message, don’t despair, those decisions can often be remade later.

Of course, if you have a new little baby daughter and she is the reason you are reading this book, then you are lucky indeed. But at any age, if you have enough caring and motivation, then you can still put things right.

GIRLS DO IT DIFFERENTLY – AND FASTER

Girls develop more quickly than boys, especially in brain abilities. The oestrogen their body creates while still in the womb actually increases the rate of brain growth, and at birth they are many weeks ahead of boys.2

The difference increases in the first five or six years. Girls learn to speak whole sentences and control their fingers, to do neat drawings or even writing, six to twelve months sooner than boys. Girls are ready to start school about a year earlier than boys. Girls do not suffer as much separation anxiety as boys if they have to go to childcare – although this varies a lot with the individual child.

Girls enter puberty about two years sooner than boys do, turning into young women overnight when the boys seem to be standing still. And finally, they become adult sooner – girls’ brain development finishes several years before boys finally get there in their early twenties! It’s as if Nature says to girls: you’d better grow up ahead of the game, you will need your wits about you!

THINK OF YOUR OWN LIFE

If you are a mother, you have a huge advantage in raising a daughter – you used to be one. If you are a dad, it’s different, but daughters don’t expect their dads to be their mums, usually, so it’s all right, you have a different part to play that is just as important.

If you’re a mum reading this, think back to your own childhood. (It’s still worth doing this if you’re a dad, though the stages would have been somewhat different …)

 Did you feel safe and secure when you were a baby? Were your parents in a good place in their lives and able to really love and enjoy you?

 Were you encouraged to play, enjoy and explore the world around you? Did your parents have the time and interest to excite you and show you how good life was as a toddler?

 When you went to school, did your parents help you and show you how to get along with others? Could they get along with others themselves? Could they look out for themselves but also respect the needs of others?

 Did you find in your early teens that your unique interests were supported, or were people too busy?

 Did you find in your mid-teens that you could get to know your own soul and connection to Nature and the universe, and be strengthened in this?

 And finally, in your late teens, did you have a clear transition to being adult, where you felt that you took control of your own life, faced the consequences of your actions, and had a sense of power as well as a purpose?

Lots of questions, but you will quickly work out where you did okay and where things fell down. Perhaps that will help you know how to get it right for your daughter, and how important that is.

Using the Stages

You use the stages by asking, what age is our girl? What is the most likely big question that her life is asking, according to the stages listed above? (Always check with your own experience, rather than letting books or theories dictate your actions.) If your gut feeling is that this IS the stage she is in, you can organise the experiences and inputs to help her along. We will teach you how in the chapters to come.

Another use of the stages is ‘remedial’; you can pinpoint the earlier stages that she might have missed out on, due to difficult circumstances. The nature of human beings is that we can often recover things that we missed out on, by getting them down the track. For example, adopted children from terrible backgrounds can gradually find security with their new parents. Overprotected girls who are fearful can be challenged and coaxed to show more courage. Girls with no people skills can learn to get along better, and so on. Be open to the possibility that your daughter may be a certain age in years, and a far younger age in development, if she missed out due to life circumstance during the earlier parts of her ‘quest’.

CLINGY FOR A REASON

Gemma, aged ten, is very clingy and always needs cuddles and closeness from her mum.

At first, her mum finds this annoying, but then she remembers something – that she was very stressed and suffered depression when Gemma was a baby. She realises that Gemma, though really in Stage 3, is going back to complete her Stage 1 ‘Am I loved and safe?’ She decides to really give Gemma all the hugs that she seems to need, and finds that it makes a huge difference. Her daughter relaxes more and becomes much more confident and independent within a couple of months.

UNDER STRESS, WE ALL REGRESS!

Here’s a handy tip. Sometimes when a family is under stress, kids will deal with this by dropping back a stage. A confident five-year-old will suddenly suck her thumb and want to wrap herself up in a blanket. A 14-year-old would rather hang out with you at a party or barbecue than mix with the other kids. Or a 21-year-old will refuse to make a decision for herself and want to be told what to do.

Under stress, we all drop back a stage or two – think of those times when you just don’t want to get out of bed, or just don’t want to deal with people. That’s quite normal from time to time. Generally, let your daughter regenerate and recuperate in this way – nobody can handle reality all of the time. You only need to worry if she doesn’t seem to ‘grow up’ after a few days. She might need nudging out of it, or some more help to find out what is wrong.

Be sure you find out the reason why she is stressed, if there is no obvious explanation. There may be something she needs to tell you that she is finding hard to talk about.

Be gentle on yourself, too, so she can see that everyone needs nurture and to slow down. Lowering your whole family’s stress levels with holidays, having one day of the week as a rest day, and less overscheduling generally, means that she won’t be as likely to go into overload. Often a stressed child is an indicator that the whole family needs to slow down.

In a Nutshell

 All girls go through five stages to become a woman.

 These stages teach her the five big lessons of growing up: being secure, learning to explore, relating to other people, finding your soul, and taking charge of your life. Adult help is needed for all of these, and the adults have to know what to do.

 Parents who know the map of girlhood can organise their lives to provide what is needed.

 It’s your daughter who makes the journey, but you are her coaches, caregivers and allies along the way. Taking on these roles is probably the best thing you will ever do.

Chapter 2
Right from the Start
(Birth–2 years)

It’s early morning and little Lucy, just five weeks old, is lying wide awake in her cot beside her parents’ bed. Her mum and dad are both asleep, in fact her dad is lightly snoring. Lucy watches the dancing shadows made by the sunlight on the wall. From time to time, she waves her arms in sheer delight. She makes happy noises, and her head turns from side to side as she takes in the wonder of the world.

After a while, Lucy starts to feel hungry. She whimpers, and her mother, ears attuned for her baby’s sounds by a million years of mammalian history, wakes up, even though her husband’s snoring has not disturbed her all night. She reaches over and sleepily brings Lucy into the bed, then unbuttons a milk-swollen breast for her to suckle on. Lucy hasn’t needed to get upset, so she settles happily to feed, fully alert, looking into her mum’s eyes as she does so. At this age the focal length of her eyes is fixed at just the right distance to her mother’s face when feeding, about 30 centimetres, anything further away is still blurred. All she needs to see clearly is that her mum is happy and content. Then she can relax too.

Soon the day will begin. Lucy and her mum or dad will move through different activities, going down the street to the shops, perhaps meeting or dropping in on friends. There will be many changes of nappies, many feeds. But most of this time Lucy will be just lying about, or sleeping. Breastfeeding and sleeping, without any special effort, are the main events of early babyhood. And through all of this, Lucy’s brain will be growing; in just this first year of life, it will double or even treble in size. It will never grow so fast or so well as in these early months, though. It is the love, smiles, songs and playful interactions and all the other myriad natural things that parents do with babies, that help it to grow.

Learning to Connect

As her mum goes about her activities around the house, or at her computer, if Lucy gets lonely she will make sounds to attract her mum’s attention. And her mum will answer her. While Lucy will not have words for a year or so, she and her mother know exactly what the other is communicating. Roughly translated, the conversation goes like this …

Baby: ‘Are you there, beloved one?’

Mum: ‘Yes, I am!’

Baby: ‘Am I still the most important thing in your life?’

Mum: ‘Yes, you are.’

Baby: ‘Just checking!’

Mum: ‘That’s fine.’

Researchers have filmed these mother-baby exchanges using special high-speed cameras, and have given them a scientific name3: ‘Joint attention sequences’ are the little rituals when mother and baby check in with each other, and they happen dozens of times a day. These mini ‘conversations’ help make this child not just secure in her mother’s love but, as she gets older, better able to relate empathically and sensitively to other people. The timing is incredibly sensitive, they seem to sway and move in total harmony. Researchers found that if the mum is on a video screen, it still works, but if they introduce a mere one-second delay, the baby completely panics. The rhythm of this baby and this mother are totally attuned. The delicate dance of interaction, with sounds and nods, smiles and bits of sing-song, shape this little girl’s abilities to relate well for life.

Often Lucy’s cries will be more intense, if something has scared her or she has a moment of painful hunger, or because something is not to her liking. Her mother will match this startle response with, ‘Oooh, what’s wrong?’ or, ‘Oh dear, what’s the matter?’ using the higher-pitched voice that adults tend to adopt around babies. This voice is more audible to a baby’s ears. (Though nobody knew that until recently audiologists learned how to measure it.) The mother will then shift her pitch and tone to a more soothing level. She will probably pick Lucy up and rock her gently to restore some rhythmic peace. From thousands of such soothings Lucy’s brain will learn the pathway from stress to relaxation, a pathway she can use for all her life to come.

Lucy and her parents’ time together will have a quality that is called ‘responsiveness’. Put simply, they will be tuned in to her and will get to know her ways. They will read her signals and respond, not in a panicky way, but smoothly and contentedly. Partly this is simply how love (and the hormone of love, known as oxytocin) works, but partly it’s because they have made it a priority to be not too busy or rushed in these early months. (They didn’t decide to renovate the bathroom or take a big promotion right now, knowing that babyhood was a pretty demanding event on its own.) Unless Lucy’s mum is numbed out by drug addiction, or is suffering from depression, she will most likely find Lucy delightful to be around, though certainly demanding. Parenthood may not come naturally, but it will grow and settle into a new and satisfying rhythm, if she gives it time and if she has support from those around her.

Support from grandmas, friends, aunties is very important. New mums or dads can’t easily do this stage on their own, they need a bit of mothering too. Love is like a river and it has to flow in and out of us. Being close to family and friends really helps when you have a little baby.

People Skills Start Very Young

As adults we know that people skills make a huge difference in life. We notice it most when they are not there – a hugely insensitive boss or colleague, a person in the street or a shop who is clueless and uncaring. Awareness of other people’s feelings, the timing of conversation, knowing when to listen and when to speak, are complex and advanced skills. Most of us have had moments with another person where we are awkward, where perhaps the timing gets jumbled up. Hopefully this is just momentary; often it’s when we are trying too hard, or wanting to impress. We lost our own ‘realness’. Some people we meet are extraordinarily engaged and sensitive and we feel great to be with them, noticed and valued. For a social animal like us, harmonious interaction is central to our happiness.

That’s why we start learning long before we can even speak. Interestingly, it’s the second six months of human life that seem to matter the most. This is the time when a baby gets much more fussy about who is around them. Mothers have known for thousands of years that a newborn can be shared around, but a six-month-old baby knows exactly who its mum and dad are, and often won’t trust anyone else.

Neuroscience bears this out. It’s in the second six months of life that the baby grows those areas of the brain that are specifically for people skills. Girl babies have more aptitude and awareness of social connection, which is a natural strength of girls, but this still must be nurtured and strengthened. It’s not a matter of being self-conscious or deliberate – that would actually get in the way – you just go with the flow. Your baby calls you, you respond. It’s casual, natural, and soothing for you both.

Growing the PFC

The first six months of little Lucy’s life are rather sleepy, as she just gets used to being out in the world. In the second six months things speed up. Just inside her little forehead is an area of the brain that, if you could see it, looks like a cauliflower, wrinkled and furrowed. This area, known as the prefrontal cortex, is now starting to grow. The PFC is the most complex part of the brain, and it governs some things that are very important for life. The prefrontal cortex is the seat of empathy, sociability and human contact. It’s what makes us human.

The prefrontal cortex couldn’t grow earlier, because it would have made Lucy’s head too big to be safely born. And what’s in there, the software, also needs to be programmed by Lucy’s parents or carers, because they are unique to her family and culture and will help her live with them for the many years it will take to raise her.

Along with its social functions, the prefrontal cortex also controls two important abilities:

1 The ability to focus, to pay attention.

2 The ability to calm yourself down.

Babies can’t calm themselves for one important reason: they are wired up for panic. In the wild (the way we used to live for a quarter of a million years) babies were carried about for most of the day, because that was the best way to keep them safe and give them good care. And often the adults were walking for much of the time, so it was just a practical necessity. (Even today, in the so-called undeveloped world, babies are rarely put down. They also rarely cry.) In our long pre-history there were plenty of predators about that would love to snatch a human baby for their dinner. So if a baby found herself alone or, worse still, a big hairy muzzle suddenly appeared in her face, dripping saliva – and it wasn’t dad – she was probably in trouble. Babies who cried loudly were more likely to be rescued fast. So fearfulness and noisy panic had a survival value that became part of our design.

This alarm system in babies left alone has a very important message for us as parents. For just as we are told right from birth to keep babies warm – since they can’t regulate their own temperature – we have to keep them calm because they can’t regulate their emotions. So dozens of times a day, a baby gets upset, whimpers or cries, and her mum, dad, grandparent or sibling picks her up, soothes her, and helps her relax. ‘It’s okay, everything’s fine, there, there.’ Gradually this soothing becomes part of her, she learns how to do it herself, but this takes several years of receiving the gift of calmness from others. It’s all gradually building into strong mental health for a lifetime.

The Gift of Calm

Your little girl learns calmness for life from the ease and comfort you bring to her early months and years. (Even in the womb, your adrenaline crosses over into her body, so a calm pregnancy can pay off in terms of giving you a more restful and happy baby.) This means planning as much as you possibly can to spend the time before and after your birth and right into the first year or two, with reduced pressure and the luxury of time with your little one.

This is so different to our idea of how to live: rush, hurry and busy-ness are the keystones of modern life. But our babies are Stone-Age babies, and modern madness does not serve them well. If you possibly can, make this time a break from the rush-about world you may have lived in all your life.

WHAT IS CALMNESS?

Calmness is not a character trait, it’s simply a skill. You have to decide that it matters, that the quality of your presence would be better if you slowed yourself down and were really connected to people and the moment you are living in. Then you practise until gradually it becomes part of you. It benefits everyone around you – they feel peaceful and happy in your presence. It’s exactly what children need in a parent. And it benefits you – with less stress hormones, you live longer and feel better. Calmness is well worth cultivating.

Calmness is made up of certain actions; breathing deeper, dropping your shoulders, settling your muscles, feeling your feet strongly planted on the ground, focusing your thoughts on the job in hand in a steady easy way, and not going off into panicked thoughts. Even just counting three or four breaths, in and out, will slow your heartbeat and calm your mind down. Calm people are actually doing these things automatically; when an emergency strikes they intentionally calm themselves more in order to counter the tendency to panic and do the wrong thing.

Self-regulating your level of emotional arousal is an incredibly valuable skill for life. All you have to do is notice, am I calm? If not, breathe a couple of times consciously, feel your feet on the ground, and notice how, as the last burst of adrenaline clears away, the calmness response starts to kick in. Practise this for a few days, and soon the natural appeal of calmness will pull you more and more to that peaceful and steady place. Everything is better – the taste of food, the scent of flowers, the feel of the water in your shower, warm on your skin. You will find that time slows down, and you can think more in the pause before you open your mouth. And that has real benefits!

Crying and Sleep

Feeling okay in the world is the first lesson you teach your baby girl. ‘You are loved and precious, I am here for you, and everything is okay’. A frightened or lonely baby won’t learn to calm herself if she is just left to cry – this is a common misunderstanding. She will go quiet eventually, but this is because of another survival pattern. ‘Nobody is going to come!’ A baby’s prolonged cries ‘in the wild’ might attract danger, so if her cries are not successful after a few minutes, the baby shuts down and becomes physiologically ‘depressed’. If parents are unresponsive – through suffering untreated postnatal depression, or being drunk or stoned, or just not caring – and if this happens often enough, the baby decides that ‘my efforts don’t have any effect on others’. This pattern will become part of how she responds to difficulty in life. It is called ‘learned helplessness’.4

It’s not a pattern you want your child to have, because she will lack a sense of mastery or hope in difficult situations. ‘Depression’ is often misunderstood – it is simply an ability of the human body to shut down, from ancient times when we had to sit out bad weather or endure long winters of cold and dark. At such times, with little food about and no energy to catch it, moving little, eating little and doing little was the best way to survive. But the depression response can easily become overdeveloped. Teaching depression to a child by ignoring her is not going to help her. She may lie still, but she is actually very unhappy.

There is a middle road here; especially when getting babies to sleep, which can be an important part of parents’ survival. Sometimes a baby in her cot will make sounds, trying to bring the adults to play with her after she’s been put to bed. It’s fine to let her whinge and whine a little as part of her giving up on ‘game time’ and letting sleep take over (especially when mum or dad is totally knackered and just needs a rest), but if the whingeing turns into full-voiced distress, that’s not good. She needs calming and settling. The caring bond between you is endangered, and she needs to know you are there. (In the notes you will find some good reading suggestions on how to get more sleep for your baby, and for you, without using harsh methods to do so.)

You Also Have to Excite Your Baby!

After all this talk about calmness, it’s important to remember the opposite message too: we don’t always want our babies calm. Babies and toddlers also need to learn to go into higher states of excitement, to increase their emotional range and enjoyment. From time immemorial, parents and siblings will just naturally tickle, tease, excite and stimulate babies. Your little girl will giggle and ‘come alive’ when you energise her in whatever way works for you – singing to her, playing peek-a-boo by hiding your face behind your hand or a magazine and popping out again. Tickles, cuddles and dancing about with her in your arms will help her coordination and body sense, but don’t do it for that reason, do it for the fun of it. Put some music on, and let yourself go!

Even the rough and tumble play that dads do with small children helps this along. Dads are notoriously prone to exciting kids by tossing them about, chasing and wrestling and swinging them around. Your daughter may get a little stressed by this, but if it is done in the right way (which you can tell by watching her face for signs of real distress, and backing off a little) she will get over it and start to giggle. Research has found that little girls who play with their dads when they are toddlers are much more stress-proof than those who had it all too safe and gentle!5

(A cautionary note, especially for dads, when a baby is little, be careful with their necks – and their body generally. A baby cannot support the weight of their head with their little neck for many months and it may flex to the point of injury or sprain. Always support their head and neck firmly as you move them about.)

There is something else even more important: setting an example of fun. Your daughter learns most by watching you. If you are happy, exuberant, silly and fun with her at those times that it is appropriate (i.e. not when driving the car), then her capacity for being happy will grow. If you are friendly to people you meet, enjoy getting your clothes on, sing while you shower, are kind to people in shops or in the street, speak well of people, get cross when you see something unjust or wrong, then your daughter will be taking in and making these attitudes her own, from a surprisingly young age.

It’s worth checking up on this – especially for mums, who are the number one role model for their daughter’s whole approach to life. Spend a day having a close look at yourself; do you frown, stress, grump and hurry your way through life? If that is so, being the mother of a newborn little girl might make you want to change that.

THE HORMONES OF LOVE

Many of us today feel unprepared for parenthood. A hundred years ago, most families had seven or eight children and their homes were noisy and crowded places, but often very happy ones. Everyone grew up with babies and toddlers around them and knew how to handle them. Today it’s very different. One study found that one-third of new parents have never held a baby before they get their own!

Luckily our hormones help with this inexperience. New mothers’ bodies flood with a hormone called prolactin. If you are lucky and can breastfeed your baby, then prolactin goes much higher in your bloodstream and makes you feel dreamy and slowed down. It helps you to focus and be there for your child. Other hormones help too; when you hug your baby, or your partner or a friend hugs you, the hormone oxytocin (the love hormone) makes you feel contented and settled.

Oxytocin is a remarkable hormone; it is released when we have an orgasm, it is released when we greet a friend, and when we eat food with someone, sitting together at a table, it increases in our bloodstream. At birth, if it’s a relaxed environment and we feel safe, it floods into us. You need all the oxytocin you can get! When people talk about bonding, it’s oxytocin at work. People who did not get enough love, and therefore enough oxytocin, often can be found seeking that satisfaction in other ways – through fame, doing drugs, compulsive sex, shopping, stuffing our face with unhealthy food. Or writing books!

Gabor Mate, famous for his work with drug addicts on Vancouver’s East Side, says that heroin, and the rush of wellbeing as the injected drug surges into your bloodstream, is a substitute, a mimic, of being loved – but with a much different result.

It’s all an attempt to get that oxytocin we didn’t get in our mother’s arms. So giving your baby lots of affection is a great liberator. It makes her strong and independent, and a people person who will love and be loved for the whole of her life.

HOW TO PLAY WITH A BABY

With your baby daughter, even from the very first weeks, playfulness can be at the heart of everything you do. This playful mood delights her, but it also makes ordinary tasks so much easier if she sees them as fun.

For instance, babies have to be bathed. Some parents just hurry through this briskly, but most mums and dads can’t resist the urge to make it a pleasure for their baby and themselves. They make sure the room is warm; they aren’t fussed about a bit of splashing; they swish the water around their baby, singing or chatting and making noises and, most, pleasurable of all, lift scoopfuls of water and pour it down her back or front, which she just loves. Many of us can still remember this from our childhood, the delight of warm soapy water on our skin, and a kindly person patting us dry with a soft towel.

At six months of age, when she can sit up, your daughter will tip water herself, squeeze a trickle from the washer, and pop soap bubbles. Bathtime can be a wonderland for her senses.

Even getting dressed, or having a nappy changed, goes better if done in a playful mood. Your daughter will fuss less because she associates this as a happy time. She will take all her cues from you; if you are stressed, she will fuss, because she is worried about you. If you are happy, she will be too.

When you play with a child you are starting something big. Child-development experts are now convinced that playing is what brings out our brain’s full potential.6 Play unleashes lifelong creativity. The greatest discoveries have been made by playful minds being inventive and different.

A girl raised with a sense of fun will not be shy or dull, she will ‘think outside the box’ and bring this ability to whatever career she chooses. She will be able to get along with others in a happy way, because play is all about collaboration. Playfulness makes you confident and light-hearted, willing to try new things, it dispels stress and boosts your immune system. It makes you more active, which then promotes fitness and health.

If you aren’t a naturally playful person, just have a go! Play is as infectious as a baby’s laugh. You will soon find your daughter’s delight and natural capacity for fun captivates you and you both have a ball.

OUR BABY WILL FIT RIGHT IN (LOL!)

Have you ever talked with a young couple who don’t have kids, but plan to?

Often couples in that first flush of confident planning, especially those who are very success driven, will proceed into parenthood full of goals and high aspirations. ‘We will never …’, and ‘our child will …’. There’s a lot of ‘will’ and ‘won’t’ in their vocabulary, because before you have children, life actually sometimes responds to your intentions. You still have the illusion of control – something that real parents have long abandoned!

When talking to parents-to-be, it’s important never to disillusion them (you should never discourage the young!). A common claim of the not-yet-but-soon-to-be-childed is that ‘our baby will fit in with our lifestyle’. ‘If it learns to fit in right from the start, it will be that way all along.’ Experienced parents listen to these plans and do their best to contain their mirth.

I had some friends who were talking this way. They were both nurses and had put off starting a family, then when it came time to make babies, it took a while for it to happen. Finally they had their baby, and I didn’t hear from them for a while.

At the time I belonged to a trauma team, helping emergency service workers after especially stressful incidents. This work sometimes happened very late at night. One night driving home through Hobart at about 2 am, I saw a strange hunchbacked figure, shambling along the waterfront near Salamanca. There was a large lump on its shoulder, and it was clutching it and walking unevenly but resolutely along the deserted street. I have an active imagination, and I immediately thought – ‘It lives beneath the wharf! Creeping out at night to feast on pizza crusts, shunning the human gaze’. But as I drew closer, I recognised my friend! The hump on his shoulder was a baby. He was walking the streets with his baby at 2 am! He saw me and gave me two fingers and a grin – and I pulled over to see if he was okay. He just laughed as he read my thoughts: ‘This baby is fitting in with our lifestyle!’ He was walking the baby to get it to sleep, it was the only thing that worked.

Take it from me, babies do not fit in with your life. Babies take the Kleenex of your life and roll it into a snotty ball! If you do parenthood even half well, it will re-arrange your world. Babies do this in one especially important way (I’m not sure whether to whisper this or shout it, but here goes): You won’t come first in your own life for at least 20 years. If you’ve spent 20 or 30 years being a self-centred so-and-so, you will find parenthood extremely challenging. But it will be good for you. Hopefully parenthood, and your child, will reward you with enough love that you won’t mind this, but it’s important to know what you are in for.

(In our family this was definitely how it was. As mentioned earlier, we planned carefully for homebirths with great midwives and doctors on standby, and both times we had emergency caesareans. But you claw back what you can – I was there both times, trying not to faint, and I held our babies the second they emerged from behind the green sheets. A few hours after my son was born, I faced down a monster nurse who wanted to put a two-foot plastic tube into his stomach for a sample ‘just in case’. Our babies slept with me on the floor of the hospital room so that they were near their mum as she recovered from her operation. So I am not saying give up your ideals, but give up your well-planned perfect life, and learn to be flexible!)

Parenthood is so worth it, and so difficult, at the same time. Say goodbye to self-absorption. You never needed it anyway. It didn’t look good on you.

DON’T EDUCATE – JUST ENJOY

In recent years there has been an avalanche of products and programmes – DVDs, flashcards, books and expensive courses – to take advantage of parents’ anxiety to have a smarter child. Despite all this effort and expense, with babies being urged to read at two or play the cello at four, there is absolutely no evidence that these approaches have any benefit at all. In fact, such educative efforts may have real costs in making parents and child more anxious and their relationship more strained. It’s tempting to say that any product or place with the words ‘Early Learning’ in its title should be avoided at all costs. I’m not saying that, but it’s tempting!

Of course babies and toddlers love stimulation, but it’s how we go about it that matters. Studies of vocabulary acquisition (learning and using lots of words) have found something very interesting: kids do not get a larger vocabulary from being hammered with stimulating words and ideas. Researchers have found that the toddlers with the most words in their repertoire are the ones whose parents listen to them the most. It’s not hearing lots of words, but using and enjoying them that fixes them in your child’s memory. Children remember words when they experience the power of words to interest and engage others. ‘Give me the teddy, Daddy’ (Father uses the teddy to tickle his daughter, making her giggle). ‘No, Daddy, give me the teddy SLOWLY.’

So we have to take the pressure out of parent-child relating. The very best thing you can do with your little girl is enjoy her. Chatter mindlessly to her – this really does come naturally if you let it. Singing and gooing and being funny with a baby (which is exactly what makes them prick up their ears, smile or giggle) helps her attunement to language as an exciting tool that makes people do things. An uneducated rural mother in the third world, or a teenage mother with a good sense of fun often does a better job of this than someone with a degree in business administration – because they know how to relax and enjoy.

What if being around babies doesn’t come naturally to you? If you had a chilly or distant and uptight childhood with parents who had those attributes too? Playfulness may not come naturally at first but it will happen, if you don’t worry about looking or sounding silly (because that’s the point) and see what works to make your little daughter laugh and smile. She has a million years of mammalian history stored inside her, and like any kitten, puppy or wombat baby, she loves to do what develops her best – and that is play.

Not a second of babyhood is wasted. They are learning all the time and we are their teachers. These early months can feel dreamlike and unproductive to parents used to achieving all kinds of goals, but it’s actually the most productive time you will ever spend.

In a Nutshell

 Little Lucy discovers that the world is a good place because her parents can be trusted.

 Babies seek reassurance from us to manage their natural anxiety. We need to organise our lives so we can be calm and emotionally present, especially in those first six months.

 The second six months of life is when your daughter acquires the basis of all her people skills – the rhythm of interaction and how to be peaceful.

 Babies also need to be excited, played with and awakened to the fun of life. Luckily that’s not so hard.

 Baby-stimulation products and programmes are usually a waste of money and may even just add stress to your relationship. Don’t educate, just enjoy.

 Babies don’t fit into your lifestyle, you have to fit into theirs. Prepare to have your life turned on its head. Accept this and you will have a lot more fun and joy.

Chapter 3
Learning to Explore
(2–5 years)

One day your baby is on her feet, toddling, then suddenly nothing in your life is ever the same! No cat is safe, no goldfish, and no precious vase on a coffee table. (Though even crawlers could probably have got to those.)

A girl between two and five has one single purpose: to explore. This is the age when Girls Just Want to Have Fun. She does this with huge determination, and her will is strong. Being stopped annoys her greatly. Of course, sometimes she has to be stopped, but hopefully with distraction, or diversion, or sometimes with a cry of ‘hands off’, along with a scowly face. But in the main, exploring is what you want her to do, and giving her lots to explore makes for a happier and smarter girl.

Because she is a girl, there are extra reasons why this stage matters; in fact how you handle it is crucial. This is the time to give her the greatest range of abilities and areas of confidence that you possibly can. From nature to art to athletics, it all gets its start between one and five.

No Limits to Girlhood

Sometimes the limits we put on girls are totally unconscious. Just recently, a remarkable study was carried out into the way we talk to toddlers. It was discovered that without knowing it, parents talk with a different focus, and about different things, depending on the gender of their child.7

If he’s a little boy, they say,

‘Look! There are THREE rabbits in the field over there.’

If she’s a girl, they say,

‘Look at those CUTE rabbits!’

If it’s a boy they say, ‘Wow, you’ve made that tower TEN BLOCKS HIGH!’

If it’s a girl they say, ‘What a BEAUTIFUL tower you’ve made.’

Can you spot the difference? Boys = numbers, girls = feelings. It’s totally unconscious, but it has huge implications. And what else are we changing? Nobody really knows.

Does this matter? Well, it’s long been known that even though girls are equally able at maths, most boys enjoy maths more and go further with this subject at school, and further into those careers that need some maths (which includes a lot of the best-paid jobs). Girls are often quite frightened by maths. (And to be honest, some girls are frightened by scary male maths teachers, of whom there seemed to be a lot, at least when we were kids.)

I am sure that no parent ever sets out to disadvantage their girls around useful number skills, yet we unconsciously start making the boys practical and the girls emotionally focused.

So here’s a suggestion, perhaps we ought to reverse this. Girls are well wired for being emotionally aware; we can encourage that, but we can also spice our chatter to them with lots of number stuff. ‘How many rabbits can you see?’ And our boys are already wired for spatial knowledge, so ‘those rabbits are nervous, look, they’ve stuck their ears up to listen for us’ can get them thinking about feelings. No need to get obsessive about it, I am willing to make a bet that just reading this has already got you thinking about what you say.

Talk to your toddler daughter about numbers, and counting, and praise her for good engineering with her Lego bricks. Don’t ever assume ‘girls don’t …’ anything, because they can, and they will, if we believe and encourage them early on. Sally Ride, the first American woman astronaut, dedicated her life after space to getting girls to study science. It creates more opportunities for them and doubles the talent pool of good scientists, which we definitely need.

Enthusiastic Learning

Because learning and fun are the same thing for a happy child, in the years from one to five your daughter will do more self-educating than thousands of pounds in school fees could ever buy for her later on. It’s very sad when parents are too busy earning in the toddler years to have time to play and do things with their littlies. And it’s pretty tragic if when those kids actually get to school, the love of exploring has died inside them.

Kids learn to love life and learning from the adults around them. On top of their natural curiosity, they will also follow ours and catch our enthusiasm. Watch an experienced mother or father on a bus with a toddler and you will see that they point things out to them with feeling. If you are excited (or even pretend to be, just a little) she will catch your mood.

SECURITY LEADS TO EXPLORING

Though your little girl is no longer a baby, that doesn’t mean she is over the ‘Am I loved and safe?’ stuff. In fact this still applies just as much. The reason is that secure toddlers explore the most. The very first experiments in child development, carried out by people like John Bowlby and the amazing explorer/researcher Mary Ainsworth, found that babies who are ‘securely attached’ (i.e. love and trust their mum or dad to be there) are the ones who go further and are more adventurous.8 Toddlers who are not trusting of their parent or carer to be there for them will cling more and be less willing to go and play with a new toy or a new playmate. (Don’t feel bad if your toddler is still clingy, though, as there is also a fair bit of temperament in this, some toddlers just are more cautious than others.)

What makes them most secure is knowing that you are always around for them.

So they can take that as a given, and spend their emotional energies on new excitements. If they are already anxious about life, new things are just too much to handle.

Think for a minute about your attitude to insects, bugs or nature in the raw. If you say ‘Ick, horrible ants, aargh, get away!’ then of course your daughter will be scared of them too. But if you say ‘wow, have a look at this …’ she will catch your attitude. It doesn’t mean she should poke into spider’s nests or pick up death adders, but you can teach her a sensible interest and she will be fascinated for the rest of her life.

It’s the same with machines, the insides of cars and computers, garden sheds, tools and making stuff, craft work, music making, art and sculpture, cooking, dancing, loving being in the forest or at the beach, these are all ‘caught’ from grown-ups around you.

Lots of Arty Stuff Is Free

The best learning aids for your one-to-five-year-old daughter are simple and cheap. Not fancy ‘educational’ toys or gadgets which provide all the action with batteries or flashing lights; the simpler, plainer and tougher, the better.

Arty kinds of activities are encouraged by having lots of recycled paper to hand, along with an abundant supply of pencils, crayons and paints. Cardboard boxes, egg cartons, old greeting cards and paper catalogues all lend themselves to creative playing and don’t cost a penny. You can build up a considerable supply of creative materials in reserve for a rainy day or quiet time each day, and bringing out something new starts the process all over again.

But here’s a hint – be sure to get these tidied away and orderly after each session, and get your daughter’s help to do this. Then it’s encouraging to start each new play session without having to wade through yesterday’s mess. You can also alternate; crayons one day, paints the next, glue and tearing up coloured paper another, so there is more sense of new adventures to be had.

A SIMPLE ENVIRONMENT IS BEST

There is an important principle, discovered by psychologist Kim Payne, author of the wonderful book Simplicity Parenting,9 which is that a clutter of toys and materials actually makes for less play – it’s all too much choice – whereas a few simple things, in a box ready for getting out, leaves more scope for imagination. If your child’s bedroom is already awash with toys, quietly take away the less favourite ones, bag or box them, for use another time. When your daughter looks at a sea of teddies, dolls, games and bits of creation cascading all over the floor or all over her room, she feels the way you do – exhausted. And really, does anyone need more than two teddies? Well, okay, three.

Clothes

Girls should have plenty of old and tough clothes so they can be messy and happy in the dirt, or doing art activities with paint, water and glue and not freaking out about getting it on themselves or their clothes. In fact, little girls don’t need fragile or fancy clothes at all. Those fashionable frilly numbers really have no purpose for little girls except to make them anxious about how they look. Fashion on children is for the adults’ benefit, and if your child doesn’t look cute enough already in a t-shirt and rompers, then you need to read fewer magazines. (There is nothing sadder than seeing a toddler dressed in such prissy and ‘feminine’ clothing that she can’t do anything but sit and be ‘good’.)

One mum told me recently: ‘I used to say to my toddler daughter, “That dress looks gorgeous” or “How pretty you look.” But I have started to say: “Let’s put on these strong trainers (or wellies) so you can run and play.”’

MATILDA LEARNS NOT TO BE FEARFUL

(This story was told to me by my psychotherapy teacher, Bob Goulding, at the Western Institute in the 1980s. Bob was the grandfather in the story. He was a wonderful man.)

Two-year-old Matilda was enjoying playing around the swimming pool, carefully watched by her mum and grandparents. She would play happily in the toddler pool, but from time to time she would wander across to the deeper pool for a closer look. Suddenly, she simply stepped from the edge and completely disappeared into the deep water. Her grandfather, fortunately wearing some old shorts, jumped straight after her. He grabbed Matilda immediately and pulled her out. Matilda, still utterly surprised, screwed up her face and was clearly about to start wailing. But before that could happen, her granddad did an interesting thing. Holding her at arm’s length, he shouted ‘Wow! Matilda swims! What a great swimmer she is! You are great!’ while laughing and looking very pleased. Matilda seemed to hesitate, look at him for a puzzled moment – he was hard to ignore – then she did a remarkable thing. She simply changed her face to a big smile, and joined in the laughter.

Her mum came and took over, carrying Matilda back into the water and played with her, anchoring the experience into a positive one.

Would this turn Matilda into a risk taker? We don’t think so, it was scary enough to have taken that sudden plunge, but it would have taught her that adventures can be taken on the chin, and it’s better to laugh than cry. In her brain the pathways towards quick recovery and resilience were beginning to be put in place.

If we didn’t have pool fences, it might make sense to terrify kids about water. (Aboriginal parenting traditionally involved terrifying children about monsters that lurked beyond the firelight at nighttime, because it was important they didn’t stray. In my Yorkshire childhood we were half-laughingly warned about the Bogey Man.) Helping our daughters to see life as an adventure and to be confident in their own skills and judgement is important because it means they can live a larger life. These will be the girls who scuba dive, volunteer for Médecins Sans Frontières, learn to pilot a plane, or play gypsy violin in an indie rock band. Although, I am trying to talk you into this!

If Matilda’s mum or dad had freaked out, started yelling and carrying on, after Matilda’s unexpected dip, this little girl would have added to her own already considerable startle that the parental message was that water is scary. She may well have become phobic of water and swimming itself as a result. ‘Hell’s bells’, she thinks, ‘even Mum and Dad are terrified!’

The direct teaching that her grandfather offered – ‘look here, this is fun!’ – can be applied to many things in life, and from a very early age. We can help our daughters to be comfortable with animals, nature, climbing, books and libraries, sporting exertions, people, the night sky, the ocean, the list goes on. And they will carry this love of the world into their lives forever. Whenever you show her a new experience, you can add some enthusiasm, some ‘Hey look – isn’t this great?’, so that she also takes in a positive message.

Be sensible about it, but see if you can extend your daughter’s boundaries every chance you get.

Nature Is Essential

A garden with real plants and soil, water, and maybe some trees is great. A rough cubby house (or even a big cardboard box) creates a base to play from and in. Gardens naturally come equipped with insects, lizards and birds, though you can perhaps still add an old safe dog.

Girls need a chance to move around in nature. If you live in a block of flats or have no garden, get to the park, countryside or coast whenever you get the chance. Let them experience the rough textures and long-distance views, as toddler eyes need to look long distances and absorb natural sunlight to develop good vision. Running about on uneven surfaces will also make their legs flexible and strong. The sheer mystery of what’s behind that bush or tall grass will help their imaginations too.

Computers, iPads and DVDs have their place, but for small children through to teens these electronic devices can warp the senses and affect brain development negatively, because they are all flat and clean and the same distance away. You don’t refocus your eyes or move about enough to develop the balance and activity centres of the brain. And you don’t really feel love and connection to an animal on a screen in the same way as something you can touch and hug.

Three Should Be Free

With girls of age three or four, the goal and need of her brain is to play, to not be pressured and to be able to be creative and free. These qualities will one day make her a great scientist, boss, artist, problem-solver or friend. She will always want to and be able to ‘do her own thing’. But if she is made to perform – by a pre-school with ‘early learning goals’, or a parent who wants her to play violin, or some activity that grooms and preens her for adult consumption (participating in child beauty contests is a stunningly awful example), then she will not develop properly, will be cramped and tense and lack creativity. Whole nations have experienced this through over-demanding schooling for the under-sixes. The result is a total lack of creativity, a population that is cowed, conformist and compliant. By six or seven, a girl is ready for some (not too much) serious learning imposed from the outside. Her brain has moved on to a whole different stage. If it comes too soon, though, it actually harms her intellect, and her eventual ability to be talented and bright.

So think twice about structured or organised activities that involve any kind of performance or competition. These just take the joy out of something she would otherwise have loved. Activities where all the kids simply get into it together and learn happily at their own pace are much preferred.

A final note – the two to five years are exhausting, and you can be a bit isolated. Don’t think you have to be an education ringmaster for your kids all day. They need to occupy themselves, dream and dawdle as their imagination grows. It’s in the gaps and quiet times that children do their growing. Turn off TVs and radios so they can think and talk internally, which they love and need to do as they play.

Don’t let yourself get lonely, either. Join a playgroup, where the kids start to have fun with others, and YOU get to be with other mums or dads (there are dads’ playgroups too now). Also learn to be boring sometimes and encourage your kids to just play around and without you while you merge into the furniture. You need your rest.

Choosing Toys

If you have heard ANYTHING about getting girls off to a good start, it’s probably been about ‘gender-stereotyped toys’. The role of toys in widening, or limiting, your little girl’s play choices is a huge thing, and you’d think by now companies would have really got past this. But here’s the bad news: it’s getting worse. Companies never give up on trying to hook kids and parents with heavy marketing – especially on TV, where toys can be made to look so much better than they really are.

This article is by Paula Joye, a journalist and fashion columnist, website publisher and a very sensible mum. I couldn’t put it better …

Role Model or Pole Model?, by Paula Joye

My youngest daughter is five and spent the weekend penning a Christmas Wish List to Santa. Nestled between a backpack shaped like a koala and a detective magnifying glass is a request for a Bratz Masquerade toy. She saw it advertised while watching Finding Nemo on television. The doll is dressed in an outfit that would look great wrapped around a pole. She has swishy, knee-length hair with pastel streaks, hoop earrings and more black kohl eyeliner than a Kardashian.

I’m a little stuck because we don’t have any Bratz in our house. I’m not sure exactly what I don’t like about them. I loathe the lollipop heads and cushion pouts. Hate the heavy make-up. But I think what upsets me the most is their wardrobes. Seriously, these dolls wrote the rules on Red Light. A toy designed for five- to 10-year-old girls shouldn’t be so overtly sexy. Pretty, geeky, smart, ugly are all fine but scantily clad dolls should be reserved for lonely grown men who can’t get real girlfriends.

For me the message is just too narrow. The Bratz brand is 13 years old, which means the original crash-test consumers are just starting to flex their fashion chops. On the weekend, I watched some of these girls heading into the Eminem concert in Sydney. They were wearing clothes that defy description. Mainly because there was so little fabric covering their bodies that I’m struggling to come up with words other than naked and nude to describe how they looked. This is the first batch of young women to have been influenced by a society hell bent on fast-tracking them into womanhood and the first place we’re going to see the results is in the fashion choices they make. What struck me more than the bare skin was how homogenised their look was. Everyone was dressed identically. It was a sea of tiny, cut-off denim shorts and fluro crop tops. Teenagers have always copied one another – it’s normal to dress the same way as your friends – but there used to be so much more diversity and self-expression. I remember copying the wardrobes of Madonna, Wendy James and Diane Keaton at the same age. I experimented all the time. But there was none of that in this crowd. It was Same. Same. Sexy. Same.

We can’t blame this on Bratz or Barbie alone – there are so many influences that play on young girls – but it does make you despondent about the serious lack of role models both on the toy shelf and in the mainstream. Once they wave bye-bye to Dora and Angelina the choices are whittled down to Bindi Irwin, Harry Potter’s Hermione and a couple of exceptions on Nickelodeon. Otherwise it’s Miley, Taylor, Selena and The Biebs. Where are Pippi Longstocking and Nancy Drew? Why isn’t there a Kate Winslet for Tweens?

It would be so easy for me to capitulate on the Bratz present. Seeing her little face light up when she opens it on Christmas morning is a tempting trade. But every time I teeter, I close my eyes and visualise her dressing the doll up in its miniature thigh-high boots, a micro-mini skirt and green boob tube and … well, I want more.

More imagination from the toy manufacturer, more depth from the doll and frankly a little bit more fabric for my money.

Paula Joye is editor of www.lifestyled.com.au.

There is something really important to say here about dolls. In Steiner Education, where kids are rarely rushed and a lot of thought goes into stages and ages, they have dolls with no faces. These toys are just blank and plain, with perhaps some simple clothes. The amazing thing is – kids love them. What happens is that the child at play puts all her own imagination into the feelings the doll might have, what it might look like, and what it does.

The doll doesn’t programme the child. These dolls are the ones taken to bed at night with them, tucked in, and used to play out all their dreams, imaginings and fears. It’s the very opposite of a Bratz doll. For little children, boys and girls, the less corporate their toys, and the more natural and brand-less, the better.

Finally, no toy advice would be complete without a word about Lego. There is no doubt about it, Mr Lego, if there was one, was a genius. He deserves a Nobel Prize. There is no construction toy that comes close in its almost planetary popularity, usefulness and general magic. It can stimulate minds in different versions from babies to tech-headed teens – and it benefits and is loved by girls just as much as boys, given the chance.

But recently Lego got kidnapped by the marketers, who decided a girls’ version was needed. Listen to what they came up with: five curvy little friends who bake, home-make, decorate, hairstyle and shop! Anything gender limiting in that little selection?

Boys’ Lego, on the other hand, is about firefighting, space exploration, knights in armour, buildings, cars, houses and furniture and ANYTHING YOU WANT TO MAKE IT. Boys play in Lego World, whereas girls play in their own little ghetto called Heartlake City! (No firefighters or policemen there, they have to get the boys over if the beauty salon catches fire!) Naturally when this new product line came out, women rose up in outrage. One angry writer summed up this in one neat sentence. There IS a girls’ version – it’s called … Lego.

There’s no doubt Lego did their research, spending millions and taking years. Their head researcher told a Danish newspaper that they found that girls had a single overwhelming preoccupation – with BEAUTY. That’s what the new girls’ Lego was built around. Girls wanted to project themselves into dolls who were being, or getting made, beautiful. Now I am not arguing with their finding, but that’s a measure of how DAMAGED girls are now. ‘How do I look?’ is their strongest interest. If you want this to be your daughter’s preoccupation, then girls’ Lego is for you.

So by all means get your daughter Lego, but not the girls’ version. Not the pink and purple beauty salon or the café. Sure, she might build those of her own choice, but she might prefer rockets, castles, cannons, horses, trees, trucks and farms. And that would be a real shame not to have the scope for.

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