Fall 2011 Issue:  Parenting Girls 

Helping Girls Thrive

Why an issue of PMG highlighting the special challenges parents face helping their daughters develop into moral young adults? And why will the next issue focus on the same topic with regard to our sons? Simply put, our goal must be to develop learning environments that support optimum moral and intellectual growth for both girls and boys.  Read More 

The Power of Fathers

When Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Michael Chabon reflects on fatherhood in his collection of essays, Manhood for Amateurs (Random House, 2009), he wryly comments, “the handy thing about being a father is that the historic standard is so pitifully low.” While in a grocery store shopping with his 20 month-old, he was complimented on his superior parenting by a stranger (a woman) simply for being there, with his child, but without his wife. Read More

Relational Aggression

In his 2004 novel,  I am Charlotte Simmons, Tom Wolfe presents a chilling glimpse into the interior world of two minor characters, both freshman at the fictitious DuPont University, both from privileged backgrounds. In this passage, Erica explains to Bev (the protagonist’s roommate) how to humiliate another girl by means of increasingly vicious levels of sarcasm, or what she calls “Sarc One, Two, and Three.” Read More

The Princess Diaries

Parents of girls aged four to 12 are familiar with two phenomena that affect a significant number of their daughters. Many little girls enter what might be called the “princess phase” when they are four or five. This involves wearing chiffon tutus, perhaps a sparkly tiara, accessorizing in pink, and emulating Disney heroines. Around the age of eight, “tween” girls often abandon their demure pastel costumes for sassier attire, and begin to fixate on a real-life celebrity (think “Beiber fever”), thus entering the “prince charming phase”. Read More

Fairness

“But it’s not fair!” How many times have we, as parents or educators, heard these words or even said them ourselves? We often think of situations that put us at a perceived disadvantage as "unfair." Helping your child understand that life is not always fair can be difficult and sometimes heartbreaking. Read More