Author and parenting coach Maggie Dent talks to Kathryn about her new book Girlhood: raising our little girls to be healthy, happy and heard.
She says it is vital that parents enable young girls' voices to be heard, and help girls navigate the challenges of modern times.
Dent is the mother of four boys, and the proud grandmother of four girls, a former teacher, counsellor, and the host of the ABC podcast Parental as Anything
Photo: befunky.com
There’s a subtle conditioning in society that girls should be nice, always kind to others, and put others first, Dent tells Kathryn Ryan.
“We need a balance on that because sometimes there are women who are burning out, because they look after all their family and all their friends and their neighbourhood and they’re on the school board and they don’t look after themselves.
“So [the book] began as curiosity thing, you know, how can we raise them to be exactly those three things, happy, healthy and heard and being able to take care of themselves and celebrate who they are, not because of how they look or whether they’re quiet and nice.”
It’s crucial to reinforce these messages from as early as possible because the foundation years, when the brain is formed, last until about five or six, she says.
“Interestingly, a child’s sense of self is formed in those five years and their self-regulating systems, how they manage big ugly feelings, their physical strength, their co-ordinations … sense of how connected and safe am I in this world of grown-ups around me.
“The human mind forms, Kathryn, it’s very different to the human brain, and then our belief systems are also shaped.”
So the negative voice that tends to emerge in later years for adolescent girls will have been sparked much earlier, she says.
“There were still clear messages that girls are supposed to be quieter and nicer and well behaved and they’re also not supposed to do things that are considered boy-like.
“We’re still getting conditioned in that window and the conditioning stays there which shapes the behaviour that we have later in life.”
Helping girls understand their emotions and develop strategies in that window of time will make life easier for them going forward, she says.
“I’m encouraging parents, particularly mums because we get it, to be emotional coaches for their girls, to help them recognise that yes we have these big feelings sometimes but we don’t have to stay stuck in them because mood is a really big thing that came up in the survey.
“I think a couple of the biggest messages to tell our girls from the get go is they are not defined by how they look and that’s a really important message, that who you are is a one-off, there’s never been a little girl like you on our Earth, and we’ve got to work out who you are.
“So we’ve got to work out what you’ve already come with … but also we’ve got these tendencies that can be confusing, so temperament or a tendency to be more resilient than others… then is she an introvert or an extrovert?
“When we help them work these things out, we help them understand why sometimes they can’t cope in a situation and I think that’s what we’ve got to do is work out who is the girl I’ve got, how we can build her already God-given strengths, and how we can help her with the things she’s going to struggle with rather than one-size fits all.”
In today’s world, parents are more aware, loving, and tender, but sometimes they go too far and don’t allow girls the space to learn about their feelings for themselves, she says.
“One of my top tips is once the glitter jar has settled, like let her really rip, don’t shut down those big feelings, really allow them to be, you acknowledge that she’s having a tough time, but try not to tell her what she’s feeling because she’ll get really upset and probably have another 10 minutes.
“And then that last one is just ‘I’m going to accept this and I’m going to let her come out with the words’ and often that’s what we do with women when we’re upset.”
Social media interactions is also on the mind of many parents now as the platforms become more and more normalised, but Dent says leaving children off them as late as possible is a great idea.
“One of the things that came up in the chapter about sexualisation is it’s often in the handheld devices that they start to see sexualised advertisements and things that are shaping a girl to think she needs to look that way and as soon as possible.
“I didn’t know about ‘capping’ and a policeman who works in child protection, he’s come across this now, where girls – particularly girls, there are some boys but girls aged five to seven – have access in some apps where there’s not the security that’s been set up, are being groomed by sexual predators.
“These little girls, their innocence is not only being shattered, they’re being manipulated because they were also being nice.
“So it’s about what are we doing with that and how are monitoring it.”
