25 Parenting Books About Raising Mighty Girls

Love, Mom and Me: A Mother-Daughter Keepsake Journal

Grow your relationship and learn more about one another with this guided mother-daughter keepsake journal! In Love, Mom and Me, you'll get the opportunity to write, doodle, share, and much more. Intriguing prompts get conversations started, covering everything from what kindness means to each of you, to the differences between a girlhood years ago and a girlhood today. With spaces for both mom and daughter, coloring pages, challenges to do together, and open creative space, it's sure to be a joyful project to share together. And for dads eager to do the same, check out the companion journal Love, Dad and Me.

Growing Up in Public: Coming of Age in a Digital World

Childhood — and the mistakes that come with it — used to be a private affair, but today, kids are exposed to the world through social media. That causes anxiety for both the kids, who struggle to figure out who they are when they're immersed in concepts like personal branding and being "canceled," and the parents, who soothe their own fears using tracking apps and worry that a misstep could cost a college admission. But there are ways for parents to help their kids, and themselves, build a healthy relationship with the digital world. Devorah Heitner, author of Screenwise, draws on up-to-date research and interviews with kids, parents, educators, clinicians, and more to offer the strategies that modern parents need to help kids find their way in an always-connected world.

So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids

With "Major Heartthrob" Halloween costumes available for 4-year-old girls and baby T-shirts that say "Chick Magnet", popular culture inundates kids with a message about sex and sexuality from a shockingly early age. And without the sophistication to analyze these messages, kids can get into emotional and social trouble without understanding how they got there. Diane E. Levin and Jean Kilbourne provide a series of simple, age-appropriate strategies to help parents counter these messages and open conversations about media messages. While the book addresses itself to parents of both girls and boys, the authors acknowledge research about the particular effect these sexualized messages have on girls. For any parent who's found themselves uncomfortable with how "sexy" is marketed to children, this book will be invaluable.

Parenting Beyond Pink and Blue: How to Raise Your Kids Free of Gender Stereotypes

From the moment parents know a baby’s sex, they may unconsciously treat boys and girls differently — and these biases can have long-term effects. Fortunately, it is possible to tackle both overt and subtle differences in the way we parent kids, removing artificial gender-based limits and giving them the opportunity to define their own futures. In this accessible and practical guide for parents of infants to middle schoolers, Christia Spears Brown, a developmental psychologist, highlights what research says about how gender affects parenting — and how to combat accidental or deliberate gender bias. By examining the messages that we send when we classify kids by gender, so that parents can instead help kids grow up to be their own, authentic selves. For more books about how gender stereotypes affect our children, check out Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps — and What We Can Do About It, The Truth About Girls and Boys: Challenging Toxic Stereotypes About Our Children, and Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference.

The Myth of the Perfect Girl: Helping Our Daughters Find Authentic Success and Happiness in School and Life

On the surface, girls today often look like they're doing well: with a new culture of achievement, many girls are top students, star athletes, socially successful, and striving for big goals. But beneath the surface, many girls are deeply stressed as they try to maintain a "perfect" persona while still juggling increasingly heavy schoolwork, evenings and weekends full of extracurricular activities, and complex family and social lives. Author Ana Homayoun shows parents how to encourage girls to find their own definition of success, rather than striving for someone else's — and how to empower them to achieve that definition so that they can be happy and true to themselves. By doing so, parents can ensure that their girls thrive as they enter the adult world.

Mothering and Daughtering: Keeping Your Bond Strong Through the Teen Years

A strong mother-daughter bond provides special security during the teenage years: Mom can become an ally and a place of safety, while the Mighty Girl explores her newfound independence and brings a new perspective back home. This innovative dual guide for moms and daughters by mother Sil Reynolds and daughter Eliza Reynolds provides parenting techniques for the moms, drawn from Sil Reynolds’ clinical experience, while the advice to daughters features age-appropriate suggestions for balancing the need for independence with a positive relationship with mom. It's a great option to read alone or alongside your Mighty Girl. For a fantastic bonding book for moms with younger daughters in the tween years, ages 8 and up, another excellent option is the shared journal Just Between Us.

The Emotional Lives of Teenagers

Raising Connected, Capable, and Compassionate Adolescents

Adolescence often comes with emotional volatility — but how do parents, and teens themselves, know what is normal and what is cause for concern? And how can parents help smooth the road and build emotional literacy skills for their teens? In this book, Lisa Damour, the bestselling author of Untangled and Under Pressure, draws on up-to-date research to explore what's normal during the teenage years; how mental health and wellness differs from "feeling good"; and how parents can both support their teens and build the connected parent-child relationships that can help steady the course during tough times. Clear, informed, and encouraging, this is a must-have parenting guide for anyone who works with teens.

Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions Into Adulthood

If the job of an adolescent is to become an adult, how do you know when they're there? Lisa Damour, director of the Laurel School's Center for Research on Girls, draws on the latest research to reveal the seven key transitions — including Parting with Childhood, Contending with Adult Authority, Entering the Romantic World, and Caring for Herself — that an adolescent girl needs to make before she reaches adulthood. Equally importantly, she shows how uneven progress through these transitions explains the sometimes erratic behavior of teenage girls, and how parents' responses can help strengthen their relationship so she can complete her journey healthy and happy. This excellent new release will help parents of teens understand exactly what makes them tick.

Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen

The Essential Conversations You Need to Have with Your Kids Before They Start High School

Parents sometimes feel like talking to middle schoolers is an exercise in frustration (for both parties!) but there's no better time to have some critical conversations about important topics like friendship, sexuality, impulsivity, and more. In this parenting book, Michelle Icard, author of Middle School Makeover, lays out the BRIEF Model — Begin peacefully, Relate to your child, Interview to collect information, Echo what you're hearing, and give Feedback — for having positive conversations with tweens and young teens. She provides a roadmap that works for these critical discussions, as well as for other chats that you may want to have with your child. This valuable communication guide will help you keep talking with your kids, helping them develop skills that set them up for high school and beyond.

Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls

When Odd Girl Out was published in 2002, it ignited a long-overdue conversation about the hidden nature of female bullying, which more commonly manifests in hurt feelings and broken friendships than in bruises and scrapes. In this updated edition, which incorporates new issues like the prevalence of social media as a forum for bullying and relational aggression, Rachel Simmons shows parents and educators how to recognize damaging social dynamics and how to build empathy and confidence in our girls. Parents can also get the companion book Odd Girl Speaks Out: Girls Write About Bullies, Cliques, Popularity, and Jealousy to share with girls aged 13 and up.

Dial Down the Drama: Reducing Conflict and Reconnecting with Your Teenage Daughter

When a teenage girl starts bringing drama into the mother-daughter relationship, it's hard to know what to do to help her ride the emotional rollercoaster and keep your bond intact. Family therapist Colleen O'Grady gives mothers the tools and knowledge to keep your perspective and break the cycle of conflict. Up-to-date research in neuroscience allows O'Grady to explore how your teen's developing brain affects her emotions and her responses to you. This positive and encouraging book provides an easy-to-follow plan for stopping a relationship when it's spiraling out of control and reconnecting and supporting your daughter and she becomes an adult.

American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers

In 2016, adolescent girls -- who have always grappled with issues of identity, self-esteem, and sexuality as they moved into adulthood -- are now facing an entirely new kind of pressure brought on by social media. For today's teens, coming of age online means constant exposure to hypersexualized imagery, the need to cope with instantaneous judgment from their peers, relentless pressure to maintain an idealized online self, and even a failure to develop critical in-person communications skills. In an social media environment that is changing constantly and largely foreign to parents who often have little experience with the apps favored by teens, this thoroughly researched new book provides a much needed road map to the teens' social media use. And, by better understanding what today’s teens are going through, the adults in their lives can provide them with the tools they need to better manage social media and grow to be confident young women -- both on and offline.

You'd Be So Pretty If...: Teaching Our Daughters to Love Their Bodies — Even When We Don't Love Our Own

Moms want to instill confidence and positive self-esteem in their daughters, but if you struggle with your own body image, it's easy to accidentally communicate your "body image blueprint." Author and journalist Dara Chadwick explores the unintentional messages a mother can send when she diets or goes on weight loss kicks, and provides guidelines for talking about healthy eating, exercise, and lifestyle instead. She warns moms about the trigger words that can have more emotional impact on girls than you think, and how to recognize signs that your daughter is developing poor body image or an eating disorder. Funny, compassionate, and wise, this book recognizes the power of acting as a healthy role model to your daughter — both for her and for you. For another book about body image and health, check out Good Girls Don't Get Fat: How Our Weight Obsession is Messing Up Our Girls and How We Can Help Them Thrive Despite It.

UnSelfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World

Studies show that teens are 40% less empathetic today than they were thirty years ago — a trend that hurts both kids and society as a whole. In fact, self-focused behavior can hurt academic performance, lead to increases in bullying behavior, and reduce kids’ resilience when things go wrong. Fortunately, there are easy steps parents can take to raise their kids to be thoughtful, empathetic, and kind! In this thoughtful new parenting book, Dr. Michelle Borba explores nine research-based habits to build kids’ empathy and compassion. From identifying and controlling their emotions to thinking about “us” not “them”, these strategies can be used daily to encourage kids to see the world from the perspectives of other people around them. For two more books about the power and importance of empathy, check out The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money and The "Me, Me, Me" Epidemic: A Step-by-Step Guide to Raising Capable, Grateful Kids in an Overentitled World.

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk

This best-selling parenting guide provides guidelines to help parents break the cycle of frustration and anger and get positive, productive conversations started with their kids! Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, experts on communication and parenting, teach parents how to express strong feelings without being hurtful — and show their kids how to do the same; how to set firm limits while getting kids invested in the process; and how to resolve family conflicts peacefully and productively. With more than 3 million copies sold, there are plenty of parents that will attest to the success of their methods! Following their framework, you'll be able to develop less stressful, more rewarding relationships with your kids that will make your time with your Mighty Girl more fun.

What I Told My Daughter: Lessons from Leaders on Raising the Next Generation of Empowered Women

In this remarkable book, diverse and powerful women — both famous and little-known — share their stories about the most important advice they gave their daughters. From one of the country's only female police chiefs, talking to her daughter about the power of courage — both in dangerous situations and in day-to-day life — to a best-selling writer who wants her daughter to remember that "resiliency is more important than perfection" to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's message about the importance of independence, these mothers' words of wisdom resonated with their daughters, and now they will resonate with you. Heartwarming and inspiring, this book will energize you to share your own words of wisdom with your children.