From building a birdhouse to playing bird bingo, there are plenty of fun ways to get kids excited about birds and birdwatching!

From a young age, many kids are fascinated by birds. Whether she loves watching birds in the yard or learning about different types of birds through books or games, there are countless ways to enjoy our feathered friends. To help her get started, in this blog post, we've shared our favorite books about Mighty Girl bird lovers, plus a variety of toys, games, and clothing celebrating birds. For kids interested in birdwatching, we've also recommended a few kid-size binoculars and field guides perfect for young birders! Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top picks of books about girls and their love of animals!

For many Mighty Girls, a beloved animal provides a treasured relationship. And whether an animal is large or small, wild or domesticated or maybe even imaginary, sometimes it’s a Mighty Girl who cares for them or even comes to their rescue! If your Mighty Girl is an animal lover, she’ll love these stories about fictional Mighty Girls who take care of the other creatures around them.

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When 80% of 10-year-old girls are afraid of being fat, here are ways parents can help girls develop a positive body image.

"'I’m fat.' Those are just two little words, five letters in total, but coming from your daughter, they’re enough to make your heart totally sink. How could a girl who’s typically so kind and accepting of others be so disparaging of herself?" According to the Girl Scouts, 80% of 10-year-old girls are afraid of being fat because "they’re constantly surrounded by both subtle and direct messages that curvier or heavier girls aren’t as well liked, aren’t as likely to succeed in business, and in general, aren’t going to have as much fun or happiness in their lives." So what can parents do to counteract such widespread cultural messages? In an insightful article, Girl Scout Developmental Psychologist Andrea Bastiani Archibald offers parents several tips on how to respond when your daughter says she's fat and how to build her overall body positivity. Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top picks of unicorn-themed books, toys, and clothing!

For hundreds of years, there has been a mythical creature that has inspired wonder in generations: unicorns! It's hard to pinpoint why the appeal of unicorns has stood the test of time, but even today, there are plenty of unicorn-loving kids (and adults) in the world. And where there are unicorns, there are often Mighty Girls who dare to dream of mystical lands, believe in magic, and strike out in search of the extraordinary in our day-to-day world! Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top picks of girl-empowering books for children and teens about making friends and coping with friendship challenges.

Whether they are in the midst of making new friends or renewing old ones, learning to navigate the complexities of friendship is an important part of growing up. In this blog post, we've showcased our favorite fictional stories and non-fiction guides that can help children and teens learn how to form and keep positive, healthy friendships. From the first introduction to the first big fight, these timely stories will help your Mighty Girl learn how to be a great friend at every age! Continue reading → Continue reading

The top tips from experts on building girls' resilience to take on challenges and overcome setbacks.

Call it what you will — grit, determination, a can-do attitude — but it all comes down to the same thing: being able to keep going in the face of challenge and even failure is a major component of a child's future success. "The ability to persist in the face of difficulty may be as essential to success as talent or intelligence,” says psychologist Lisa Damour, Ph.D., author of Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions Into Adulthood. Moreover, with research showing that girls are more likely to feel the need to be perfect and to struggle with confidence when they make even small mistakes, it's particularly important to raise resilient girls. As Rachel Simmons, author of Enough As She Is, explains: "What we want is for girls to have is the capacity to move through a setback without beating themselves up." Continue reading → Continue reading

The seven essential body positive lessons every Mighty Girl should learn.

One of the most freeing feelings in the world is loving yourself just as you are — but in a world where girls are constantly bombarded with messages about what their bodies should look like, raising them to be body positive can feel like an impossible task. A study by the Girl Scouts found that 80% of 10-year-old girls are afraid of getting fat, and other studies have found that 85% of women and 79% of girls have opted out of activities due to a lack of body confidence. With kids and teens being exposed to narrow standards of beauty in media, marketing, and online, many adults may wonder what they can do to turn the tide. Continue reading → Continue reading

Eight downloadable posters celebrating women of STEM perfect for displaying in kids' rooms and classrooms!

The saying, "If she can't see it, she can't be it," speaks to the importance of introducing girls to female role models, especially in areas where women's accomplishments were often overlooked or minimized such as in science, mathematics, and technology. A new poster collection aims to bring more of these women's stories to light — and inspire today's Mighty Girls with the knowledge that she can be whatever she aspires to be! Continue reading → Continue reading

How parents can encourage mixed-gender friendships and help kids question gender stereotypes.

"Girl-boy friendships matter. They give kids a chance to explore themselves outside of constrictive gender scripts, and, ideally, question stereotypes," observes writer Elisa Strauss on CNN. "Girl-boy friendships can help undo some of these socialized gender constraints. When parents and teachers approve of these relationships, they are sending their children the message that it's not only okay to play with the another gender, but it is also okay to play like them."  Continue reading → Continue reading

The authors of the bestselling confidence guide for girls share advice for parents on how to stop the steep drop in confidence common among tween girls.

Katty Kay and Claire Shipman are on a mission: helping tween girls keep their confidence so they can be resilient, empowered adult women! As authors of The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance - What Women Should Know, they've helped millions of adult women understand how to build their own confidence, but they frequently heard from women who wanted to know how they could help their tween and teen daughters. Kay and Shipman worked with a polling firm to learn more about the issue and were shocked to discover that girls' confidence drops by 30% between the ages of 8 and 14. "Right until age 8, there's really no difference [between girls and boys] in confidence levels," Shipman says. "We were surprised at how quickly, how deep that drop is." Continue reading → Continue reading