"We are so busy teaching girls to be likable that we forget to teach them that they have the right to be respected."

Most parents talk to their children about their emotions, but there's one emotion that people often leave out when talking to girls: anger. "I don’t remember my parents or other adults ever talking to me about anger directly," observes Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger, "Sadness, yes. Envy, anxiety, guilt, check, check, check. But not anger.... While parents talk to girls about emotions more than they do to boys, anger is excluded." In fact, from an early age, parents, caregivers, and teachers expect girls to regulate their emotions more effectively than boys, teaching them that expressing "negative" emotions like anger is socially unacceptable. In this blog post, we'll explore why it's important to let girls be angry – and how to teach girls to channel their anger productively. Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top picks of books for children and teens on understanding and managing emotions to build their emotional intelligence.

Whether you have a preschooler struggling to name how she feels, a tween wrestling with newly complex emotions, or a teenager who needs to find ways to incorporate her emotional life into adult decision-making, parents can do a lot to help kids navigate their emotional world. But sometimes, it’s hard to know where to begin. Continue reading → Continue reading