Steve Biddulph’s Raising Girls. Steve Biddulph

Helping our daughters to see life as an adventure and to be confident in their own skills and judgement is important because it means they can live a larger life. These will be the girls who scuba dive, volunteer for Médecins Sans Frontières, learn to pilot a plane, or play gypsy violin in an indie rock band. Although, I am trying to talk you into this!

      If Matilda’s mum or dad had freaked out, started yelling and carrying on, after Matilda’s unexpected dip, this little girl would have added to her own already considerable startle that the parental message was that water is scary. She may well have become phobic of water and swimming itself as a result. ‘Hell’s bells’, she thinks, ‘even Mum and Dad are terrified!’

      The direct teaching that her grandfather offered – ‘look here, this is fun!’ – can be applied to many things in life, and from a very early age. We can help our daughters to be comfortable with animals, nature, climbing, books and libraries, sporting exertions, people, the night sky, the ocean, the list goes on. And they will carry this love of the world into their lives forever. Whenever you show her a new experience, you can add some enthusiasm, some ‘Hey look – isn’t this great?’, so that she also takes in a positive message.

      Be sensible about it, but see if you can extend your daughter’s boundaries every chance you get.

      Nature Is Essential

      A garden with real plants and soil, water, and maybe some trees is great. A rough cubby house (or even a big cardboard box) creates a base to play from and in. Gardens naturally come equipped with insects, lizards and birds, though you can perhaps still add an old safe dog.

      Girls need a chance to move around in nature. If you live in a block of flats or have no garden, get to the park, countryside or coast whenever you get the chance. Let them experience the rough textures and long-distance views, as toddler eyes need to look long distances and absorb natural sunlight to develop good vision. Running about on uneven surfaces will also make their legs flexible and strong. The sheer mystery of what’s behind that bush or tall grass will help their imaginations too.

      Computers, iPads and DVDs have their place, but for small children through to teens these electronic devices can warp the senses and affect brain development negatively, because they are all flat and clean and the same distance away. You don’t refocus your eyes or move about enough to develop the balance and activity centres of the brain. And you don’t really feel love and connection to an animal on a screen in the same way as something you can touch and hug.

      Three Should Be Free

      With girls of age three or four, the goal and need of her brain is to play, to not be pressured and to be able to be creative and free. These qualities will one day make her a great scientist, boss, artist, problem-solver or friend. She will always want to and be able to ‘do her own thing’. But if she is made to perform – by a pre-school with ‘early learning goals’, or a parent who wants her to play violin, or some activity that grooms and preens her for adult consumption (participating in child beauty contests is a stunningly awful example), then she will not develop properly, will be cramped and tense and lack creativity. Whole nations have experienced this through over-demanding schooling for the under-sixes. The result is a total lack of creativity, a population that is cowed, conformist and compliant. By six or seven, a girl is ready for some (not too much) serious learning imposed from the outside. Her brain has moved on to a whole different stage. If it comes too soon, though, it actually harms her intellect, and her eventual ability to be talented and bright.

      So think twice about structured or organised activities that involve any kind of performance or competition. These just take the joy out of something she would otherwise have loved. Activities where all the kids simply get into it together and learn happily at their own pace are much preferred.

      A final note – the two to five years are exhausting, and you can be a bit isolated. Don’t think you have to be an education ringmaster for your kids all day. They need to occupy themselves, dream and dawdle as their imagination grows. It’s in the gaps and quiet times that children do their growing. Turn off TVs and radios so they can think and talk internally, which they love and need to do as they play.

      Don’t let yourself get lonely, either. Join a playgroup, where the kids start to have fun with others, and YOU get to be with other mums or dads (there are dads’ playgroups too now). Also learn to be boring sometimes and encourage your kids to just play around and without you while you merge into the furniture. You need your rest.

      Choosing Toys

      If you have heard ANYTHING about getting girls off to a good start, it’s probably been about ‘gender-stereotyped toys’. The role of toys in widening, or limiting, your little girl’s play choices is a huge thing, and you’d think by now companies would have really got past this. But here’s the bad news: it’s getting worse. Companies never give up on trying to hook kids and parents with heavy marketing – especially on TV, where toys can be made to look so much better than they really are.

      This article is by Paula Joye, a journalist and fashion columnist, website publisher and a very sensible mum. I couldn’t put it better …

      Role Model or Pole Model?, by Paula Joye

      My youngest daughter is five and spent the weekend penning a Christmas Wish List to Santa. Nestled between a backpack shaped like a koala and a detective magnifying glass is a request for a Bratz Masquerade toy. She saw it advertised while watching Finding Nemo on television. The doll is dressed in an outfit that would look great wrapped around a pole. She has swishy, knee-length hair with pastel streaks, hoop earrings and more black kohl eyeliner than a Kardashian.

      I’m a little stuck because we don’t have any Bratz in our house. I’m not sure exactly what I don’t like about them. I loathe the lollipop heads and cushion pouts. Hate the heavy make-up. But I think what upsets me the most is their wardrobes. Seriously, these dolls wrote the rules on Red Light. A toy designed for five- to 10-year-old girls shouldn’t be so overtly sexy. Pretty, geeky, smart, ugly are all fine but scantily clad dolls should be reserved for lonely grown men who can’t get real girlfriends.

      For me the message is just too narrow. The Bratz brand is 13 years old, which means the original crash-test consumers are just starting to flex their fashion chops. On the weekend, I watched some of these girls heading into the Eminem concert in Sydney. They were wearing clothes that defy description. Mainly because there was so little fabric covering their bodies that I’m struggling to come up with words other than naked and nude to describe how they looked. This is the first batch of young women to have been influenced by a society hell bent on fast-tracking them into womanhood and the first place we’re going to see the results is in the fashion choices they make. What struck me more than the bare skin was how homogenised their look was. Everyone was dressed identically. It was a sea of tiny, cut-off denim shorts and fluro crop tops. Teenagers have always copied one another – it’s normal to dress the same way as your friends – but there used to be so much more diversity and self-expression. I remember copying the wardrobes of Madonna, Wendy James and Diane Keaton at the same age. I experimented all the time. But there was none of that in this crowd. It was Same. Same. Sexy. Same.

      We can’t blame this on Bratz or Barbie alone – there are so many influences that play on young girls – but it does make you despondent about the serious lack of role models both on the toy shelf and in the mainstream. Once they wave bye-bye to Dora and Angelina the choices are whittled down to Bindi Irwin, Harry Potter’s Hermione and a couple of exceptions on Nickelodeon. Otherwise it’s Miley, Taylor, Selena and The Biebs. Where are Pippi Longstocking and Nancy Drew? Why isn’t there a Kate Winslet for Tweens?

      It would be so easy for me to capitulate on the Bratz present. Seeing her little face light up when she opens it on Christmas morning is a tempting trade. But every time I teeter, I close my eyes and visualise her dressing the