Growing Strong Girls

Girls today face an astounding degree of pressure to grow up fast, to be “perfect” in every way, and to be all things to all people. In this book, we learn their challenges and how to help them grow strong.

About Growing Strong Girls

Girls today face an astounding degree of pressure to grow up fast, to be “perfect” in every way, and to be all things to all people. They yearn to connect, but sometimes this yearning turns into negative, even destructive patterns such as passive aggressiveness, gossip, or excessive stress and anxiety. It’s heart-breaking to watch even the most confident little girls disconnect and lose their spark—and their way—when they hit the 9–14 years.

In Growing Strong Girls, educator and girl expert and advocate Lindsay Sealey reveals the tremendous power of connection to activate self-awareness, self-acceptance, and healthy social and emotional development. This wide-ranging and positive book is chock-full of ideas, tips, activities, stories and specific ways to connect with and equip girls to know and trust themselves, to create vibrant friendships and communities, and to step into their tween and teen years with resilience, bravery, confidence, and inner strength.

Lindsay Sealey bridges the gap between girls and the adults who want to understand them and the sometimes chaotic and confusing ways they act and express themselves. She explains the realities of girl drama and social pressure that girls themselves often don’t possess the maturity or communication skills to convey and models a way for parents, teachers, counselors, mentors, and companions on the journey to listen deeply and to start conversations with girls that actually go somewhere.

When the most important thing a girl needs is a secure relationship, an adult’s primary task is simple: spend time with her, listen, and draw out her core qualities so she knows who she is and so she can handle social pressures. Once a girl learns to connect inwardly with her true self, she can connect outwardly in healthy relationships and onward to meet the challenges of school and the wider world. Growing Strong Girls offers hundreds of practical ways to cultivate connection right now. Making a difference in the lives of girls is easier than you might think and powerful beyond measure.

The book explores:

• Why “mean girls” are just girls who aren’t getting what they need in their friendships and why there is no such thing as a “good girl”
• How parents can help girls make sense of their lives
• Why nothing can take the place of that security in her life: not body image, not straight As, not social media.
• The disconnect between self-conception as “sexy” and being ready for sex
• How girls can learn to let go while guarding their boundaries
• The basics of social emotional learning and how you can implement them at homework time
• Conquering test anxiety by focusing on the process, not just the outcome
• Nurturing academic excellence: life-long learning, executive functioning skills and compassionate stress management
• Bravery as an underrated quality in girls and the surprising number of brave role models in the media

My Thoughts

Have you ever read a book that just made you go wow? This is that book! I cried, I laughed but at the end of the day the message hit home. Girls are under such incredible pressure to look, behave and feel a certain way, that sometimes we get lost. If we don’t learn who we are in our youth, these same fears and uncertainties can last into our adulthood. I wish that I had this book in my youth but I am happy that I was able to read it now.

It is hard to even know where to begin to explain how important this book is for parents and caregivers. Our young girls are faced with pressures that can sometimes be difficult to appreciate and understand, sometimes we just don’t know how to connect with them or get them to open up to us. As I was reading this book, I saw my teen years – I saw my own struggles, I saw the struggles of other young girls and it broke my heart.

Each chapter focuses on a new subject that young girls face. Each chapters includes examples, quotes and my favourite part, a section on how to talk to your daughter, niece or granddaughter which also includes activities that you can complete that helps when you have a child who likes to express themselves through writing or art, versus talking. This book addresses everything from body images, to building friendships, boundaries, school, media and more. It addresses all of the most difficult topics that a parent will face with their daughter in an open and honest manner that really gets the conversation moving.

Growing Strong Girls is an excellent tool for all care givers and adults that are a support person for a young girl. The pressures they face are incredible and at times unrealistic. They need to be supported, encouraged and pushed to succeed but this can be difficult to know how to – especially during the teen years when children tend to pull away. This is a definite must have book in your home.

You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Rating: 5/5

About the Author

Lindsay Sealey is an Educational and Personal Development Specialist. As the founder of Bold New Girls, she positively influences the lives of young girls through the education and personal growth strategies she uses in her teaching, coaching and mentoring, focusing on helping girls with integrate social and emotional development with academic success, personal growth, and personal best.

Lindsay has more than 14 years of teaching and coaching experience working with kids of all ages and at all skill levels. She is dedicated to making a difference in the lives of young girls through her customized learning programs, curriculum, books, workshops, lectures and presentations, and knows the value in teaching the process of learning and understanding more than the content itself. Lindsay understands the importance of encouragement, patience, time to discuss thoughts and feelings, self-reflection, and the power of presence in the experiential process as she builds trust and safety in her relationships with girls.

When working with girls, she takes a preventative stance based on the core belief that if we can start talking with young girls early, we can facilitate learning and equip young girls with the necessary tools for ongoing growth and development, love and acceptance of themselves, self-compassion, positive risk taking, and optimal health and confidence!

Lindsay has created several inspirational books for young girls as well as empowerment workshops. She founded Bold New Girls as a way of combining her love of learning and education with her passion for and dedication to mental health and personal development for girls. In addition to writing her upcoming book, she is writing curriculum and speaking at various schools throughout BC. Lindsay is committed to extensive, ongoing research in social/emotional development, education and learning, and the executive functioning skills and brain efficiency. Lindsay lives in Vancouver, Canada.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.