"Bringing up Girls" by James Dobson


MrShorty
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As a father of four girls, I saw this at the library and thought I'd see what he had to say.

This book is obviously about raising girls, and is a companion book to his earlier Bringing up Boys." As a very conservative Christian and a psychologist, Dr. Dobson discusses his ideas regarding raising girls.

I did not enjoy this book as much as I thought I would. He seemed to spend a lot of effort ranting about the evils of the modern world and culture and and not as much that I found practical in relating to my daughters. Some highlights that I did find useful:

1) He individually covered the importance of both mothers and fathers to a girls development. Personally, of course, I found the things he said about a father's role pertinent. How important a father's influence is in showing girls how men are supposed to behave towards women, and stuff like that.

2) There was a segment about a charm bracelet being used in one girls dating life to help her see the value of chastity. She was given the bracelet at 16 when she was allowed to start dating. Each charm on the bracelet represented her first "expression of affection" (hold hands, kiss, etc.) When she first did that with a boy, she was supposed to give that charm to that boy. In the case of this girl, she chose to keep her charms until she met the man she eventually married, and, thus, gave them all to one man. I don't know if I would agree that all forms of physical affection need to be saved for marriage, it does give a symbolic way to give value to physical affection so it isn't given away too freely.

3) There was a section on bullying as it affects girls in particular.

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I've posted this here before. It worked for our daughter.

My husband told her he would give her $200 if she made it to age 18 without being kissed. She agreed. The other half of the "bet" was that if she was kissed before age 18 she had to give her Dad $100. She is highly competitive.

She got her $200. I asked her if the bet was a problem while she was dating in high school. She said no. The bet was a good excuse to not kiss guys she really didn't want to kiss. She told them a kiss would cost them $300 because of the bet with her Dad. :)

She just got married (age 23) last fall. The guy she married went to high school with her. He made sure he was her first date AFTER her 18th birthday. :)

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