Teaching Teen Girls High Standards

Leaning In

• Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, in her newly published book "Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead," asks women everywhere to ask themselves what they would do if they were not afraid. She says that the responses from an audience of women who were graduating from Barnard College, an all-female liberal arts school, inspired her to write the book. In the first chapter, she delineates the challenges that still face working women, from their own fears to social denigration of "bossy" women.

Stereotypes and Confusion

• Teen girls today face a myriad of expectations. A book review of "The Triple Bind" by Stephen Hinshaw in NBC Today Books entitled, "Under pressure: Are teen girls facing too much?" focuses on conflicting expectations young women face. They are pressured to have careers, to marry, to be cute and sexy, and to excel in the traditional roles assigned to girls and to break into roles reserved for boys. While some rise to the challenge, others become depressed, develop eating disorders or cut themselves.

Model the Role

• As a parent, one of the best things you can do for your daughter is to model the role for her. A Web MD article entitled,"10 Parenting Tips for Raising Teenagers" states that your children will remember your actions more than your words. If you expect your child to keep promises, keep yours. If you expect her to work hard, fulfill obligations and do her best, then expect those things of yourself. Listen to her fears, her ambitions and her desires, so you understand what she really wants out of life. Share your hopes and fears, and how you cope.

Associate With Success

• Fill your social circle with people who are secure in their life roles. Louisa May Alcott, in many ways an early feminist, wrote that young women should fill their circle of friends with people who are good and honest. Adults, both women and men, who have achieved positive goals. make good role models. Provide books, movies and nonfiction material about strong, successful women, such as the book by Katherine Martin, "Women of Courage: Inspiring Stories from the Women Who Lived Them." Share your successes and some of your failures. The road to success includes recovering from the bumps and wrecks along the way.

Personal Choices

• From selecting classes for the year, to whether to date, participate in extracurricular activities or get a job, today's teens are presented with a number of choices. Miss Alcott wrote a wonderful book called, "Work," which details the trials of women only some 120 years ago. At the end of it, the women pile their hands together in a pact of solidarity. Since then, women have gained the vote, the right to own property, to keep their own wages and to manage their financial affairs. Books like "Lean In" continue to point the way. Books like these can help girls plan a journey to success while maintaining high standards along the way.