Tag: girls

There seems to be an ever growing number of inappropriate products and marketing campaigns aimed at our girls. These products and campaigns push a "too sexy, too soon" message that we need to stop—and we can.

These products are sold because they are purchased. A collective parental “NO!” would send a clear message to advertisers. Write your concerns to distributors and product developers. Those complaints do work… several of these companies have reconfigured their advertisements and even removed them from their websites. “Outrage” petitions are also gaining signatures by the minute. Speak out and keep your wallets shut. Also, share your concerns to your daughter to help develop her media literacy.

Rightly or wrongly, many people believe they can identify an individual who has ADHD based on sight, misinformation, or stereotype. Although people with ADHD may share some characteristics, there are many qualities of ADHD that you might not be able to recognize or correctly interpret.

ADHD is a human condition and is as complex and individualized as… well, we humans are! Furthermore, it is likely to appear differently in children versus adults, as well as between genders.

As we turn the page onto a New Year, the following are words I would like every preadolescent and adolescent girl to embrace (take notes parents). Words are powerful creatures that direct your thoughts and actions. So pay close attention kids, your life lesson is beginning.

1. Become unpopular. That’s right! Stop walking to the beat of everyone else’s drum that pressures you into believing that what is important is to fit in and be popular. That is a bunch of hooey!

Grace, 14, is a straight A student, a star on her basketball team, and tries desperately hard to be perfect in everything that she does. And, in her words, it’s not enough to be perfect; "I feel every day like I have to be amazing!" That’s obviously an impossible benchmark to live up to, but Grace continually strives to reach it each and every day.

If that’s not bad enough, even being an amazing young girl seems not good enough these days. The level of competition amongst girls in academics, sports, socially, and with their appearance is incredibly intense, and it’s a 24/7 contest with no end in sight.

Thong undies for toddlers.

Push-up bras for eight-year olds.

Sneakers to "tone" legs for preschoolers.

Marketers keep pushing that "too sexy, too soon" envelope on our young daughters, and we are seeing impact on our daughters’ self-esteem and body images.

Keep in mind that it isn’t just one advertisement or one commercial  that affects a young girl’s self-concept, but the constant slew of images pushing a "too fast, too soon" look. And that’s exactly what our girls are exposed to these days. The "constant" seeing or hearing over-sexualized messages can be damaging to a young girl’s mental, emotional or moral well being.

Girls between the ages of five and 14 are spending 40 percent more time on unpaid domestic chores than boys their age, missing out on chances to learn and enjoy their childhood, according to a report on Friday ahead of International Day of the Girl.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said girls are spending 160 million more hours a day on household work such as cooking, cleaning, looking after family members and collecting water and firewood.

The following is a round-up of news items compiled by the Hitched editors during the week of July 17, 2014.

Daughters Don't Cause Divorce, They're The Survivors
There has been a lot of research over the years identifying that couples with daughters are more likely to divorce than those with sons. In 1988, researchers Philip Morgan, Diane Lye and Gretchen Condran released a paper "Sons, Daughters, and the Risk of Marital Disruption." In it they found that sons reduce the risk of a divorce by 9%.