Motivational speaker and devout Christian Zig Ziglar said it well, “Repetition is the mother of learning.”  Keep repeating those words of affirmation over and over to your daughter, even when it seems like it’s not making a dent.  It is making a difference!  Your persistent belief in your daughter and her worth as a child of God will communicate your love and God’s love. The best thing you can do is repeat what the Bible says about her. A good place to start is Psalm 139:13-14 (NLT). Read it out loud together, “You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.  Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!  Your workmanship is marvelous - how well I know it.” 

Everywhere your daughter goes—online or in real life—our culture tells her lies about gender. In one place she’s told “Girls rule. Boys drool.” In another she’s told women are inferior. And in still others, she’s told she can be whatever she wants to be no matter what biological sex God assigned to her at birth. Though you’ll need to be more and more educated in the lies about gender so you can answer the hard questions, a good place to start is by saturating her in the Truth of how much God values women. “It’s Great To Be A Girl” is something her heart needs to hear often and believe, which is why we wrote a book about it for girls. It will help her explore:

• what physical changes to expect and how to handle them
• tips on hair care, makeup, nutrition, exercise, and more
• how to use your body to fulfill your highest purpose—bringing glory to God

First an important fact: Social media seems like a good way for your daughter to connect with her friends on the surface, but the impact of social media for most girls is more negative than positive.  Researchers at Lurie Children’s Hospital polled more than 2900 parents between March and June of 2020 and found: 

• 68% of parents responded they believe social media affects their teen’s ability to socialize normally
• 56% believe their teen has an unhealthy desire for attention or approval via social media
• 67% of parents have felt their teen is addicted to social media

Many parents cited concerns about social media being too sexual in nature, and shared stories of bullying.  If your daughter is left out of these destructive influences, good for her!  A better way to connect with a friend would be to schedule a time to meet in the park or meet for lunch.  Focus on more meaningful connections with friends outside of social media. 

Any time you have a disagreement on any topic, there are three possible ways to resolve it after you’ve both talked about it and had a chance to explain your reasoning. 

I’ll meet you on your side.  Picture a straight line with an X on each end, representing the husband and the wife.  This means that one of you actually goes all the way to the other side and basically says, “After I’ve listened to your reasoning, I think I’ll go with your perspective.” 

Meet you in the middle.  You come to a compromise.  If your spouse thinks 6 hours of screen time is fine, but you want only 2 hours, you settle on 4 hours of screen time. 

Meet you later.  This is when it’s pretty obvious that you are not going to agree in one sitting.  You agree to disagree for the moment, get a good night’s sleep, and pick it up again the following week.  You agree to disagree instead of preaching a sermon and ending the evening angry. 

Perhaps one of you thinks your daughter is ready for a phone at age 10, but the other parent thinks 14 would be a better age.  Ask your spouse, “Why do you think she’s ready at 10?” and really listen and try to understand the other person’s perspective.  You might come to middle ground and land on age 12, deciding to evaluate the situation again when your daughter is 12.  You are constantly fishing for one of these three solutions, no matter what the topic of conflict. 

You can’t impose your rules on another family or your child’s friends. But you can certainly have helpful conversations to keep pornography, bullying, and inappropriate images and comments from harming your child. Here are a few guidelines you can use when making decisions about screen times and friends: 

1. Differentiate the big things from the small things. Ask yourself, “Will this matter a week from now?” If your child is viewing porn at someone’s house, the answer will be yes. But, if he’s occasionally playing thirty minutes of non-violent video games, the answer’s probably no. 
2. Get to know your child’s friends. Take the time to befriend the parents of your children’s friends. You need to be able to ask, “What types of television shows and video games do you allow in your home? Do you know what the girls are watching?” Don’t think it’s rude to ask; it’s your responsibility, as a parent, to create safe boundaries for your child. Even when she’s away from you. 
3. Make yourself the fall guy. You might fear appearing judgmental and superior if you ask too many questions. Just tell the other parent that you’re overprotective. It’s more gracious to criticize yourself (“Forgive me if I’m such a high-maintenance parent”) than to implicate the more lenient parent.

Teach your child to look away. Tell your children if a person shows them something they aren’t comfortable with to look away. You can choose where your eyes go. Turning away from lewd, inappropriate, mean, or sexual images will help your child mature as he learns to guard his heart from evil.

The Bible is a lamp for her feet and a light for her path...not just when she is older, but now! (Psalm 119:105) Teach her how to turn it on! 

One idea is to study the Bible with your daughter in different ways during different seasons of her development. Instead of setting her free to do it solo, walk beside her.  (True Girl offers seasonal online Bible studies for tweens and moms and also for teens and their moms.)  You can read a few verses of the Bible together at breakfast or bedtime.  Encourage your daughter to create a goal around her Bible reading.  Maybe she’d like to finish the New Testament by the end of sixth grade (and when she does, you’ll have a celebration!).

Another thing to consider is providing her age-appropriate tools to study God’s Word. You might pick out a translation that would be easy for her to understand and get her a Bible as a gift. Our True Girl subscription plan provides easy-to-digest daily devos for tweens.  True Girl is currently writing a series of Bible studies specifically for older tweens, and the first one is currently available.  Right now, you can join Dannah and Staci Rudolph as they lead a six-week online study of the first one, Ruth: Becoming a Girl of Loyalty. 

Glad you’re on board with being in control of what your daughter hears about sex. Here’s an interesting fact: not talking to your kids about sex and abstinence is one of the top five things that place kids at risk of having sex too soon. The best age to begin the direct conversation that includes the mechanics of sex is about the ninth or tenth year, but we are often afraid it’s too soon. Let’s get you started with confidence! This blog at the True Girl site offers ten of our favorite resources for building the conversation from the ages of 3 to the college years.

That's the million-dollar question, isn't it? Be patient and prayerful. Finding the right counselor can be like finding a best friend. There has to be just the right chemistry. Here are some links to get you started.

Focus on the Family offers a network referral system that could be helpful for you. Search by specialties, state, and some cities.

We recommend intensives for adult therapy or marriage counseling. Why drag out your work for years and years if you could become more whole for your entire family in a matter of a few weeks? That does not mean you won't still have healing to do, but you can jump-start it at the right Christian program. Some that we recommend include:

• Dr. Jonathan Stube
• Crossroads Counseling of Buena Vista
  • Pete Kuiper provides marriage and adult therapy.
  • Terri Lenzini provides therapy for teen girls and young adult women.
• Healing Care Ministries