Where Has My Little Girl Gone?

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Where Has My Little Girl Gone?
Sexy dance routines at school discos, crop-tops and high heels for five-year-olds and mini make-over birthday parties......

Wherever you look, our little girls are being flooded with messages about looks and sexuality they are often simply too young to understand.

Even girls are primary school feel pressured to conform to a thin, 'sexy' ideal. The price can be high. There is a dizzying rise in feelings of worthlessness among our children. By the time they are teens, more than 900,000 girls in the UK - twice the number of boys - are beset by feelings of 'worthlessness" according to recent study by Demos.

Those feelings, which can develop into anxiety and depression, stem from the feeling that they simply don't measure up to airbrushed celebrity culture. But while girls are fast-tracked though childhood, parents feel powerless. Too often we feel drowned out by the internet, retailers, the media and peer pressure.
Where Has My Little Girl Gone?


But even though there's been lots of discussion about the problem, so far there's been nothing for mums and dads on what to do to protect their girls. That's why as a parenting author and mum to two young girls, I set about interviewing psychologists, experts, teachers and families to find the best way forward for my new book 'Where Has My Little Girl Gone?'

The good news is that is that I found that parents do have a voice. There really are lots of practical steps we can take today to inoculate our daughters against the worst effects of the X-rated society. In just the two minutes you take to show your daughter how an image of an ultra-skinny model has been airbrushed, you've taught her not to try and live up to an image of perfection that doesn't exist. In the conversations you have with her about the pressures she feels under and where she think they stem from, you have helped recognize those influences - and even fend them off.

Whatever her age, by becoming a more conscious parent today, you can take safeguard your daughter's childhood so she can grow into the confident, healthy young woman she deserves to be.

"Where Has My Little Girl Gone? How to protect your daughter from growing up too soon" by Tanith Carey is out now.

By Tanith Carey
May 2011

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