I S S U E 0 9 - F a m i l y F e a t u re
GIRL POWER: How to raise strong, confident daughters Entrepreneur, author, blogger and mum, Jo Wimble-Groves, gives us her advice on empowering young girls, with insights from her new parenting book, Rise of the Girl. WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO WRITE RISE OF THE GIRL?
There is no magic formula for raising strong, confident girls. However, knowing that using our voices to share information can have an impact, I wanted to share seven empowering conversations that I am having with my own daughter, who is almost 12, in this book. In 2018, a study was conducted by the Mental Health Foundation with the aim to shed light on the mental health of our children and young people. Worryingly, the figures showed that for children aged between 17 and 19 years old, nearly one in four young women had a mental health disorder, with emotional disorders (in particular, anxiety) the most commonly reported.1 The rise in teenage anxiety
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and depression could be challenged by an action as simple as having the conversations described in this book.
WHY DO YOU THINK IT IS IMPORTANT FOR PARENTS TO HAVE CONVERSATIONS WITH GIRLS IN PARTICULAR?
One in ten girls aged between 14 and 17 years old are being referred for specialist mental health support. It appears that it is mostly girls who are affected, and this is now being referred to as a crisis on a worldwide scale. In the UK, NHS data on child and adolescent mental health has revealed significant differences between genders: “More than twothirds of antidepressants prescribed to teenagers are for girls.”2 Around 90% of
children admitted to hospital for eating disorders are girls. Hospitalisations due to self-harm involving girls have quadrupled since 2005.3
Parenting is, without question, the hardest job we will ever do The copywriter who proofread my book, Shari Last, has two young sons. She fed back to me that she felt so much of the book could also be used for boys, telling me how she used some of the tips I gave in the book when she was teaching her son to ride his bike. Many of the struggles we see in girls can be translated to boys, however, for me, Rise of the Girl had to come first. Some of the concerns we see in our teenage girls’ mental health is now being described as at a ‘crisis point’. We must come together to support our girls, guide them and show them how www.FamilyFirst.co.uk
