DR. F. FELICIA FERRARA: Hello. I'm Dr. Ferrara and I am the parent coach. I would love to speak to you about how to raise teenage girls. It's very perplexing for some people especially their dads. Now, the points I'd like to make with you is that it's very important to, number one, teach them their value set, which social science says most children have their values formed by the time they're 12 years old. So if they're not all ready taught some of those values, you might be in a little bit of trouble. It's hard to start late in the teen years. But for young teenage girls, it's important that you find a balance between encouraging them to be all that they can be. It's okay to study math and science and to compete in various different career paths; but at the same time, you want to teach them the feminine side and how to be a girl and respect themselves as well. So setting boundaries is a big problem for a young, teen girl, so you would like to go over different scenarios with your teenager and ask what it is that they might do to counteract it. There's an extreme amount of pressure on our teens today. There's a lot of peer pressure and certainly there's a lot of sexuality that takes place. Now as a concerned parent, you want to have your child have a set idea in their mind before the incident happens so that they will know how they want to set that boundary. It's okay to say no. One problem is if they come from a very authoritarian family and were never allowed to have a voice within their own house, they never learn how to speak up and make choices when they're out in public by themselves. So our job as parents is to make sure that our children have those ample choice-making, decision-making and judgment qualities before they enter high school. Very often as we all have, I'm sure we all have an embarrassing moment from high school, so your child will be making a mistake. Just don't berate them too much because chances are they're going to berate themselves a lot more than you can. So by all means, with your teenage girls, raise them with a balance between letting them know they can achieve and also letting them know how to set boundaries within their femininity, so that way they have their balance. They can have the career they want and still maintain the girl-type femininity that they so desire. So with that in mind, I know you dads didn't want to hear that. I know you dads want to say you'll lock them up till they're 21, but truth is you have to teach them. So with that in mind, I wish you good luck. And remember, boundary setting and balancing. So long for now.
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