Type of bind: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Atria
Manufacturer: Atria
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 352
Printing Date: January 01, 2002
Publishing house: Atria
Sale Popularity Level: 1102165
Studio: Atria
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Product Description:
Michael Gurian, whose national bestseller The Wonder of Boys presented a radical and enlightening view of parenting sons, now offers a groundbreaking approach to raising daughters.
In The Wonder of Girls, Gurian, himself the father of two girls, provides crucial information for fully understanding the basic nature of girls: up-to-date scientific research on female biology, hormones, and brain development and how they shape girls' interests, behavior, and relationships.
He also offers insight into a culture mired in competition between traditionalism and feminism and a new vision that provides for the equal status of girls and women yet acknowledges their nature as complex and distinct from men. He explains what is 'normal' for girls each year from birth to age 20; what developmental needs girls face in each stage; how to communicate effectively with girls; and how to cope with developmental crises such as early sexuality, eating disorders, parental divorce, and more.
With personal insights, practical tips, real-life anecdotes, and accessible science, The Wonder of Girls creates a new parenting paradigm. Key elements include:
a nature-based approach to why girls are the way they are
the connection between the need for profound attachment and the physical and brain development of girls
support for a girl's inherent need for intimacy
tools to protect girls' self-esteem and emotional life
a new approach to girls' character development and rites of passage.
With this scientifically based developmental map of girlhood, Gurian equips parents with a comprehensive guide for raising daughters. Challenging our culture to examine and embrace a crucial piece of the puzzle missing thus far, The Wonder of Girls elevates the dialogue on parenthood.
Amazon.com Review:
In The Wonder of Girls, Michael Gurian aims to bring us new insights into the lives of our daughters in much the same way he attempted to open up the lives of adolescent males in The Wonder of Boys. While many of the chapters read like lessons in biology, plenty of parents will find useful tidbits and reflections from this father of two.
Gurian emphatically agrees with Deborah Sichel's (Women's Moods) idea of 'A woman's biology is the cornerstone of her mental health.' He elaborates on this theory throughout his discusion on the physical changes in childhood and adolescence. This concept certainly holds some validity, but there's a fine line from here to 'biology is destiny.' Some readers may find Gurian crosses that line with his claims of 'brain pruning' and insistence about hormones: 'they don't just change a girl into a woman, they are, to a great extent, the woman herself.'
Others find his recommendations on hormonal treatments to be a literal lifesaver, and the book is peppered with positive anecdotes from his own life and families encountered in his training sessions. Important issues like self-esteem, eating disorders, and sexual experimentation are all addressed, along with the role of the father and 'the absolute sanctity of motherhood.' Gurian offers a somewhat narrow path as a guide through your daughter's adolescence, but if nothing else, this book will provide a solid background in the physical aspects of her growth. --Jill Lightner
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Rated by buyers 
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I just finished reading a fabulous parenting book by Alfie Kohn ("Unconditional Parenting") and desired to explore more works from like-minded authors. On the back flap of Kohn's book jacket, I came across praise for the book written by Gurian. I mistakenly assumed Gurian was in the same enlightened parenting camp and decided to give this book ("The Wonder of Girls")a try. BIG MISTAKE.
As I read, I began to get an uneasy feeling. His suggestions about girls' nature (the role of hormones, blood flow in the brain, biological longings, etc.) seemed just a bit too pat for my liking. When I finally got to his chapter on being an "artful mother", I really began to get uncomfortable. He urges parents to begin taking charge of their toddlers lives by creating sleep schedules, referring us to Richard Ferber (of "cry it out" sleep method fame) for further advice. Regarding disciplining, he suggests we "show, rather than tell" when misbehavior occurs. For example, if your child continues to pull on a cat's tail, "...you can lightly pinch your daughter, showing her what it feels like to have a 'tail' pulled." He is quick to note "this cannot be a violent pinch, or it is abusive." Later on when discussing spankings (an action he ocassionally condones, he adds the suggestion, "...it is best to leave the child's pants of skirt on-- making your daughter strip naked... before being spanked is unneccessarily humiliating and thus can be emotionally damaging."
I contest that any act of violence on a child is emotionally damaging no matter how small or measured the action may be. To truly appreciate the wonder of our daughters, we can begin by treating their entire persons (physical, emotional, and mental)with respect and honor.
As a concerned parent and proud female, I found Gurian's insights to be more frustrating than helpful.
Rated by buyers 
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I am so grateful for The Wonder of Girls and Michael Gurian's insightful perspective into the hearts and lives of girls. As a counselour for girls and their parents, this is a book I recommend wholeheartedly!
Raising Girls
Rated by buyers -
I am a working mother of three children - a son and two daughters. I bought The Good Son, Shaping the Moral Development of our Boys & Young Men by Michael Gurian, and picked up The Wonder of Girls, Understanding the Hidden Nature of Our Daughters, also written by Gurian, simply because if I'm going to buy a book about the boy, as an Equal Opportunity Parent, I feel compelled to buy a book about the girls, even though I generally feel much more confident in my ability to parent my girls than I do my son. After I bought these books, I checked some reviews and was a little put off by one review that classified The Wonder of Girls as an endeavor of a man trying to tell women what their nature was when he, by nature, could never have a true understanding of women. I decided to start with The Wonder of Girls because, frankly... it's the shorter of the two. And I was a girl once upon a time, so I figure reading it will be like eating cotton candy... sweet but requiring little effort. I couldn't have been more wrong, and I find myself rereading passages many times. Gurian includes a great deal of scientific detail, neurological information about how male and female hormones shape our reactions and development, and debunks a great deal of the argument that boy and girl behavior is all due to socialization. Gurian doesn't dismiss it entirely, nor does he try to assert that generalizations about the biological nature of women are absolute for every woman, but makes a very strong case that while socialization plays a role in behavior, socialization has been overemphasized and biology has been grossly underemphasized. I don't know a mother who hasn't lamented on the difference between her boys and girls... even mothers who, like me, have been committed to raising sensitive young men who are not afraid of their emotions and who, like me, are committed to non-violence... mothers who have banned toy weapons and violent media, only to find her preschooler happily shooting her with the pistol he made from Lego's or Connex (you know, those toys we buy in part because they are CONSTRUCT-ive rather than DESTRUCT-ive) in a gleeful game of cops and robbers that he is happy to play all by himself. If these mothers are also blessed with girls, they've often compared and contrasted stories of their girls turning their brothers' toys into babies, and sticking baby dolls under their shirts to nurse them.
Sometimes I reread a passage several times to fully let the meaning sink in, or to examine some of the knee jerk reactions I feel and separate what I have been taught from the truth that I have always felt to be true. There is a very strong emphasis on mothering in this book (and for the record, there is also a section in the same chapter about fathering), and also an emphasis on the fact that was we mother our daughters, we are shaping future mothers. I'm not so young that I don't remember being told, perhaps not in such blunt terms, what and where "my place" is. At the tender age of five or six years old, I asked my mother what college was. She told me it was where girls go to meet their husbands. So there are certainly times when the Femi Nazi in me rises up at any hint, no matter how remote, of what my role or "duties" are as a woman or mother.
But even in the midst of those knee-jerk reactions, I sense truth in this writing, and also realized that this is a book written BY a parent, FOR other parents... would it be complete if there wasn't an emphasis on the importance of mothering? A comment someone made to me keeps coming to my mind. A good friend of mine, who is not a biological mother, asked my then 6yo daughter what she wanted to be when she grew up. My daughter responded, probably with little hesitation, that she wanted to be... a mother. This child has been telling me, since the tender age of three, that she wants to be a mom... and not just a mom, but a mom who cooks. Imagine that... thirty years of fighting for women's rights, and my daughter wants... no, she yearns... to be barefoot, pregnant, and standing over a hot stove.
My friend relayed this story to me, with the lament that "they" sure start conditioning girls at a young age. I was not offended, but I was definitely at a loss. I had no idea how to explain to my friend how incredibly proud I was that my daughter thinks the highest aspiration... above being a dancer or cowgirl... is to be a mother, or why I think that's such a GOOD thing. I almost felt like it was time to surrender my feminist card and oust myself.
I was raised in a very dysfunctional family by a woman who very clearly had grown to resent the imposition of responsibilities that she had chosen for herself. Watching her anger and bitterness as she pushed more and more of the responsibility for mothering my siblings onto me, I vowed time and again that I would NOT be having children. I remember overhearing my grandmother lament sorrowfully ... Read More
Rated by buyers -
We are thrilled to have this book! It was referred to us by our Dr. so as to help us understand the interworkings of our two little girls. I am sure that we will be reading and rereading this book for years to come!
Doug Vogel
Rated by buyers -
I was thinking this book was written from a Christian perspective. WOW, was I wrong. If your desire is to raise a WORLDLY, EGOTISTICAL, SELFISH and IMMORAL daughter then this is the book for you. I gave this book 1 star because zero and below was not an option.
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