Enjoy Being a Girl

I take my nine-year-old granddaughter to gymnastics every week.  It's a long drive across town, giving us some time to chat and catch up. I look forward to our commute. Tonight, between wanting the lights on her house to look like the Griswalds this Christmas and that a new friend at class believes in ghosts, she threw out a boy in her class told someone that he " liked"  her.   Keeping a firm grip on the steering wheel, I casually asked her, "what do you think about that?"  "Not too much, she answered.  My daddy says I have to be driving a car before I can have any boyfriend but him."
Sigh.
Safe for now.  But in the blink of an eye, her Father won't have a chance.

Does it seem to you that your pre-teen daughter has gone boy crazy? Here are some things that you may be seeing in your new boy-crazy pre-teen:
* She may call or text a boy she likes ten or more times a day.
* She may dress differently and lose interest in school, sports and other activities.
* She may become distant and private.
     There are ways that you can discourage this behavior in your pre-teen as they are neither capable physically nor emotionally with dealing with serious relationships at their young age.
     You can discourage early dating and other boy-girl activities. Kids need a time to be with same sex friends to learn social and intimacy skills. Girls who start dating before they are psychologically or socially ready may not know appropriate ways to act in close relationships with the opposite sex and can feel pressured to imitate older teens or show "maturity".     
Most importantly you should reinforce your daughter's self-esteem, helping her to discover her intrinsic value as a person and her unique strengths and talents, Too often, girls enter the teens with harmful social conditioning--believing that if they don't have boyfriends, they have nothing. 
     A pre-teen girl who is confident and sure of herself will not look to anyone else to make her feel good about herself.  She knows who she is and where she wants to go.  She pursues her own interests and stands up for herself and what she believes in. She has developed close friendships with other young girls who are also confident and open. She doesn't take herself too seriously. She been given the tools by her parents that help her navigate successfully through the teen years and on to college.  Our beautiful pre-teen is on the road to a happy life.