A little market research

 

I am so excited about the release of my new book, Fearless& Feminine, Raising Confident Daughters.  As I was writing and editing the book, I did some research to see what other books are out there about raising daughters.  I looked through lists at Amazon and while there were some great books, I was appalled by some of the books I found.  For example, one book was titled “Parenting Your Teenage Daughter - 10 Tips and Advice for Parents to Manage and Control a Teenage Girl”.  Wow, 'manage and control', this author goes against everything in my book.  Ironically, the author begins by explaining that you need to establish an open line of communication (okay good start, despite the title) but then advises you NOT to learn her language of ‘teen speak”. 

It’s hard to even begin to address the problems with this book, and there are so many books out there, here are just a few examples that I looked at:

·         Parenting a Teen Girl: A Crash Course on Conflict, Communication and Connection with Your Teenage Daughter – while the content seems okay, the message of this book sounds violent; crash & conflict are first words in title, I am not sure this is the tone I am looking for when dealing with my daughters. 

·         The Adolescent Daughter Parenting Guide: Everything You Need To Know –this seems like a good book, but at only 23 pages, it is fairly limited in content, I don’t think it really includes everything I need to know. 

·         Parenting Young Girls: A Parent's How-To Guide On Raising Your Daughter From the Inside Out – another good book, but at only 37 pages it again fails to fully explore the concepts and this book seems much more geared to raising younger aged girls and does not really delve into the teenage years. 

·         Parenting Teen Girls: A Parent's Guide to Raising Teenage Daughters –good, but also short, only 29 pages and this book is limited to only the teenage years, skipping all of the formative years.  

·         Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know – I like this one, good info, written from the perspective of a daughter, but what about Mom? 

·         Raising Young Girls: Parenting Girls and Raising Daughters to Live a Life with High Self Esteem –this one is also really short at only 25 pages and half the book (according to the table of contents) is about self-esteem.  I agree self-esteem is important, but I think there is a lot more to parenting than just self-esteem. 

·         Parenting Girls; Nurturing Your Girl's Development In Each Stage From An Infant To A Young Adult – another one, sounds promising but incredibly short at only 26 pages.  Somehow I think the complex task of raising a daughter should involve more content than the length of a high school term paper. 

There are lots more, but I think you get the point.  I applaud all of these authors for wanting to help,  but I think parents need more than a quick and dirty, limited view approach.  There is no way to address everything parents might deal with when raising daughters, I have tried my best to address some of the major issues. 

I hope you will read my book, and please offer some feedback.  I really do believe it takes a village to raise a child - and together we can help raise strong confident women.