Chapter Six – Growing Competence

             My wife handed me an article from the local paper a few weeks ago and I instinctively clipped and filed it, though I wasn’t entirely sure why. It described a local high-school girl named Penny, a Junior with a passion for softball and a knack for French. Two accompanying photos showed her taking swings with a baseball bat. She’s a natural hitter – her batting average was .436 – and an all-star outfielder who routinely turns line- drive singles into outs with her rifle arm. The article also notes that Penny is a straight-A student, thinking of majoring in math when she goes to college. 

            What played along the edges of my attention while I read was that something was different here.  I looked at the photos again, Penny’s legs turned and her feet well-planted as she finishes her swing, eyes locked on the invisible ball. Then I got it. Something wasn’t there: the article did not mention, nor did the photos make it clear, that Penny is also a drop-dead, classically beautiful blonde. I only know this because my son goes to her school, and they sometimes shoot pool together.  

            “This is new,” I couldn’t help thinking as I reread the piece and didn’t find even a veiled reference to her looks. And it points to where my own girl students tell me they want to be – judged by their performance, on the field or in the classroom, and not on how they look. They don’t want special privileges, they say, or different treatment.  And the article about Penny shows just how easy this can be, once we set aside our preconceptions and see girls as people first.

             The article closes with Penny’s words, a signature statement you’d like to hear from any seventeen-year-old: “I’m really into the girls can-do-anything thing.”

 The Top Ten

             Teaching gifted children several days a week, I get the chance to work with some very special students. When I think of my top students over the years, the ones that leap to mind as the most promising, I find a couple of interesting patterns: first, they divide fairly evenly between boys and girls, and, more interesting, they are not necessarily my brainiest kids. Of the girls who really stand out, they all were conspicuously good at something other than their schoolwork: Betsey, for instance, was a superb point guard, Allison was terrific with clay, Melanie ran the sixth grade. (I find the same thing to be true for the top boys as well.) If there was a quality or two that distinguished my most promising achievers, it would be their balancing of strengths, and their palpable sense of competence. These kids covered a lot of ground, and were pretty sure of themselves.  

            Of course, this is basically what the self-esteem data shows, that high-school- aged  girls with high self-esteem feel competent and tend to be balanced, both caring and assertive.  I’ve already talked about balance in an earlier chapter. Now let’s look more closely at competence.  

Skills that Matter  

            What competencies matter most? Looking more closely at the self-esteem data on girls, we can draw several working generalizations:

             1. Technical competencies are important, especially math and science. The AAUW survey found that girls who liked math and science (and presumably were good at them) had “significantly greater self-esteem” than students who didn’t, while students with higher self-esteem liked math and science more. [1]

              2. Athletics are important. High-school girls who play sports have higher self-esteem than girls who do not. They are also more likely to stay in school, assume leadership roles, and do well in college.

             3. It’s the sense of competency that matters most, rather than a particular skill. Rather than a specific competency, high self-esteem correlates with how well a girl performs in areas of life that are important to her. For high-school girls this is especially true of their academic performance, which the AAUW study found was the most important aspect of their self-esteem.

             Bearing these generalizations in mind, let’s look at how parents can help give their daughters both the sense of competency, and the kinds of competencies that will most help them along the way to success.

 Growing Competent Daughters

             First of all, girls have as much right to competency as boys. It seems unnecessary to say this, but there is ample research to show that parents generally tend to see their sons as requiring basic competencies, especially technical ones, more than their daughters. It’s a holdover, I suppose, from generations of male dominance in the working world.

             How competent a young person feels may have a profound impact on her career and life choices. Whether your daughter ultimately uses her competencies to build a career in the workplace or whether she uses her skills in the home (or, most likely, some of both) she should possess the basic skills to do either. Her career choices as an adult should proceed from a position of strength and not as a result of inadequacy. That being the case,  here are some guidelines for parents in helping their daughters develop a sense of competency:  

° Help your daughter become competent in something. You will need to experiment. Start early by exposing her to experiences that broaden her interests and her understanding of her own abilities: hobbies, sports, the outdoors, arts and crafts. It may take a few years before she finds a comfortable niche, a meeting of talent and interest that propels her to a higher level of skill. Every parent has an obligation to help their daughter become competent in something.  

° Continually present her with opportunities to expand her interests.  They most probably will change as she matures. The nine-year-old soccer star may well turn into a passionate twelve-year-old equestrian and a fifteen-year-old cheerleader or journalist. Let her interests  develop naturally, but don’t let her simply fall idle when she outgrows a talent.

 ° Everybody can be good at something. Twenty-five years of teaching young people from age four through eighteen have convinced me that everyone is gifted in something, and it is up to parents to help their daughters discover what their gifts may be.

 Four Competencies

             I’ve come to view essential competencies in four broad categories (and I believe they apply to both boys and girls):

 1. The skills of connection – These include open communication, conflict resolution, living with differences, collaboration.

2. Physical skills – These include basic ball skills, sports and athletics, performing arts like dance and ballet.

3. Technical skills – These actually include a broad range of skills including math and science skills, computer skills, domestic skills, such as cooking, basic carpentry, and housekeeping, and also arts and crafts.

4. Mental skills – These are essential to achievement and include strategizing, problem-solving, risk-taking, and goal-setting.  

            I discussed the skills of connection already at length in the previous chapter, and I will explore the skills of mental strategizing in the next. Now, let’s look closely at physical and technical competencies, since they will play a large role in your daughter’s developing a sense of her possibilities as an achiever.

 Building Physical Skills

             Physical prowess dominates the way young boys and girls assess each other and this is especially true of youngsters. I’ve always been surprised by how important bouncing and catching a ball  is to student popularity among young schoolchildren. I often counsel parents of my gifted students not to neglect their child’s ball skills, even though they may be reading at the high-school level.

 The Achievement Value of Sports  

    The value of athletics and team sports goes far beyond developing specific athletic skills. Sports have long provided the arena where young males learned the skills of teamwork, problem-solving, risk-taking, and daring so prized by the workplace. Sports develop valuable leadership skills, and train youngsters in how to compete, how to push themselves to their physical limits, how to win and lose. Girls can use sports just as effectively to learn these skills. Historically, barring girls from developing athletic and physical prowess probably did as much to keep women out of the higher levels of the professions and workplace as did institutional bias.

            All kids respond to a sense of command, and the first place they can experience this is with their bodies – in the quickness of their hands, the speed with which they move their legs, the strength with which they can hit, kick, or throw a ball. It is easy for adults to underestimate how important these skills are to young people, and to girls just as much as to boys. I can’t recommend sports and athletic training highly enough to parents of young girls, and for several other good reasons:  

° Sports build mental prowess. Tennis, for instance, is a demanding mental game, requiring strategizing and risk assessment. A sport like soccer requires the kind of team-building skills and quick problem-solving abilities that corporate production teams emphasize. Sports and performing arts like ballet require kids to make rapid decisions in a challenging environment, whether they’re competing on a soccer team, trying to hold their own on the tennis court, or gliding across center stage in the “Nutcracker.”

 ° Sports and spatial skills – The ability to think spatially is essential to performing well in math and science, especially at the higher levels. Studies have long shown that boys are better spatial thinkers than girls, one of the primary reasons for their dominance in technical activities. Until fairly recently, boys have enjoyed what almost amounts to a natural advantage in technical development, by virtue of the spatial skills they develop at a very early age, and the manipulative nature of the toys they gravitate towards (or have given to them).

                  I had no idea that all those languid hours I spent outside catching fly balls were providing me with spatial skills that would come in handy when I took Trigonometry. Or that the Tinker Toys I obsessed over were developing spatial and manipulative abilities that could become marketable technical skills. Even if your daughter never enters a technical field, some proficiency in math and computer skills, and some basic understanding of how science works, will be essential to her productive participation in 21st Century life.

                  In fact, one recent study found that boys’ higher math scores on the Scholastic Assessment Test used for college entrance and National Merit Scholarships were mostly attributable to their better spatial abilities, and not as much to girls’ math anxieties as has been previously thought. [5] Though there is some evidence that boys’ spatial-thinking advantage is genetic, closing the infamous gender gap in math and science test scores may be more a matter of involving girls more in sports and ball activities, than anything else.   

° Sports build endurance, strength & prowess. For a girl or young woman, they can teach her to view her body as an efficient, powerful tool. Girl athletes are more likely to develop a healthier body image because they’ve experienced their bodies performing, felt the satisfaction of running fast, hitting a home run, sinking a shot from the three-point arc. In this respect, they are no different from  boys.

° Team sports build valuable collaborative skills. They teach  girls how to depend on one another, how to use each others’ strengths. Team sports also are a safe environment to learn the difficult lesson that success is always accompanied by  failure.

 ° Developing athletic skills teaches learning itself. Few activities can provide a girl as reliable and as instantaneous feedback as do sports: she knows when she drops the fly ball or smashes  the overhead into the net. And girls can learn that they can make adjustments so that they don’t make the same mistake again. When she moves a little quicker to get under the fly ball, or angles her racket up so that it drives the ball to the backcourt line, she’s learned something valuable about herself, about her capacities, and about the nature of human experience: failure is feedback, something to learn from, and not to be feared.  

° It is a myth that boys are naturally better at sports than girls. Boys traditionally have started playing sports at a younger age, and have spent more time at them. Apart from games like tackle football, where size and weight can be a factor, girls can become just as good at a sport as boys up through at least sixth grade, when boys’ greater height and speed will assert themselves. But by then, girls will be competing against other girls where male-female discrepancies are not a factor.

 Developing Basic Ball Skills  

            Your daughter can’t start too young playing with balls. Get your toddler a soft, plastic beach ball and start bouncing it with her, or moving it back and forth, up and down. There are many ways to get her accustomed to balls. Scale their size to her age and competency so that she continually experiences success and does not hurt herself.. (Generally speaking the balls will get smaller and harder as she grows older.)  Here are a few suggestions for helping her develop ball skills:

 ° For a toddler: sit her on the kitchen floor a few feet away from you, have her spread her legs, then sit opposite her on the floor and spread your legs. Then simply roll the ball back and forth. She can’t miss.

 ° When she gets a little older, have her start bouncing a soft, plastic beach ball with both hands. Toss it back and forth. Keep the ball soft and light, like a nerf  baseball or basketball. Have her kick it, set up a goal and defend it from her. Let her score. Have her defend your kicks. Ensure her success, and make a big deal of it!  

° When she gets older, say four or five, depending on her natural abilities, give her a wide plastic bat and, standing close to her, pitch to her with a beach ball, or a nerf ball large enough so that she cannot miss it. Don’t start with baseballs, even small rubber ones. They are too difficult to hit. Let her graduate to smaller nerf balls, then a tennis ball.

 Building Coordination Skills  

            Good motor coordination isn’t simply a matter of inborn talent. Most boys seem coordinated because they’re encouraged at a young age to jump, kick balls, swing bats. Girls can become just as coordinated. In fact, there’s evidence that females have better eye-hand coordination than males, probably as a result of the small eye-hand activities they specialize in when young. But they don’t translate to the larger, high-status skills that dominate school playgrounds, like kickball, baseball, or basketball. Some suggestions for developing coordination:

         ° At three or four, have her walk on a balance beam ( or use a two-by-four) .

 ° Teach her movement games like hopscotch, foursquare, handball. These games can be set up in your back yard or in the driveway. Don’t think she has to wait for school to become skilled in schoolyard games.  

° Start her on roller skates or roller blades when she can manage them.  

° Get a portable basketball hoop and lower it so that, again, she can’t miss. Raise it up as she gets taller.  

° Start her swimming as early as three or four. Encourage her to dive at an early age.

Preadolescent Girls & Sports  

            Beginning around first grade, the emphasis on athletics will shift to team sports, either in school or on organized teams. As a parent, you should expose your daughter to as many physical activities as she is willing to try, including dance.  

° Keep developing your daughter’s ball skills – As your daughter enters school, she should feel fairly adept at handling large balls, and she should be willing to experiment with small ones. Start playing catch with a tennis ball; have her catch “flies” until she doesn’t fear the ball.  

° Enter her in some organized sports.  Softball, soccer and basketball are available to girls now in most areas. Have her try team sports. She may not take to them, but at least have her try them for a season.  

Some Cautions  

            While learning physical skills should play a significant part in any child’s development, they need to be kept in perspective. Far too many youngsters burn out too early with sports because of intense competition or too much time spent in long, arduous practices.  

° Don’t force her into sports that she may not like or be very good at. Encourage and support her in different activities, but when one doesn’t suit her tastes or her abilities, let her try something else. It doesn’t really matter what physical activities she focuses on, but competing on a team is important for developing essential collaborative skills. Gymnastics or ballet are every bit as rewarding and educational as soccer or softball.  

° Make sure that you keep a healthy perspective on your daughter’s involvement. Winning isn’t the point here, nor is getting an athletic scholarship to college. I’ve known too many talented gymnasts, soccer players and ballet dancers who burned out from overexposure by the time they were sixteen. Make sure your daughter retains her enjoyment of physical activities.  

° Try to support her as much as you can in her sport or physical activity. Learn the sport yourself if you don’t already play it, so that you can join her in it, or at least follow it closely enough to understand the rules. Read the biographies of some of the stars in her sport, so that you can converse about them meaningfully, perhaps even inspire her with stories of athletes triumphing. Perhaps volunteer to coach her team.  

° Be watchful that she doesn’t become compulsive in her training. Young people can overtrain or become obsessed with performance. Gymnasts and ballet dancers are especially prone to using diet pills or diuretics in order to control their weight.

Adolescent Girls & Physical Skills  

            As media images of pencil-thin, passive, generally inactive female models begin to bombard young adolescent girls, they may begin to identify more with their physical appearance than with their accomplishments and capacities. Hair care and nail polish can begin to overwhelm a young girl’s passions for soccer or reptiles. It’s at this age that fixations with appearance and thinness begin, accompanied by the onset of eating disorders. It is during this period that girls drop out of team sports at a rate that is six times that of boys. This is especially troubling because the development of physical skills may help buffer girls from the media’s persistent presentations of the female body as a vehicle for male desire. Girls who have experienced athletic prowess, who know how capably their bodies can perform may not be so vulnerable to these images. If a girl has experienced her body as a skilled performer on the playing field, a daring performer from the high bar, a fluid mover off the dribble, she carries a powerful internalized sense of her body as an efficient and capable instrument. Whatever accounts for this “buffering” process – greater self-discipline, more engaging interests, the modeling of coaches, physical excellence – research shows that adolescent female athletes are significantly less likely to be sexually active than non-athletes, and are less than half as likely to become pregnant as their non-athletic counterparts. [7]  

Girls & Technical Competencies  

            Traditionally, girls have gravitated more towards the humanities – arts and letters – than towards math and science. But now that science and technology produce the lion’s share of high-level professional careers, girls may need an extra push in that direction if they are to become professionally marketable. You may recall that 80 percent of this year’s graduating class of high-school girls will spend twenty-five years of their working lives in full time jobs outside of the home, and most of these jobs will require at least some basic math and technical skills.  

            Gaining math and technical proficiency is not simply a matter of becoming marketable. Our culture’s technical tilt is so pronounced as to have insinuated itself into our sense of who we are. Computer facility now carries with it the same high cultural value as literacy once did. We all have a sense of ourselves as either technically  proficient or not, whether its our ease (or discomfort) surfing the internet or our facility for programming the VCR. Girls decode these values and internalize them. Studies show, though, that adolescent boys and their parents are more likely than adolescent girls and their parents to feel that math is more appropriate for males and to believe that males’ math skills are superior to those of females. [8] This must change. But research also shows that girls respond to parents’ expectations and aspirations for them much more than boys do. You can use this to your daughter’s advantage.  

            The nudge towards technical proficiency needs to begin early, within the home. Leveling the playing field in career choices begins with the toys we buy our children, the games we move them towards, the attitudes we project about the value and status of math and science (see Chapter Eight). Parents need to view their daughters, as much as their sons, as potential computer programmers, bio-physicists, data analyzers, and high-tech designers. And there is no reason why they shouldn’t, since studies show that math is no more difficult for girls to learn than for boys. Mothers especially may have to set aside math or science phobias they may have have, so that they do not unconsciously discourage their daughters from seeing themselves as potential scientists or technicians. It’s another part of the parental job description these days!  

Getting Daughters Ready for Math and Science  

Research studies suggest that many factors contribute to the attitudes, access, and achievement of young women in mathematics and science: encouragement from parents, preparation of mathematics and science teachers, interactions between teachers and students, curriculum content, handson laboratory experiences, selfconcept, attitudes toward mathematics, high-school achievement in mathematics and science, availability of mentors, and resources available at home. Here are some suggestions for helping your daughter develop interests and abilities in math and science:  

° Encourage your daughter to explore her environment.  Make sure she wears shoes and clothes that allow her to move outdoors easily. Give her permission to get dirty – encourage it!  

° Provide some scientific toys for your daughter. Microscopes, telescopes, and binoculars are not just for boys. Consider chemistry sets and two-way radios as presents for girls. Get her a subscription to the Junior National Geographic and Ranger Rick.

° Develop her spatial abilities. Teach her to use a ball (see above). Throwing, catching, bouncing, kicking, and batting balls develop eye-hand coordination and spatial-perception abilities. Puzzles and building blocks are helpful too.

° Let her use tools. Show her how to do simple carpentry, or to make simple mechanical repairs. Set up a space outside where she can hammer nails into a log, or take apart an old radio. Don’t assume she won’t be interested.

° Introduce her to blocks or Legos. 

    Sets are available for children as young as two years old and they provide invaluable kinds of learning: eye-hand coordination, building skills, estimating size and distance, and simply building a sense of familiarity with the mechanical and technical world. Again, don’t assume that your daughter won’t be interested in these activities because she is a girl. Make them available to her and help her make something to get her started.  

° Provide examples of women who work in technology and the sciences. Take her to a woman dentist or doctor or veterinarian. Go out of your way to ensure that she sees women functioning capably in technical fields.

 Some Cautions  

            As important as technical thinking is to a young person’s development, imagination remains the fountainhead of experience for the very young. So don’t rush your young daughter into technical proficiencies at the expense of her sense of wonder and exploration. Let her use a computer, for instance, but not at the expense of imaginative play and creative expression. Keep the crayons, clay, dolls, paints, doll houses and costumes close at hand!  

Preadolescent Girls, Math, and Science.  

            As your daughter enters school, she may need your support and reassurance that girls have as much claim to the technical world as do boys. There still exists ample cultural evidence to the contrary, and she may notice in her kindergarten or first grade that the boys spend more time at the computers and seem more adept at getting them to respond to their commands. The earlier you can equip her to feel at ease with machines and technical paraphernalia, the better chance she will have to succeed with them in a school setting.  

Some suggestions for supporting your preadolescent daughter in math and science:  

° Let your daughter know that you think she has the ability to learn math concepts and skills. Encourage her to invest time and effort in them, and to believe that math is just as important and exciting for girls as it is for boys.

 ° Develop your daughter’s confidence in math by making sure that she practices her math skills. Let her know that persistence is a large part of math success.

 ° Examine the attitudes you have about girls, math and science. This is especially true if you grew up with a math phobia. Do your words and attitudes convey fear or intimidation, or can they kindle an interest in the wonders of science and the beauty of mathematics?  Be watchful of hidden biases that boys are better at math or computers than girls.  

° Watch television science shows with your daughter, like Nova or Bill Nye the Science Guy on PBS. Celebrate her birthday with a science-workshop party.  

° Recognize her abilities and applaud her successes. Ask her questions about the math she is learning, and engage her in discussions about how to apply her knowledge to other areas of interest.  

° Help your daughter set goals to understand concepts and how to apply them, not simply to focus on getting a particular grade.   

° Encourage her to take intellectual risks, and show her how so-called failures can provide useful feedback. (See the next chapter on risk-taking.)

 ° Try to help her see the practical side of math. Girls are more likely to show interest in real-world activities. Use math and science around the house. Carpentry or remodeling projects can provide opportunities to encourage your daughter to practice measuring and estimating. Have her work with you on figuring out recipes, or adding up bills. Let her work the calculator as you itemize your credit card purchases.  

° Help your daughter’s teacher plan a science field trip to an exploratorium or science museum. Or, take her yourself.  

° Make puzzle books and other math and problem-solving books available to her.  

° Continue to expose her to local professional women in finance and medicine. This gives her an opportunity to know women who use math and science skills in their careers. Read biographies with her of women who were proficient in math or science. See the end of the chapter for a list of good biographies.  

Other Technical Skills  

° Arts and  crafts – The visual arts offer many opportunities to teach young people the demands of good craftsmanship: technique, good working materials, the importance of working a step at a time, or patience. It doesn’t matter what the medium you explore: drawing, coloring, painting, and sculpting make instructive and age-appropriate demands that can teach your daughter valuable life skills in formats she will find naturally intriguing.

° Mastering a musical instrument – Learning to play an instrument is another way to capitalize on children’s sense of wonder to teach them essential technical skills. Sign your daughter up for flute or trumpet lessons, or have her join the school orchestra.  

° Financial Skills  – Start early teaching your daughter how to use money. A weekly allowance is helpful to give her a sense of balancing expenditures against her cash in hand. It’s a good idea to attach the allowance to the performance of some weekly jobs around the house. Open up a savings account and have her put a certain percentage of her allowance in it. But give her the chance to spend her money how she chooses. Unwise decisions are as useful learning tools as wise ones.  

                 As she matures, draw her gradually into the family’s finances. She could help with the bookkeeping, or even manage a small stock portfolio. Girls need to get a sense of the financial world as early as they can, so that they can feel comfortable making financial decisions as adults.  

° Practical Skills – Get her a tool kit, and involve her in helping out in real-life fix-it projects like carpentry, plastering, painting, laying carpet, tinkering with the car. Simply getting her involved in household projects, even if briefly, conveys the message that such work is as much girls’ (and women’s) work as it is boys’ and men’s. Helping on household chores can produce a real sense of satisfaction, while laying down a foundation of confidence that can carry over to her adulthood. I still remember the thrill of learning how to mix concrete when I was six: it seemed magical. 

            Girls and Computers  

            In its 1998 review of girls in the schools, the AAUW’s 1998 Gender Gaps: Where Schools Still Fail Our Children found a widening gender gap in boys’ and girls’ use of computers which corresponds to a decline in the number of women entering the computer sciences at the college level. [18]   The report found that:

 °  Girls make up only a small percentage of students in junior and high-school computer science and computer design classes.  

°  The “gender gap” widens from grade eight to eleven.  

°  Girls are significantly more likely than boys to enroll in clerical and data-entry classes, the 1990’s version of typing, and less likely to enroll in advanced computer science and graphics courses.  

°  In 1996, girls comprised only 17 percent of Advanced Placement test takers in computer science.  

° Girls encounter fewer powerful, active female role models in computer games or software.  

°  School software programs often reinforce gender bias and stereotypical gender roles.  

° Girls use computers less often outside of school, and enter the classroom with less prior computer experience.  

° Girls of all ethnicities consistently rate themselves dignificantly lower than boys on computer ability.  

° Boy exhibit higher computer self-confidence and a more positive attitude about computers than do girls.  

Arguing that computer science is becoming a new “boys’ club,’ the authors of Gender Gaps point out that this trend threatens to make women bystanders in the technological 21^st century. The report also documents that teachers receive little or no training in how to use technology to create an equitable learning environment. As a result, parents need to see that their daughters learn early to become familiar with computers, both as a tool and as a toy. Your preadolescent daughter should have access to a computer, either in school or at home. Or use your local library. While the report cautions that the majority of computer software games still caters to “male” sensibilities, software companies are finally starting to produce computer games that are aimed more at girls. There are many educational games that are fun and challenging. Here are some of my students’ perennial favorites:  

Rockett’s New School features a multicultural cast of characters that help Rockett make the most of her first day at Whistling Pines Jr. High. Purple Moon.  

Secret Paths in the Forest. Girls lead a sharing-and-caring session at a secret treehouse to discuss family, feelings and friendship. Purple Moon.  

Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? This is a classic who-done-it and one of the most popular games on the market. It teaches a number of problem-solving and inductive reasoning skills, as well as expanding kids’ knowledge of geography. Versions of it are available for the U.S., Europe, the Universe, and in history. Broderbund.  

Oregon Trail. Another classic which teaches U.S. history along with problem-solving skills for staying alive and getting to Oregon by wagon train. Its counterparts Yukon Trail and Amazon Trail are also popular. The Learning Company.  

O’Dell Down Under. A perennial favorite of girls in my program. Teaches ecology and food-chain concepts. The Learning Company.  

Simm City. Very popular and involves a number of decision making skills as well as  basic spatial skills. Maxis.  

The Factory. An excellent game for developing spatial skills. Kids have to visualize figures in three dimensions.  Wings.  

Number Munchers. A simple but perennially popular game among nine and ten year olds. Teaches basic computation skills. The Learning Company

 Adolescent Girls  

            This is the age when girls’ technical interests are most at risk. You will have to find ways to help your daughter hold onto those interests and to continue to build her technical skills. For young adolescent girls, the entire notion of competencies becomes vexed in ways that do not apply to many boys. The pressures to be popular can become extreme, and girls at this age become especially vulnerable to feeling conflicted as they begin to experience the culture’s ambivalence towards feminine achievement. Many adolescents “dumb down” or scale back their ambitions as they sense that they are being asked to set aside their achievement in order to be popular. (The pressures to conform can be so strong that there’s evidence that middle-school girls’ self-esteem increases as their achievement drops, a staggering comment on contemporary culture and the mixed messages it gives about femininity and achievement.) [19]  

            There is no easy sailing through these turbulent waters. But they can be navigated, especially if you have given your daughter continuous guidance, supported her skill-building, and made it clear that she has the right to both femininity and achievement. Your understanding of the pressures she is under may help you at least tolerate more amicably some of her more extreme versions of adolescent behavior.  

° Be clear about your sense of who she is. Do not retreat from your vision of her as a complete person, with the possibilities to be both feminine and competent.  You may have to be the primary bearer of this vision when she seems confused or feels that she has lost touch with her earlier self.

 ° Show her pictures of her younger self. Remind her that adolescence is a phase, and that she needn’t give way all her hard won skills and interests in order to be an acceptable young woman.  

° Make sure your daughter understands the importance of math and science. Not only do these correlate very highly with self-esteem, but her lack of ease with math and science will limit the kinds of careers and jobs that will be available to her later on. Certainly this is true with computer skills, which are essential for even moderately skilled jobs.  

° Make the financial connection for her between math and earnings. There is a strong correlation between the level of math she masters and her predictable earnings later on. Frances Rosamond of National University has shown that, on average, starting salaries across all professions increase $2000 for every math course taken after the ninth grade! [20] Other studies have found:  

° The annual salary of careers that require just basic high-school math is $20,000.  

° The annual salary of careers that require Algebra 1 and 2 and geometry is $45,000.  

° The annual salary of careers that require advanced college math is $70,000. [21]  

° Strongly encourage your daughter to take four years of math and science in high-school. Even if she does not go on to college, this grounding in math and science will bolster self-confidence, and could prove pivotal in securing higher-paying and more rewarding job opportunities. Be watchful of your attitudes: studies show that parents are more likely to go along with a daughter’s request to drop out of math than with a son’s.  

° Be familiar with your daughter’s math and science classes and her teachers.