Keeping girls from growing up too fast

It's painful and beautiful to watch your little girl blossom into a young woman during her teen years. It's just painful when the blossoming begins at 6.Dannah Gresh, bestselling author and mom of two 16-year-old girls, knows the phenomenon well. In her new book, "Six Ways to Keep the 'Little' in Your Girl" (Harvest House, $14), she offers tips for slowing down the warp speed at which young girls seem to be maturing. We talked to Gresh about parenting girls.

Q Do you have to keep your defenses up constantly against a world trying to accelerate the maturing process?

A Absolutely. Most people peddling the things being sold to our daughters aren't concerned about them becoming strong, wholesome, global contributors to society. Their concern is money. Last year [2009], $43 billion was spent by 8- to 12-year-old girls on anything from lip gloss to miniskirts to toys. It's a warfare mentality for parents in this consumer culture.

Q They weren't always marketed to so young, were they?

A "Tween" was not a marketing demographic 15 years ago. And a lot of parents are more concerned with their kids fitting in and not being bullied than they are about virtues like self-control, kindness, generosity.

Q Some of your tips tackle mature topics: periods, sex. How do these conversations keep girls little?

A Value formation occurs in children primarily before the age of 10 [when] they're really deciding what they believe, from "Why do I watch what I watch? Is it good for me?" to "Do I believe there's a God?" We tend to think we should wait until they're teenagers to have those conversations, but the 8- to 12-year-old years are the counseling years. You get your kids one-on-one and you help them discover what they believe and help form their values. You're talking to them in age-appropriate terms, building a foundation.

A My kids and I watch "Glee." We watch "Modern Family." We're on Facebook. We're not sheltering our kids to the point of them not being exposed to the world and what's in it. We are limiting some of those things, so rather than the world being the expert on everything, we are the experts. And other people whose values we trust are the experts. We're trying to raise globally responsible citizens. That requires that we teach values.

Q Your book is Christian-based. Are these lessons for people of all faiths?

A Absolutely. One of the things that's so cool about my research for this book is that some thinkers I normally would have points of contention with, on a lot of these areas we find a lot of common ground. We've all given a thumbs down to Bratz dolls. We see the message they're selling to our girls. I don't want my daughter thinking if she can get a guy's attention, she's valuable. She's valuable because she's smart and adorable and funny and cool.

Dannah Gresh's tips for fostering age-appropriate behavior in girls:

• Give her dolls and simple toys for play.

• Limit screen time.

• Reject materialism and preach modesty when it comes to clothes.

• Become the carpool/sleepover parent.