Raising daughters - With Children's Books for Girls

Ice Skate with Confidence

Motivational children's books for raising daughters

My eight-year-old became a nine-year-old recently. So, for her birthday, my wife and I took 11 little girls to a local skating rink. It was a challenge...but a lot of fun.

My daughters have skated several times before, whereas at least 5 of the 11 girls had not. I watched the kids closely as some of the girls skated around without help and with ease, while others inched their way around by holding onto the rail or falling every few feet. The faces of the kids said it all. The skaters were more confident because they were such better skaters, and the non-skaters were visibly less confident. I was holding one of the non-skaters hands as she worked her way around the rink. Whenever one of her friends whizzed past her she made comments like, "Wow, I didn't know she was so good," or "How many times has she skated?"

As the hour or so wore on, the skaters began to help the non-skaters. They all had a blast, but as we left the rink, the skaters walked with a lot more swagger...it was stunning.

So, it's one of those many little things that can begin a trend of success and confidence. The world of children is very physical and very competitive. It's almost like the jungle (okay, okay, I'm overstating that a bit...but kids are trying to find their way...to find out who they are and who they should try to become). Skating is an opportunity to gain confidence or lose confidence. I'm glad I've invested a little time with my girls in skating...although, I didn't realize I should be glad until the party the other night.

A Girl Named Pants!

Raising daughters to be bilingual

I was raised in a household of five children within six years.  We grew up in a 1200 square foot house with parents who were raised in even smaller houses.  While life was probably just as complicated, looking back it seems to have been much simpler.  We had no bike helmets, no car seats, no seatbelts, no racial diversity, powdered milk, and bulk everything.  We walked over two miles to elementary school (regardless of the weather) and we played outside all day long (again, regardless of the weather).  And, everyone we knew spoke one language; English (and not the British kind, the American kind).  World travel was hard and expensive.  Even international phone calls were expensive.  In those days telling someone that you were on a “long distance call” meant something.  For Americans, training children in multiple languages was an extremely low priority.  Unlike places in Europe where a four hour drive could put you in a new country with a new language, a four hour drive here just put you in a place with different restaurants. 

Things are different today.  The world is much smaller than it was.  Depending upon where you’re coming from, a flight to Chicago could be more expensive than a flight to Tokyo or London.  Today, roughly one in seven Americans is Hispanic. Hispanics now constitute the largest minority group in the United States. As of July 1, 2004, Hispanics accounted for 14.1 percent of the population, around 41.3 million people. The Hispanic growth rate over the July 1, 2003 to July 1, 2004 period was 3.6 percent - higher than any other ethnic group in the United States, and in fact more than three times the rate of the nation's total population (at 1.0 percent). The projected Hispanic population of the United States for July 1, 2050, is of 102.6 million people. According to this projection, Hispanics will constitute 24% of the nation’s total population on that date. 

Today, Chinese American is the fastest growing segment of the US population (50%growth rate).  And, China is the most populated country on earth.  Their current population is approximately 1,306,313,812.  As a frame of reference, the U.S. population is approximately 295,734,134.    For an even more compelling frame of reference, the entire planet is inhabited by only around 6 Billion people.  More than one out of every six people is Chinese.  And their influence upon the world’s economy is growing fast.

Why am I spewing these statistics to you?  Well, to demonstrate that while being bilingual in the U.S. may not have been important for my generation, it might be critical for our children; for our daughters in particular.  Historically, the best communicators have dominated their careers.  I'm often shocked to see really, really smart people trapped in jobs that will never go anywhere.  It’s usually because they aren’t able to communicate their ideas.  They aren’t able to build career relationships because their communication skills are so weak.  In the U.S., for most careers, communication has only been in English.  But things are changing.

It’s hard to read any news without seeing the impact of globalization.  Business is international.  And while English is still the international business language, as non-English speaking nations such as China become more and more influential with respect to the world’s economy, that will naturally change.  Maybe in won’t be China.  Maybe it will be India (with approximatley 1,080,264,388 people).  Maybe it will be another country all together. 

So, who will be the best communicators of the future?  Who will have the power in business deals, in careers, even in relationships?  There’s a lot of time from now until then for our girls to become bilingual.  But, the earlier we begin, the better. 

Beyond the benefit of being able to communicate in multiple languages, learning of a second language has tremendous educational benefits for children. Studies have shown that students who learn another language have improved overall school performance, increased creativity and are better at solving complex problems. In fact, students who averaged four or more years of foreign language study scored higher on the verbal section of the SAT than those who studied four or more years in any other subject. 

While I hate to shamelessly promote A Girl Named Pants, I would be remiss if I didn’t mentioned that we have produced the first two books of the children’s book series in both English and Spanish.  There is a narrow window to expose our daughters to second languages.  There is no time like the present to begin.

Does anyone know of any good second language programs to help children to become bilingual?

Be a "Life Coach" to your Daughters!

In business, one of our greatest tools (if we’re lucky) is a mentor; someone who has been through it all before and cares enough about us to guide us as we make our way down the challenging roads.  Almost every business book we read preaches about the value of mentoring.  And why not.  I know significantly more about life and business today than I did ten years ago, and I’m sure that in ten years I will know significantly more than I do today.  Learning is a time consuming and, at times, painful process.  So, learning lessons and getting guidance from someone who has been down the same road before can be a huge advantage and an extremely valuable component to success in life.

A mentor or life coach is even more valuable to children.  Their brains are more open to learning.  Their spirit is more willing to become something new.  Since they aren’t set in their ways, considering a different approach isn’t different for them at all; it’s a daily fact of life.  The question is, WHO is going to influence our children?  Who is going to be their life coaches; their mentors?  TV?  Their classmates and neighborhood friends?  Celebrities?  Lyrics from songs?  It’s frightening when you think about it.

Almost two years ago I decided to become the life coach to my daughters.  When I think about my life and everything in it, other than God, my children are the most important part.  They’re more important to me than my business, than my fitness, and even more important than my own life.  Yet, for my business I build monthly, quarterly and annual plans.  I dedicate myself to hitting targets and I am constantly course correcting as new information comes to light.  For my fitness, I am dedicated to a rigorous swimming and running regiment that I continually tweak and adjust as conditions change in my life.  And for myself, I build a plan every year, and treat my goals as necessary for my survival.

With all three, I am continually seeking advice and coaching from experts who have succeeded in these areas before.  Yet, NONE of those things are as important to me as the success and happiness of my daughters.  And my daughters are only 5, 5, and 6 years old.  They don’t know how to plan.  They don’t understand the importance of planning.  They don’t appreciate challenges they’ll face in life.  They don’t know that learning a foreign language is significantly easier for a 6 year old than for a 25 year old.  They don’t know that spending a half hour of reading each night as a 7 year old is like putting money in the bank.  They don’t know that beginning to gain financial literacy as a child will virtually ensure an early retirement.  But we do know those things.  We learned them for ourselves.  Nobody taught them to us, and as a result, many of us are not bilingual as adults, or prepared to retire at age 45.  Most of us didn’t build many of the skills we would love to have built as children, when it would have been easy, when we had all the time in the world to practice. 

So, as the life coach to my daughters, I decided to put at least as much time into planning for their futures as for my own.  I decided to build a plan at the beginning of each year to help them build blocks of life without even knowing they’re building blocks.  I decided to build a plan that contains monthly, quarterly, and annual targets.  And I decided to encourage them to achieve these invisible (to them) goals regularly; every morning, every night, every weekend.

This has been going for 18 months now and it is going well.  I’ve learned that to succeed at this, the goals have got to be achievable and the process has got to be fun.  If not, the plan will crumble quickly and the only result will be frustration.  I experienced a bit of that early on.

Creating children’s books and a children’s character for girls (www.agirlnamedpants.com) has helped me a lot.  It’s inevitable that the world of entertainment is going to compete with me for my daughters’ attention, to be their life coach.  So I decided to create some positive entertainment of my own.  With “A Girl Named Pants,” I can help my girls to build important characteristics like courage, compassion, perseverance, and entrepreneurship without directly teaching them anything at all.  So far, it seems to be working!  

How to help your daughters believe in themselves; to believe they can do anything!

Over two years ago I went to the movies with my oldest of three daughters, Olivia.  She had just turned four-years-old.  The animated movie was “Treasure Planet.”  In the movie, a huge sailboat sailed through space in search of a planet famed to have treasure buried in its center.  The captain of the ship was a female dog (the fact that the captain was a female is relevant).  The captain’s first lieutenant was a big stone creature (clearly a “male” stone creature). 

During the movie, Olivia turned to me and whispered, “Dad, what kind of creature is the captain, anyway?” 

“A dog,” I said. 

She seemed puzzled and said, “It doesn’t look like a dog.  It looks like a big stone creature.” 

“Olivia,” I said, “THAT’S not the captain, the DOG is the captain.” 

Olivia seemed even more puzzled at this point and said, “Dad, that dog CAN’T be the captain.  The dog is a GIRL.  GIRLS can’t be captains.”

Olivia had just turned four-years-old and the world had already taught her that she had limitations.  The world had already taught her that since she was a girl, there were things she couldn’t do…things that only boys could do.

I was shocked.  I was overwhelmed.  I was heart-broken.  My mission began at that moment to help my daughters believe they can do anything (I have three daughters; Olivia (6), Emma (5), and Gabrielle (5)).  To empower my daughters, I created a children's character; A Girl Named Pants, and Children’s books for girls about a girl named Pants (www.agirlnamedpants.com).  Pants is a wonderful little girl.  She is eight-years-old.  She’s courageous, confident, and compassionate.  She’s a girl who can do anything, and who will help my daughters and little girls all over the world believe they can do anything, too. 

In addition to creating a five book series of children’s books for girls about A Girl Named Pants, I decided to become a life coach to my daughters and convert my home into a motivation and success center.  It’s been over two years and my tactics are working beautifully.  My daughters are blossoming into can-do little girls. And since I also want to help little girls all over the world to believe in themselves, I would like to share my tactics with anyone who is reading.  I will be adding to this blog every few days so if you want to empower your daughters and help them to believe in themselves, please subscribe to the blog.  If you have ideas that work for you and your daughters, please share them with us!