READING OF INTEREST & RESOURCES

Untangled

By Lisa Damour

In her New York Times best seller, Dr. Damour draws on decades of experience and the latest research to reveal the seven distinct—and absolutely normal — developmental transitions that turn girls into grown-ups, including Parting with Childhood, Contending with Adult Authority, Entering the Romantic World, and Caring for Herself. Providing realistic scenarios and welcome advice on how to engage daughters in smart, constructive ways, Untangled gives parents a broad framework for understanding their daughters while addressing their most common questions, including – My thirteen-year-old rolls her eyes when I try to talk to her, and only does it more when I get angry with her about it. How should I respond? Do I tell my teen daughter that I’m checking her phone? Where’s the line between healthy eating and having an eating disorder? My daughter’s friend is cutting herself. Do I call the girl’s mother to let her know? Perhaps most important, Untangled helps mothers and fathers understand, connect, and grow with their daughters. When parents know what makes their daughter tick, they can embrace and enjoy the challenge of raising a healthy, happy young woman.

American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers

By Nancy Jo Sales

Nancy Jo Sales is an award-winning journalist and New York Times best-selling author who has written for Vanity Fair, New York, Harper’s Bazaar and many other publications. Her book American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers (Knopf, Feb. 23, 2016) is an investigation into how social media has changed the lives of girls and presented them with unprecedented challenges.

Building Resilience in Children and Teens

by Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg 

Confronting the overwhelming amount of stress kids face today, this invaluable guide offers coping strategies for facing the combined elements of academic performance, high achievement standards, media messages, peer pressure, and family tension. The handbook acknowledges that adolescents commonly survive stress by either indulging in unhealthy behaviors or giving up completely, and its suggested solutions are aimed at strengthening resilience. The proposed plan enables kids from the age of 18 months to 18 years to build the seven crucial “C’s”—competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping, and control—needed to bounce back from challenges. AGS Faculty/Staff Summer Reading 2014

Mindset

by Dr. Carol Dweck

World-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck explains why it’s not just our abilities and talent that bring us success–but whether we approach them with a fixed or growth mindset. She makes clear why praising intelligence and ability doesn’t foster self-esteem and lead to accomplishment, but may actually jeopardize success. With the right mindset, we can motivate our kids and help them to raise their grades, as well as reach our own goals–personal and professional. Dweck reveals what all great parents, teachers, CEOs, and athletes already know: how a simple idea about the brain can create a love of learning and a resilience that is the basis of great accomplishment in every area.

Why Gender Matters

by Dr. Leonard Sax

Are boys and girls really that different? Twenty years ago, doctors and researchers didn’t think so. Back then, most experts believed that differences in how girls and boys behave are mainly due to differences in how they were treated by their parents, teachers, and friends. It’s hard to cling to that belief today. An avalanche of research over the past twenty years has shown that sex differences are more significant and profound than anybody guessed. Sex differences are real, biologically programmed, and important to how children are raised, disciplined, and educated. In Why Gender Matters, psychologist and family physician Dr. Leonard Sax leads parents through the mystifying world of gender differences by explaining the biologically different ways in which children think, feel, and act.

Girls on the Edge

by Dr. Leonard Sax

Young women are at risk today. In Girls on the Edge, Dr. Leonard Sax shares stories of girls who look confident and strong on the outside but are fragile within. He shows why a growing proportion of teen and tween girls are confused about their sexual identity and obsessed with grades or Facebook. Sax provides parents with tools to help girls become confident women, along with practical tips on helping your daughter choose a sport, nurturing her spirit through female-centered activities, and more.

Reviving Ophelia

By Mary Pipher

As a therapist, Mary Pipher was becoming frustrated with the growing problems among adolescent girls. Why were so many of them turning to therapy in the first place? Why had these lovely and promising human beings fallen prey to depression, eating disorders, suicide attempts, and crushingly low self-esteem? The answer hit a nerve with Pipher, with parents, and with the girls themselves. Crashing and burning in a “developmental Bermuda Triangle,” they were coming of age in a media-saturated culture preoccupied with unrealistic ideals of beauty and images of dehumanized sex, a culture rife with addictions and sexually transmitted diseases. They were losing their resiliency and optimism in a “girl-poisoning” culture that propagated values at odds with those necessary to survive.

Told in the brave, fearless, and honest voices of the girls themselves who are emerging from the chaos of adolescence, Reviving Ophelia is a call to arms, offering important tactics, empathy, and strength, and urging a change where young hearts can flourish again, and rediscover and reengage their sense of self.

A Fine Imitation

By Amber Brock

AGS faculty member Amber Brock (Player) is an author of historical fiction and a native of Spartanburg, SC. After graduating from Furman University, she completed an M.A. at the University of Georgia. Her time as a teacher at a girls’ school has made her an advocate for women’s education. She is a passionate student of history, an avid traveler, and “mom” to three rescue dogs. She lives with her husband, a fellow English teacher, in Atlanta, GA.