Talking to Little Girls - A Brief Excursus on How To

For those who are attempting to raise strong girls and daughters, or know someone who is, absorb this short blog article, "How to Talk to Little Girls." (Link below.)

Be sure to read the comments at the end, too. 

During my Kindermusik educator training, my consciousness was raised as to how often we say "good boy" or "good girl" as praise for an action, which directly links performance to worth as a person. Instead, I learned to praise the action: "Your singing is so happy! I love it! Keep it up!" "You really drummed those drums so steadily! Great job!" Etc. ("Your singing is so happy" not grammatically correct, of course; but these are pre-k children; so, IMHO, for the desired message to be received is sometimes more important than exact grammar.)

On a related theme, this article speaks briefly to the issue of praising or addressing kids, in this article's case girls, primarily on their looks, rather than on their inner qualities. It's not a bad thing in and of itself; the only problem is that it's usually the first response/greeting we give and its rarely evened out with affirmation of a positive inner quality in close proximity to the first comment. And, typically, an affirmation of a positive inner quality is not usually the first response.

It's true, as some responders pointed out, that we do praise boys for their looks/appearances; however, if you'll begin to notice in the next few days, we do it overwhelmingly more with girls and we do it much more as a first-reaction.
Food for thought.


Blog Article: How to Talk to Little Girls

Unexpected Motivation: Little Lydia

Just now I read the new blog post of some friends from church, whom I don't know very well but would like to kind-of-thing, regarding their newborn baby Lydia. After two months of scary incidents with Lydia, such as seizures and liver, brain and kidney problems, they finally learned that she has been diagnosed with an incurable genetic disorder called Zellweger Syndrome. Prognosis: 2-18 months. Despite the tears that stung my eyes, I managed to slowly read the rest of the post. Jen, the mom, described their feelings and numbness as right alongside their confidence in the Lord for Lydia's well-being and healing. They're trusting God's plan for Lydia's life, as well as their own. I was impressed to the point of being nearly incredulous to read Jen's wise words, despite her personal numbness right now:

We know you have been praying so faithfully and I really didn’t want to have to give you bad news. We wanted God to heal her - we wanted all those prayers to be answered. And He can still do that. We have faith that He can. But we are also accepting whatever it is He has ordained. Since the moment we found out I was pregnant, over and over we committed her into His hands, knowing that she never really belonged to us. For her to be in His hands is the safest place she can be and that is where we will continue to leave her.

So true. So faithful.

God still is good, wise and merciful, no matter how our hearts ache. Still, it's time for God's family to wrap their arms around Micah and Jen and Lydia, help them walk their path and keep lifting up Lydia. Her precious little life isn't in vain. She'll bless her parents and the rest of her extended family, as well as her Christian family and what has become her hospital family. And she'll continue to bless those around her just by being, until God takes her from our presence to his.

I feel, perhaps strangely (but I'm willing to accept that), a sense of responsibility to Lydia to run that much harder the path God has laid ahead of me in terms of ministry and calling: to write the book that's in my heart for his women and to help God's women come to maturity in Christ through knowledge, study and understanding of the Word. I feel that responsibility to my own daughter, too, and I need to keep pressing forward.

Through a glass darkly...

My husband is my my official back-scratcher. You know, for those itches that are squarely centered between my shoulder blades that I just can't reach and I need help to satisfy them. I have theological itches, too: questions that need scratching until the itch is satisfied, but, like the itch that's out of reach, you can't quite reach the spot.

I have these itches because I do see "through a glass darkly" (1 Cor. 13:12). I know I'm not the only person who has them. Perhaps you do, too. If so, welcome.

As a woman who follows Christ, I want to honor my Lord and his Word and to walk in step with the Spirit; so I need to stay on the itch until I'm finally able to reach the spot and give it at least a workable scratch, one that works for a while. This is the best we can do, I think: responsibly discern a biblical and theological answer that makes sense and "works" and go from there until more information comes to light.