Helping your daughter succeed

At the end of last autumn term, the Girls’ Schools Association commissioned a survey of 1,000 parents of teenage girls which focused on the question, ‘How well do you know your daughter?’ The GSA was due to launch its new website, mydaughter.co.uk, in January, and the purpose of the survey was to establish what particular issues cause the parents of girls concern, and what advice they would find most valuable as they grapple with raising and educating their daughters.

Many of the survey’s findings were relatively predictable. Sex and relationships still topped the list of subjects parents found most difficult to talk to their teenage daughters about, with puberty following closely behind. One interesting finding, however, was that 71 per cent of the mothers surveyed said they felt it was significantly easier to talk to their daughters about such issues compared with how their mothers had found it to talk to them when they were the same age. The relationships between parents and daughters have clearly moved on considerably within one generation. The closeness between mothers and daughters is notable — and the expectation of such closeness certainly brings its own pressures. Fathers, in particular, were concerned that they did not spend enough time alone with their daughters. Over a third of the parents surveyed spent less than 30 minutes alone with their daughters on a typical weekday.

The survey also asked about positive and negative role models and parents’ views about who were the most important influences on teenage girls today. Family, friends and teachers ranked as the top three positive role models, in that order. Boyfriends were considered a more positive influence than politicians. At the other end of the spectrum, footballers’ wives and girlfriends (‘WAGs’), celebrity magazines and reality television were seen as the least positive influences on young girls.

Clearly, parents want their daughters to have high aspirations, to achieve success and happiness through their own efforts and talents and not to seek fame for its own sake. They could see the satisfaction to be gained from working hard to achieve your goals, rather than marrying someone who receives public acclaim because he scores them.

Celebrity culture and the trend of ‘being famous for being famous’ appears to worry parents; they want their daughters to be discriminating and to see through the superficial glamour and glitz of the celebrity lifestyle. Reality TV can be seen as sensational, intrusive and manipulative, although the victims of the manipulation arguably are those who put themselves forward for trial by the public at large. Parents perhaps fear this as having an adverse effect on impressionable teenagers. They want their daughters to have high standards and strong moral values, something which celebrities and reality TV stars are not recognised as encapsulating.

Who are the female role models to whom young women today aspire? The success of Great Britain’s contribution to the Beijing Olympics brought talented sports personalities such as Rebecca Adlington to our attention, building on the acclaim achieved by Kelly Holmes a few years before. Many girls today, if asked about the women they look up to, will cite their mothers – often professional women with considerable responsibility who balance this with their commitment to their families, including, in some cases, care of their own elderly parents too. The girls in my school say they respect and admire the considerable skills their mothers require to keep all these plates spinning. ‘WAGs’ can hardly compare. In terms of the issues which cause parents anxiety, the survey discovered that parents in the youngest age group, up to age 34, were more concerned about drink and drugs than older parents. Could it be that younger parents, closer in age to their teenage daughters, have a more acute appreciation of the pressure their offspring can be under to experiment with drink and drugs? The greatest worry for parents of 12 year old girls was bullying. At this age girls’ friendships are often shifting, and girls who were once friends, but are no longer, can become unkind. They can sometimes use the very things which brought them close to hurt each other. As relationships are so significant to girls, they feel intensely hurt at such ‘betrayal’ and accusations of bullying can quickly follow.

The quality of their daughters’ education was a significant cause of concern for many. The parents surveyed considered that their daughter’s schoolwork was the most important subject they felt they should be able to talk about, with her interests coming second to this. Parents also clearly want advice about the whole process of choosing the right school for their daughter; earlier research commissioned by the GSA reinforced the message that parents can find this process a lonely and stressful experience. It was this finding which initially led GSA to consider launching the Mydaughter website, the only website which is specifically designed for the parents of girls.

The results of the survey have proved extremely useful to GSA as we develop the website, ensuring it is responsive to the needs of parents with girls of school age who turn to the internet for advice and direction. Parents may have questions or need information about issues such as body image, self-esteem or girls’ changing friendships. They can use the forum to raise issues and also to communicate with and reassure other parents who are experiencing challenges they themselves have faced. The website is therefore evolving all the time into an increasingly effective support network for parents of daughters.

The website has already proved very popular, with 10,000 discrete visitors in the first three weeks of its operation. Many of these came from USA, India and Canada in addition to the UK. The contributors to the website are Heads and senior staff in GSA schools. Sharing our expertise in this way must constitute a significant public benefit! Our collective experience ensures we are well placed to address the kinds of questions parents may be looking to find answers to, for example: • My daughter seems to spend all her time chatting to her friends on MSN. How can I encourage her to get the balance right between social networking and real human interaction with her family?

• My daughter has just failed to get into Oxford. She is devastated. How can I help her?

• My daughter is highly able and seems to be becoming disenchanted with her current school experience. How do I go about finding a school for her which will offer her the right kind of intellectual stimulation and challenge?

• My daughter has recently fallen out with her best friend and now seems reluctant to go to school each morning. How can I help her?

In GSA schools we face such questions all the time and, through Mydaughter, GSA Heads can pool their expertise and help to address such issues. We know girls well; we have several generations’ experience of supporting and encouraging girls and working to help get the best from them. We can guide girls to aim high, to be ambitious and then to work hard to fulfil their hopes and dreams. We can help them cope with disappointment – an inevitable feature of human experience – to dust themselves off and get back on track. Sometimes the first real experience of disappointment comes at age 17 when a girl fails her driving test the first time, or does not receive an offer from Oxbridge or a place at Medical School.

We can address subjects such as sensitive discussion topics for parents and teenage girls; positive and negative role models and influences; the dangers and temptations which will face girls and how we can guide and educate them to make wise choices and informed decisions. Good schools and responsible parents create a framework for their children within which those children operate; we know we cannot live their lives for them, and sometimes we have to watch them make their own mistakes, but we can support them (and love them) through this process. The Mydaughter website is a helpful resource which parents of daughters can turn to as they negotiate this territory.

Within the Girls’ Schools Association there are schools for girls, and not simply schools with girls, and there is a difference. Girls are the focus of all we do. We know them, and we’re good with them. Mydaughter is an additional channel through which we can communicate information and demonstrate the expertise we have at our fingertips. The ‘How well do you know your daughter’ survey was one way in which we tuned in to the particular elements of raising and educating girls which might benefit from consideration in its pages.

Girls’ schools, and the professionals within them, offer young women today opportunities to achieve, to learn and to enjoy learning. We know we cannot protect our girls from the harsh realities of life but we can equip them with the skills they will need to face such realities – with confidence, self-awareness and consideration for others. We want these girls to be the best they can be – academically and in terms of their wider education, whether that involves their contribution to sport, to music, to drama, to debating, or any one of the broad range of experiences and opportunities we offer them. We want them to hone their leadership skills and to be able to assert themselves, showing self-assurance without arrogance. We work with parents to achieve all this, and the Mydaughter website is one way in which we can forge a successful partnership with the parents of girls. We work together in the best interests of the girls who are at the heart of all we do.

Jill Berry is the Head of Dame Alice Harpur School, Bedford, and is this year’s President of the Girls’ Schools Association. For more information about the Mydaughter website, please visit: www.mydaughter.co.uk This article first appeared in the Summer 2009 issue of Attain - the magazine for the parents of children attending IAPS prep schools across the UK - www.attainmagazine.co.uk