This One’s For the Girls: Blog #11

I didn’t realize how different girls were from boys until I became a parent of both girls and boys. When it comes to Bible study, their differences definitely surface in what interests them. Our girls definitely seek out the more relational stories in the Bible and like to ask “Why did they do that?” and “I wonder what they were thinking?” While our boys love the stories about the adventurous warriors like King David and enjoy reenacting the famous battles and adventure scenes. To help with these differences, every few months we do a “Mom and the Girls” Bible study and a “Dad and Boys” Bible study. 

In a culture that seems to want to get rid of gender differences, we want to celebrate the unique ways that God has created our girls. We want our girls to be strong, brave, smart, and feminine followers of Jesus. It’s not an all or nothing way of life. With our girls growing through their tween years, finding ways to disciple them in this season of life is something that weighs heavy on my heart. These “in between” or “tween” years can be especially challenging as society seems to want our girls to grow up too soon. Trying to find resources that aren’t too immature or mature for them has been a challenge. It seems like a lot of the resources are marketed toward young girls or teens. As I have researched sources for raising tween girls, I wanted to share with you my top 3 favorites: (book for parents, podcast, and fiction book)

1. For Parents: She is Yours: Trusting God as You Raise the Girl He Gave You by Wynter and Jonathan Pitts. In this beautifully written and fully practical book, Winter and Jonathan share a mother’s and father’s perspective on the wisdom they learned as they raised their four daughters. The book is grouped into three sections: her relationship with God, her relationship with you, and her relationship with others. Knowing how important relationships were to our girls, I knew this needed to be a big focus for me as their Mom. Teaching our girls biblical literacy is an important foundational point, but the quality of our mother and daughter relationship helps our girls trust in their relationship with their Heavenly Father. This book was so insightful that I read through it twice. It’s probably a book that I should scan back through my highlights and annotations each year to keep growing in this area. 

*Side note: If you are a fan of Priscilla Shirer, the late Wynter Pitts was her cousin. Both write with such a passionate heart for leading their children to love the Lord and follow His unique plan for their lives. Wynter was only 38 when she passed away from a heart attack. The girls and I have read several of the devotional books Wynter has written for tween girls, and they are all a perfect fit for this specific season of life. She really knew how to capture the hearts and minds of tween girls.)

2. For Moms and their Girls: Raising Brave Beauties podcast with Lynn Cowell and Michelle Nietert. Co-hosts Lynn and Michelle bring a unique perspective to this podcast as Lynn is passionate about empowering Moms and their tween girls as they follow Jesus and Michelle is passionate about raising mentally and emotionally healthy girls. Their perspectives combine beautifully to share practical wisdom for raising tween girls and nurturing the mother/daughter relationship in this tween season of life. Each episode features an interview with a different mother/daughter duo who share how they work through real challenges for female tweens. This is a great podcast to put on in the car when you are running errands or cooking your favorite meal together with your girls.
3. Favorite Tween Girls: Chapter Book Series Glimmer Girls: Light Up New York by Natalie Grant. This book was a favorite of ours, because the characters were so relatable and featured tween girls with a younger sibling. Through talking about the obstacles the characters faced, this allowed us to authentically talk about the ways our girls were experiencing similar struggles, like sibling rivalry and handling the pressure to do all things well. We were able to use the characters’ struggles and strengths as a starting off point to talk about what we thought the characters were thinking and what was motivating their words and actions. This empowered our girls to be more comfortable talking about these topics than if we first brought up those subjects in isolation. 

One night we were reading a chapter where the siblings were experiencing major sibling rivalry and one of our girls said, “Mom, did you read this chapter tonight on purpose?!” “No,” I said gently. “This is the work of the Holy Spirit, living and active, working through Christian fiction to help us grow in our relationships with one another.” What a cool parenting moment!

There are many more great resources for raising “tweens”, but these three are hands-down my favorite “go to” resources. Moms, Aunts, Grandmas, teachers, and friends, I would love to hear about your favorite resources for raising the beautiful, unique girls God has entrusted to us. What are your favorite resources for tween girls?