Girls on the Edge by Leonard Sax (15-Sep-2011) Paperback Paperback

This book is packed with research and anecdotal evidence designed to aid a parent in raising a daughter(s). I wish that I had read it when my girls were still young, but it is helpful and relevant even with them currently in college. Current day pressures to girls and young women are not only addressed, but ideas and solutions are offered as remedies. I will be sharing this book with my three daughters as a reference for themselves, others and some day, their own daughters. Thank you, Dr. Sax for your insights. Now time for me to begin reading your next book, "Boys Adrift"!

Eye opener

This book paints a very bleak picture of a girls' world in 21st century America. No doubt things aren't great (and worse) for many girls today, but reading this book you'd think that nearly every girl or young woman in this country is about to have her life ruined through drugs, prostitution/sexual abuse, and/or violence. I don't see evidence to justify that sort of alarmism.That doesn't mean, of course, that the topics in this book aren't good matter for thought: They are, and several of the many sources referenced in this book are certainly interesting, and worthy of consideration to adjust some of my habits in raising our daughters.However, over and over again, the book makes the mistake of presenting abductive reasoning as if it had the strength of deductive reasoning. I.e., the author introduces an issue X in girls' lives, usually with some statistics indicating that it's a significant issue, then tells a horrible story of that issue resulting in the worst possible outcome, then posits a possible reason R for X, and then goes on to treat the eradication of R as *the main* solution for issue X. Typically, evidence of R being a significant contributor to issue X is left out, or some unconvincing statistics (and worse graphs) are presented to justify an alarmist position toward various products and practices (plastic bottles, gymnastics, coed classes, atheism, etc.).Part of the problem here is what is known as "Simpson's Paradox" or the "Yule-Simpson effect": Statistics about subgroups of the population seem to indicate one conclusion, but if you look at the complete statistics, the opposite can be true. It very unintuitive, but it's definitely worth reading up on that effect, because it results in all kinds of publications to mislead (accidentally or not) their readers about the causes of various issues of our age.So, overall, I wouldn't recommend this book other than perhaps as a list of topics (short) and references. It's "easy reading" in a sense, but I found it to be a lot of work to separate what's right with what appears to be simple superstition (despite being used to reviewing papers for publications in peer-reviewed journals; admittedly for a different field altogether).

This book is for parents of girls (mine is a tween) who want to learn about today's risks. Not as compared with 100 years ago, but compared with the 20 or 30 years ago. What's different between now and when you grew up? The author presents the latest research bearing on the subject. His conclusions are compelling. He does offer concrete advice as well. On each of the risks he presents, he does lay out things parents can say or do to counter them.Some of his subjects are controversial, such as sexuality and gender differences. But if you read his book with an open mind, I challenge you to disagree with his conclusion. For example, he argues that we need to deal with girls in sports differently, not unequally (keep Title IX funding), but differently. Among the reasons include the fact that girls' brains are different from boys' brains in that they seem to get concussions more easily (perhaps because they have less of a water cushion). And the fact that girls' knees are different from boys' knees. The important thing is that we need to be on the lookout for the different way that girls are affected because they're built differently. Coaches and teachers need to know this.It's an important read for parents of girls.

It isn't enough to be a girl, a woman, a mother and now a grandmother, our society and our lives have changed so much over the past decades, it becomes necessary to revue the situation again from square one. There is no better place to do that than in this book. Chapter after chapter, I found myself nodding and saying, "yes, I can see how this is the problem now", then reading on to see if a solution would present itself. The thought comes: What are we doing to our girls today and what can we do to counteract the undesirable outcomes? The total solution is not here, but there are many suggestions as to how to cope with the fragile personalities of the female tweens and teens in our world and lives today. I am passing the book on to my daughter in the hope that she will be able to help her own daughter through some of the staggering situations which face her generation and enable her to grow into a confident and happy young woman. If you have a tween or teen age daughter, relative, or friend, you really need to read this book. It is highly recommended.