For those of you that know me personally you know that I love to spend time cruising through the local Barnes and Noble http://storelocator.barnesandnoble.com/find_a_store.do searching for new books and new titles. I love to read! My wish in life is that I had more time in my day to read books. Today, I purchased too many books… there were so many that I could not image parting with. This new haul of fiction, history and educational books will keep me busy reading until Summer! A happy day today!

The book that I started with is not such a happy topic. However, I wanted to share with you The Triple Bind by Stephen Hinshaw, Ph.D. with Rachel Kranz. Saving Our Teenage Girls from Today’s Pressures. I can’t put it down. The message is true. There is too much pressure on our teen Girls and the pressure is pushing to younger and younger girls. This book is a must read for parents of girls... for teachers... and anyone that influences the lives of girls.

I found the information below from Random House and so well stated I wanted to share it with you and encourage you to read this book!
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780345503992.html

Follow up:

In many ways, today is the best time in history to be a girl: Opportunities for a girl’s success are as unlimited as her dreams. Yet an alarm is sounding, revealing a disturbing portrait of the stresses affecting girls of all ages. Societal expectations, cultural trends, and conflicting messages are creating what psychologist and researcher Stephen Hinshaw calls “the Triple Bind.” Girls are now expected to excel at “girl skills,” achieve “boy goals,” and be models of female perfection, 100 percent of the time. The Triple Bind is putting more and more girls at risk for aggression, eating disorders, depression, and even suicide.

Dr. Hinshaw’s fascinating and groundbreaking book shows concerned parents how to listen, learn, and help girls unlock the shackles of the Triple Bind. The Triple Bind discusses many key topics, including

• Today’s trap: how internal conflict can turn self-expression into self-destruction
• Nature versus nurture: genes, hormones, and the role of biology in confronting the Triple Bind
• Life in the pressure cooker: overscheduled, overtaxed lives, and how the pressure to excel at everything sets girls up for crisis
• When virtue is its own punishment: how traditionally feminine qualities like empathy, self-awareness, and verbal ability can put girls at risk for anxiety, depression, and other disorders
• Getting all Pussycat Dolled up: the oversexualization of little girls, preteens, and teenagers
• The wired child: how cyberculture exacerbates the Triple Bind
• Girls who hit: the reasons girls are channeling pressure into violence
• The plight of normal girls: hidden aspects of the Triple Bind crisis that don’t show up in statistics

Combining moving personal stories about girls and their families with extensive research into genetic risk, vulnerability, and cultural influence, Dr. Hinshaw provides strategies and tools for parents who want to empower their daughters to deal in healthy ways with today’s pressures.