More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Meg Meeker
Read between
March 6 - March 10, 2019
The concepts presented in the following pages are profoundly simple. But we all know how difficult it is to implement simple truths.
You will influence her entire life because she gives you an authority she gives no other man.
The programs on television have changed right under your nose. Studies show that the amount of sexual content increased from 67 percent in 1998 to 77 percent in 2005.2
40.9 percent of girls fourteen to seventeen years old experience unwanted sex, primarily because they fear that their boyfriends will get angry.
46.7 percent of students (girls and boys) will be sexually active before high school ends.
As many as 90 percent of people infected with herpes type 2 do not know they are infected. 14 Forty-five million people in America are infected with herpes type 2, and one million become infected each year.
35.5 percent of all high school girls have had sad, hopeless feelings for longer than two weeks.
27.8 percent of high school students (female and male) drank alcohol before age thirteen.
Within the last year, 74.9 percent of high school students (female and male) have had one or more drinks each day for several days in a row.
Kids spend, on average, 6.5 hours per day with media.
26 percent of the time, they are using more than one device.26 This means that 8.5 hours’ worth of media exposure per day is packed into 6.5 hours. (This is equivalent to a full-time job.)
Kids spend more than three hours a day watching TV.
Kids with TVs in their bedrooms watch, on average, an hour and a half more TV per day than kids who don’t have TVs in their bedrooms.
Parent connectedness is the number-one factor in preventing girls from engaging in premarital sex and indulging in drugs and alcohol.
Girls with doting fathers are more assertive.
Daughters who perceive that their fathers care a lot about them, who feel connected to their fathers, have significantly fewer suicide attempts and fewer instances of body dissatisfaction, depression, low self-esteem, substance use, and unhealthy weight.
Girls with fathers who are involved in their lives have higher quantitative and verbal skills and higher intellectual functioning.
Parental control and monitoring are effective deterrents against adolescent misbehavior.
Kids do better academically if their fathers establish rules and exhibit affection.
parenting may increase a man’s emotional growth and increase his feelings of value and significance.
The only way you will alienate your daughter in the long term is by losing her respect, failing to lead, or failing to protect her. If you don’t provide for her needs, she will find someone else who will—and that’s when trouble starts. Don’t let that happen.
Authority is not a threat to your relationship with your daughter—it is what will bring you closer to your daughter, and what will make her respect you more.
Let me tell you a secret: many daughters challenge their fathers too. They’ll dive into a power struggle with you, not to see how tough you are, but to see how much you really care about them. So remember that when she pushes hard against your rules, flailing, crying that you are mean or unfair, she is really asking you a question: Am I worth the fight, Dad? Are you strong enough to handle me? Make sure she knows the answer is yes.
One of the best things fathers can do is raise their daughters’ expectations of life. That will directly affect how your daughter talks, how she dresses, how well she does in school, even what sports or musical instruments she chooses to play. You can help her set goals, help her define a higher purpose for her life, and as a result, her self-esteem will skyrocket. And it will bring you closer, because she’ll recognize you as a leader and an ally, helping her to chart a better course.
live your moral beliefs and act with authority.
how a father responds to his daughter’s sexual assault can be as significant a turning point in her life as the assault itself.
True masculinity is the moral exercise of authority. And your little girl needs it.
1. Make a plan.
2. Have courage under fire.
In the best men, kindness, strength, and perseverance go together.
3. Be the leader.
4. Don’t cave, persevere.
You Are Her First Love
Thomas Aquinas regarded love as the root of all other passions—hate, jealousy, and fear—and
Words Use them.
Instead of saying, “I love you because you’re so beautiful,” tell her that you love her because there is no one else in the world like her.
some girls don’t develop adult cognitive skills until their early twenties.
the adolescent brain, while fully grown in size, is still a long way from maturity.
One of the last regions of the brain to mature is the pre-frontal cortex—home of the so-called “executive” functions—planning, setting priorities, organizing thoughts, suppressing impulses, and weighing the consequences of one’s actions.
They rebel because the rules aren’t balanced by anything else.
no seventeen-year-old girl—no matter how well behaved—should be at home alone overnight.
Most parents pull away from their teenage daughters, assuming they need more space and freedom. Actually, your teenage daughter needs you more than ever. So stick with her. If you don’t, she’ll wonder why you left her.
As a dad, whenever your daughter is in a tough situation, all you have to do is ask her this simple question: “So what can you do about it?” And it’s worth asking that question in situations throughout her life.
Alcoholics and depressives need help. But they can get that from a doctor. Your daughter needs to be protected, and you are her shield.
Show her what healthy love looks like.
If you want her to marry a man with integrity, a man who will try to love her well, a man who will exercise courage with his family, protect her, and embody manly humility rather than arrogant narcissism, then show her integrity.
Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers by Christian Smith,
33 percent of middle and high school students have thought of killing themselves.
And girls tend to see more similarities between God and their parents than do boys.35 A study headed by Hope College professor Jane Dickie found that fathers strongly influenced their daughter’s perception of God as nurturing.36
Sophisticated electronics aren’t enough. Nothing substitutes for the real live presence of another person.
