This blog mentions several great resources for our daughters. Check it out!

Fighting for our Daughters | Psychology Today 
By Pamela Cytrynbaum 
New Moon Girls - an excellent magazine and online resource and community 
providing resources, friendship, great reading materials and a smart, 
exciting, safe community on and off line for your daughters and you to 
learn, grow and have … 
<http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/because-im-the-mom/200910/fighting-our-daughters>

A quick inspiration for readers and writers.  In New Moon’s safe online community, girls ages 8 and up have the chance to chat live online with many wonderful authors.

Today, Wednesday, September 8 -

Rachel Simmons - author of The Curse of The Good Girl and Odd Girl Out. 7-8 pm EST. For safety, the chat is open to members only. Join: http://ow.ly/rL7a

Tomorrow, Thursday, September 9

Jane Smiley, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist (and one of my personal author heroes!) has written her first Young Adult novel: The Georges and the Jewels.  Girls can chat with her from 7-8pm EST. For safety, the chat is open to members only. Join: http://ow.ly/rL7a

Spread the word!

Guest Post by Luna, The Spirit of New Moon
(Follow me on twitter @LunaNewMoon)

I can’t believe Autumn is already here and September is drawing to a close. The change of seasons has me reflecting on all the changes New Moon has gone through and the wonderful memories we’ve made.

September is a birthday for us: two birthdays actually. This month marks the 16th year of continuous publication of New Moon Girls magazine. It also marks the 1 year anniversay of NewMoon.com, the website that has revolutionized how we reach girls and how girls participate with each other to create the New Moon community.

Back in 1993, singer/songwriter Ann Reed wrote and recorded a beautiful song for us. For our birthday, Marisa, Associate Editor at New Moon, dug up early photographs and combined then with photos of New Moon at work today and Ann’s song to create a video. Thank you, Marisa! The result is beautiful. It really takes us back to the hope, optimism, hard work, and great accomplishments of those early years, and shows us how truly alive the mission still is today.

I’m so happy to be able to share this video and the wonderful history of New Moon with you. I hope you like it as much as we do:

To see other special birthday content and more on the history of New Moon Girls, CLICK HERE.

Love,
Luna
Tweeting inspirational messages and wisdom from girls @LunaNewMoon

Guest Blog by Author Rachel Simmons

I’ve been re-reading “The Power of Now,” which I like to pull out when I feel pesky thoughts getting the better of me. Especially those middle of the night ones. Did she not reply to my email because she’s mad at me? Why is the dog chewing on herself? Is something burning? As pretty much everyone and their mom know thanks to Oprah, Eckhart Tolle says sticking to the Now frees us from worrying about the future and grinding about past mistakes. The Now is the key to more focus, peace and joy.

Which got me thinking about parenting. Last month, I ran some workshops for parents on how to guide kids through their social challenges. I like to use the tools of drama (the theater kind, not the girl kind) to teach, so I had parents write out scripts of their toughest conversations. Then they performed them.

Some of the conversations were about sibling rivalry; others were variations on the car ride home after an agonizing day at school. In each script, parents responded to their children in one of two ways: they immediately gave advice or pursued a line of questioning designed to get details about incidents, which then turned into giving advice.

When I work with parents, I ask them to think about talking with their kids on two levels. On the first ‘literal’ level, you’re talking about what happened today at school. But on the second ‘meta’ level, you’re teaching your child something about the big picture, a life lesson. Say your child gets left behind at recess by an exclusive girl, and you give her your Five Point Plan. Your Literal Conversation is telling your daughter how to handle that girl. Your Meta Conversation is teaching her that she might not be capable of figuring out what to do on her own.

I had each parent write down his thoughts, feelings and fears during the conversation he wrote about. I feel helpless and afraid, one parent wrote. I think, Why doesn’t she talk to me? wrote another. The fears? My child will have no friends. I’m doing the wrong thing. I am screwing up my kid. When I asked how many conversations were driven by these worries, every hand in the room went up.

Eckhart Tolle says anxiety about the future clogs our pipes. It keeps us from the creativity and centered thinking that is possible when we are not gripped by our fears. This is true of parenting, too. When parents let their what if anxieties drive their dialogues, they often grab the steering wheel and try to drive their kids’ lives. Do this. Try that. Stay right here while I mow the other girl’s mother down in the carpool lane. When parents don’t allow their children to own their situations and muddle through their own process, they prevent kids from developing the coping skills that make them resilient.

Parents are under so much pressure to produce results, whether it’s a kid who gets into Harvard or invited to the bat-mitzvah of the year. Tolle says, “do not be concerned with the fruit of your action, just give attention to the action itself.” Try to lessen your reliance on the future to satisfy you as a parent. Even if you fail to repair, remember how much your child gains through her challenges, whether it’s developing her standards for relationship or knowing when to walk away. When your fears about the future ventriloquate through your parenting, it’s you who loses the steering wheel to your fear. As an alternative, try empathizing before anything else. Connect with her feelings (that doesn’t mean mirroring them) and affirm her experience right now. That’s the Now of parenting.

Easier said than done, I know. Just give it a try. The next time you have a tough conversation with your kid, think about the two conversations: literal and meta. What are you teaching your child on a bigger level about personal responsibility and dealing with stress? How much is anxiety writing the script? How would the conversation look if you weren’t operating from a place of fear?

Seriously, did I leave the oven on?

Rachel Simmons is the author of The Curse of the Good Girl: Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence and Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls. Her website offers blogs for girls and adults, and weekly Girltips. Follow her on Twitter @racheljsimmons.

Suicide is an uncommon topic in tween media, but it’s important and appropriate for the age group. People who think kids aren’t at risk for depression, self-harm, and suicide because of their young age have a false sense of security.

September is Suicide Prevention Month. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, girls ages 10 to 14 have the fastest growing suicide rate of any population group, with the rate increasing 75.9% between 2003 and 2004 (the most recent data available). It’s a frightening statistic. If you’re the parent of a girl, I invite you to explore some of the great expert articles we are featuring on the front page of Daughters.com this week.

We’re also featuring information and resources for girls at NewMoon.com. Please take a moment to watch Kitty Westin’s video on the importance of suicide prevention and awareness. Then check out New Moon’s features for yourself, and share them with the girls in your life.

A holiday weekend is a great opportunity to spend time connecting with your girl. This week at Daughters.com, we’re sharing tips for creating quality time together every day, not just the holidays. Check out our great feature articles.

We’re also having some fun here at New Moon Girl Media! It feels like the September/October issue of New Moon Girls magazine just went out the door. But we’re already deep into the planning stages of the November/December issue. We thought it would be great to get your input on our next cover! So we’re conducting a poll.

The theme for the November/December issue is “Believe It or Not!” We’ve chosen three images that could be used on the next cover. Tell us which one you like the most!

Click Here to Vote!

Last week, New Moon Girls launched Girl2Girl Talk, an IM program, as a new member-only benefit.  Lots of special safety features make this different from typical IM services like AIM or Yahoo.  It’s a safe way for girls to starting IMing with friends and learn about safe internet behavior in a supportive environment.  Parents may read transcripts of their daughter’s chats, too, if they want to know what’s going on in them.

Safety and fun are the  top priorities at New Moon and G2G has strong safety features:

1. No girl can begin instant chatting without receiving parental permission first.

2. G2G allows members to add each other to their Friends Lists. Girls can chat instantly, one-on-one or in groups, to other girls on their Friends Lists. Only New Moon Girls members have access to Girl2Girl Talk.

3. Parents control their child’s Girl2Girl Talk account through the Parent Account they create. In the parent account, they can:
a. Allow or Remove a child’s access to Girl2Girl Talk
b. Review, block, and unblock members on a child’s Friends List
c. Enable or disable weekly transcripts. When transcripts are enabled, a once-weekly record of a child’s chat activity is sent to a parent email address.

4. Girl2Girl Talk allows real-time chatting. It uses advanced filtering technology to prevent the sharing of phone numbers, email addresses, mailing addresses, profanity, and other inappropriate language and information sharing.

5. Girl2Girl Talk includes a “report abuse” button. Pushing the button sends a chat’s transcript to New Moon staff. Girls can use the button if a conversation makes them feel unsafe or uncomfortable, or if the girl they are chatting with breaks New Moon Girls’ membership rules. Girls who abuse the Girl2Girl feature are contacted by the staff and risk having their membership canceled.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on girls IMing. What safety features do you think are most important?  Please comment!

Last time, I shared some thoughts about setting limits for summer sleepovers. But how do we do that in practice?

8-13 years old

Know the families whose houses she’s going to and be sure you’re comfortable with the situations and supervision.  Give them info about how to contact you if you won’t be home.  If she has special needs or concerns about a sleepover, ask if the host family is comfortable with that.

• Elly invited you to seleepover-that sounds fun.  I’ll call her Dad to find out the details.
• I told the Shapiros about your insulin testing and when we drop you off I’ll show them how to help you with it.

Have clear guidelines for her about party situations that are green light, yellow light & red light.  Be specific about what each type is so she can learn to assess them herself.

• We’ve come up with guidelines about what kind of parties you can definitely go to or defiitely not go to.  The “yellow lights” are ones we need to look at case by case.
• A “red light” is if there are no adults in the house, there are high school kids there, or kids are drinking, smoking, using drugs or making out.

Welcome her friends to your house at any time.  You can get to know them and they can get to know you.  It’s a good indication that your daughter is comfortable with the friends when she brings them home.

14 and up

Continue with clear rules that recognize she’s more mature and put additional trust in her judgment.  Make an agreement that you will come pick her up anywhere if she calls you and you won’t ask questions about it until the next day.  If she shows a lapse in judgment, have a clear, reasonable consequence agreed upon ahead of time.

• It’s still non-negotiable that there has to be an adult in the house and no drinking, smoking, drugs or sex going on.
• You need to call us when you leave one place and go to another.  You need to be home by midnight.

If she does things you don’t want her to, tell her openly and calmly about the concerns or fears you have about it.  And use the consequence you already told her about.

• I was very worried when you weren’t home by curfew and didn’t call me.  You knew you were safe but I didn’t.

If you did things as a teenager that you regret, this is the age when it’s appropriate to tell her about your experience and the consequences and why you wish you hadn’t done it.  Give her the facts and your feelings but don’t make it sound worse than it was.

Words, Phrases and Actions to Use

• I trust you
• You have good judgment in friends.
• Fun
• Communication
• Keeping in touch
• Rules
• Maturity
• Curfew

What Not to Say and Do

Don’t prohibit her from going to all parties.  Don’t say:

• I know what kind of stupid stuff goes on at parties in junior high.
• No way you’re going.

Don’t distrust her or her friends unless they give you clear cause to do that.  Don’t say:

• If boys are there they’ll just want to get you drunk.
• You can’t bring those kids in our house-they’ll make a mess.

Kirsten just finished fifth grade and just got invited to her first girl-boy party.  I didn’t expect the whole dating thing to come up so soon.  She’s much too young for that.  But she desperately wants to go to the party.  How do I decide what to do?  Lillian

Parties and sleepovers are a big part of girls’ social life starting in the middle elementary years—especially during the summer.  Her first sleepover at a friends’ house is a definite rite of passage for her and you.  Most girls really enjoy getting together, playing games, watching videos and talking.  The downside of all-girl parties is that they might become occasions for social bullying by cliques particularly if they’re not adequately supervised.  Many girls will continue to have girl-only parties throughout their teen years and that’s healthy.

Girl-boy parties are a different terrain for parents.  Often they start happening before girls and boys are actually dating or having romances.  This can be good, especially when they’re a way for girls and boys to interact in an informal, group situation that doesn’t involve pairing up.  It’s a chance for them to learn something about social interaction with each other with nothing at stake.  It’s also a chance for parents to get a sense of the group(s) their daughter befriends.  This is all assuming that the parties are well-supervised by adults and don’t include any alcohol or drug use.  As she gets older, you need to negotiate firm rules about the types of parties she can and can’t attend.  Ultimately, in her last couple years of high school, you want to be able to trust her judgment enough that she handles her own decisions as long as she keeps you informed about where she is and honors the curfew you agree on.

Today is Luna’s 17th birthday! As the spirit of New Moon, she came into being on this day in 1992 when I had the idea for a magazine by girls that would support girls and their creativity as they grow up.

Luna quickly became a favorite of our readers and that’s still true 17 years later.  Girls write letters to Luna and also send us their artwork and descriptions of Luna. Every girl’s idea of who Luna is is different, and that’s how we like it!

Every girl and woman has a bit of Luna inside her. Luna LOVES hearing what girls have to say in our magazine and on NewMoon.com. She dreams of a world where all girls are listened to. Where girls everywhere can follow their creativity and dreams. Where all girls and women get respect and dignity. She loves hearing the voices of thousands of girls from all over the world via New Moon Girls.

Here’s another girl’s portrayal of Luna.

And another

And another