Tween-age Health, Fitness, Beauty Magazine?

[channlluv]

Here's the list of books. I gave my niece the Smart Girl's Guide to Money and the Smart Girl's Guide to Starting Middle School. I wish I had books like that way back when.

http://store.americangirl.com/agshop...id/246/uid/137

I got this very series for her for Christmas. It's excellent, and she actually reads them (as opposed to the un-cracked novels collecting dust on her shelf - some of them are even signed). The Guide to Money is the one that's most frequently in her hands these days, and she's always making signs to sell beaded key chains and bracelets that she's made (from another kit she got for Christmas), and babysitting. Only there's no place for her to go to sell these things and we don't know anyone with very young children except for a neighbor two doors down, and I doubt they remember my name.

Plus, she's only 12. I didn't start babysitting until I was 16.

I subscribed to American Girl magazine for her a year or so ago. She read it, but didn't rave over it. I'm still waiting for her to get back to me on the others.

I'll see if she'd like to go to a real makeup counter to try out some makeup. I could use that myself. I've never done it, either.

As far as my parenting skills, thank you for the compliments, but I'm just trying to save her from the traumatic, embarrassing events of my own childhood. My mother referred to my girly bits as "down there," and our "talk" consisted of her coming into my room and saying, "You don't have any questions about, you know, down there, do you?"

Um, no. Not especially. And to this day I have questions. Thank goodness for Andrew Weil and Christianne Northrup.

Thank you all so much for the caring support.

Roxy

[tulip]

FWIW, I started babysitting when I was 11. I didn't like it much. I think my last babysitting job was when I was 14. I don't have kids, and that probably has to do with the fact that I didn't like to babysit (among other things, of course).

My niece, on the other hand, loves babysitting. She went through a Red Cross babysitting course and got certified or something like that. She has a certificate and a card, and she made business cards with her credentials (certification, years of experience, references available!). She's 13 and has been babysitting since she was 10 or so. There are lots of kids in her neighborhood, and her parents seem to know all the other parents, so that helps.

She also makes paintings and painted blocks and sells them downtown, at festivals, and to her parents' friends. They are really great, and she even has gotten some commissions.

I might have to pick up that Money book for myself. It's not too late, is it?

It might be alot of fun to have a Girl's Makeup/Spa Day with your daughter! Make it fun and a learning experience for both of you. Have fun with it; you're lucky, as is your daughter.

[channlluv]

I love the idea of her painting blocks and selling them. Gardening is really popular here in San Diego. I'll bet she could do decorative garden stones or something. I'll run that by her.

We could maybe get a booth at the swap meet to sell things. I've got a friend who does that every three months and makes a couple thousand dollars selling her ceramics (she's a real artist and does beautiful seasonal things) and garage sale-type things. I've donated to her cause as I was cleaning out stuff I'd ordinarily just drop off at Goodwill.

I love doing spa days with my daughter. We go get mani-pedis about twice a year, usually attached to some other big event like when we're about to take off on a cross-country road trip. I hadn't thought to do a makeup day with her because, honestly, I don't wear that much (a little powder, eyeliner and mascara, and sometimes I go wild and wear a rose-tinted lip gloss from Terra Tint), and she's never asked about it before.

This could be a learning experience for both of us.

Roxy

[Crankin]

Wow, it is hard for me to believe that some of you had parents who thought they could ignore puberty! Ah, it's kind of hard to ignore those changes. I guess I tried to raise my boys the way I was raised... talk about everything and anything. Although that didn't stop me from being a bit wild, it did put things in perspective for me, and I was much more level headed than a lot of my peers (well, and it was the late '60s/early '70s).
I don't have a daughter, but when I taught middle school, I could always tell the girls whose parents didn't raise princesses, but didn't ignore their feminine sides, either. It was refreshing.

[Desert Tortoise]

Roxy, you mentioned you tried American Girl magazine but she didn't rave about it. What about going back to it for a quick look with her? Or try a current issue?

You know how kids sometimes don't like something the first time around but 6 months or a year later, it's a whole new world. Just a thought.

[sfa]

It took my DD (11 y.o.) a while to start really liking the AG magazine, and now she looks forward to it and reads it cover to cover and tries some of the crafts and games. It wasn't until the second year of the subscription that she started liking it. I love their books as well--I need to get her the guide to starting middle school (that happy event is happening in the next couple of months for my daughter), and she's been reading The Care and Keeping of You pretty carefully recently, now that she's dealing with some hormonally induced issues of her own.

Another money making idea is weeding--my DD has a weeding job this summer that's perfect for a first job. It's only a couple of hours once a week, but it is enough to earn her a bit of money and (more importantly) get her in the habit of showing up on time, working diligently, and doing the work even when she'd rather be doing something else.

For makeup (not territory we've covered yet), I'd go with books instead of magazines, just because the purpose of magazines is to sell you stuff, while the purpose of books is to teach you stuff (and sell you the book, of course). When I was in middle school my best friend's mother was an Avon lady and she got me a book about makeup and how to apply it. I read it cover to cover and tried all of the suggestions (and then pretty much gave up on makeup entirely when I was about 25). I'm fairly certain my mother spent a lot of time rolling her eyes and not laughing in front of me as I experimented!

[badgercat]

I guess I'm one of those not-too-far-out-of-adolescence types (24). I used to subscribe to Seventeen, YM, and... Sports Illustrated. I never quite fit the mold. So I don't have any great magazine recommendations.

I know you're not really asking about health books--and it sounds like you already have good discourse on sensitive topics--but I do have a recommendation in that arena that I wanted to pass along to you or anyone else with a pre-teen daughter/niece/etc who might benefit from it. My mom didn't *avoid* talking about sex/periods/etc with me, but I was a voracious reader (and a little awkward ) as a kid so I think she felt a book would be best for me rather than bombarding me with "the talk."

Anyway, the book is called "It's A Girl Thing: How to Stay Healthy, Safe, and In Charge". I'd say that the fact that it's still being published (since 1996... I think my mom got it for me when I was 10 or 11 so it was brand new, then!) and the fact that I remembered the title after all these years is a positive testament. The only negative reviews it appears to have on Amazon are from parents who took issue with its very frank discussions about sex/birth control/STDs, which I suppose all depends on your personal philosophy. But I was glad that I learned about some of that stuff from a book written at my level rather than rumors in the grammar-school cafeteria--without always having to ask my mom about *everything*.

Anyway, good luck in your search. It sounds like you and your daughter make a great team.

[westtexas]

I'm 26 and your daughter sounds a lot like me at that age. I also had a great mother who let me ask all kinds of questions (I was too embarrassed to ask most of them so she let me write them down on notes and she would write back) about anything. Now we have a very close relationship and I can seriously ask her ANYTHING. She overshares sometimes too about her and my dad (uuugggh ). But I love it that she's my best friend.

I have no magazines suggestions for you, but rather, if your daughter is anything like me as I suspect, Seventeen is probably not a great choice for her. I remember getting that when I was younger, starting at about 13 or 14 and I don't think I read it for more than a couple of years. I just can't get into the vapid, ultra-rich lives of celebrities, and I never cared much about doing anything with my hair or makeup. The only stuff I ever found useful was how to manage acne, because at 26 I STILL have that (also, ugh). In the whole 100 page magazine I only ever remember there being one article per issue worth reading, generally about some important women's health or women's lives sort of topic that I found interesting. After that I mostly used them to cut out pictures to decorate notebooks for school.

You could always try Mental Floss, which is generally hilarious and has some really interesting tidbits. I get the magazine and sometimes read the blog and I always enjoy it.

[PamNY]

Roxy, you sound like such a great mom. I don't have kids but I distinctly remember being one!

[OakLeaf]

Roxy, you sound like such a great mom. I don't have kids but I distinctly remember being one!

+1

A resource for you might be B*tch magazine - Feminist response to pop culture. From the way you describe your daughter, she's probably not ready for the magazine herself, but might be in a couple-three years. It has great thoughtful discussion of the music, movies, TV, advertising, and trends that all of us, especially young women and girls in their formative years, are exposed to. It's a quarterly, available at most larger newsstands; there's a lot of content on the website if you want to check it out.

And our old standby, Our Bodies, Ourselves is still out there, publishing and blogging in today's world.