Verified by 
Achieving milestones like learning to walk and talk are familiar stages of child development. There are countless books to help guide parents on what to expect. There are other areas, such as our daughters' sexuality between the ages of 11 and 18, where helpful guidance is in short supply.
Girls this age often work overtime at looking cool and grown-up despite being works in progress. They are often seeking validation from their peers at a cost that can leave parents frightened or angry.
There's also the music they love, the movies they watch and the magazines they read--all which speak to their sexuality. And even if your daughter were raised in a cultural vacuum, her maturing body and the hormones in her veins would be their own agents of change.
Yet as parents, we often deny our daughters' emerging sexuality or make it clear that we expect them to deny it. Fortunately, Evelyn Resh's book for parents of teenage girls addresses this disconnect. It offers us more effective ways to deal with our daughters' sexuality, including the use of humor to diffuse situations rather than threats or pretending it's not an issue.
Ms. Resh has spent years working with teenage girls, helping to guide their growth when their parents were not able to acknowledge the sexual milestones they had reached.
I've long searched for a book for parents of teens that would address these very issues, and now I've found one that I can wholeheartedly recommend. Whether you agree with Ms. Resh's perspective or not, this book is helpful because it frames the sexuality of teenage girls in ways that actually make sense.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: The Secret Lives of Teen Girls: What Your Mother Wouldn't Talk about but Your Daughter Needs to Know by Evelyn Resh.
Illustration by Daerick Gross Sr, from the "Guide To Getting It On"--upcoming electronic book version.
