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http://www.girlshealth.gov/
Parents & Caregivers
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Information for parents and caregivers 
en Español
The girlshealth.gov web site is a project of the Office on Women’s Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. We have created the girlshealth.gov site to help teen girls (ages 10-16) learn more about health, growing up, and the issues they may face. The Parent/Caregiver section provides resources and links to helpful information. These resources will help you prepare to deal with some of the issues your girls will likely face. The links to online resources are organized by topic, as they appear on girlshealth.gov.
How you can help the young women in your life
What if I have a son?
About the girlshealth.gov user survey
About girlshealth.gov web site links
What is Speak Up?
For Educators
How you can help the young women in your life top
The teen years are an exciting time, but these years can also be filled with worry and struggle. Parents really matter to teens, even if teens don’t always act like it. They need your love, guidance, and support each day to help them become secure, healthy, and happy young women.
You can help your daughter through these years. Build a relationship with her that includes trust, honesty, open lines of communication, and setting limits.
With the busy lives we lead today – how can you do this?
- Spend time with your daughter.
- Be a good role model for your daughter. Eat right, exercise, deal with stress in healthy ways, and don’t use drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes.
- Try to find a good balance between work and fun in your own life. This will show your daughter that she can have balance in her life.
- Teach her good values and a sense of responsibility. Then trust her to make good choices.
- Set rules and stick with them. Setting and enforcing fair rules can help girls avoid social settings where they may run into peer pressure they can't handle.
It's normal for a teen to want to try new things. When your daughter is angry with you, she may rebel by making poor choices. Turn her mistakes into lessons, show her you still love her, and point out the good things she does. Teach her not to be ashamed of having a problem with stress, grades, weight, drugs, or alcohol. Learn about teen depression, suicide, alcohol, bullying, and drug abuse. Use the resources in this section to find out what you can do as a parent.
Even though you might feel upset and tired at times, everything you do will make a difference in your daughter's life…and at some point down the road, she will thank you!
What if I have a son? top
For information and links on boy’s health issues, visit:
4parents.gov, a web site to help you and your pre-teen or mid teen discuss important, yet difficult, issues about healthy choices, abstinence, sex, and relationships.
Young Men's Health is a web site for teen guys about their emotional and physical health.
KidsHealth, a health information service of the Nemours Foundation.
Family Doctor.org, a comprehensive web site brought to you by the American Academy of Family Physicians.
About the girlshealth.gov user survey top
You or your child may have seen a pop-up survey while surfing the girlshealth.gov web site. We are trying to learn more about how girlshealth.gov visitors use the site, what they like and do not like about the site, and what they would like us to add to the site. Girlshealth.gov will use this information to make improvements.
The survey does not ask for any personal information, such as your name or address. You do not have to take the survey if you do not want to.
The survey has been approved by the Federal government.
About girlshealth.gov web site links top
When a young visitor leaves our site by clicking to a resource link we provide, she will be notified if she has chosen a non-Federal site. The Department of Health and Human Services takes no responsibility for, and exercises no control over, the organizations, views, accuracy, copyright or trademark compliance or legality of the material contained on outside web sites. However, we have carefully chosen the links we provide; at the time we last reviewed them, they were age appropriate.
What is Speak Up? top
Speak Up is a place for girls to speak their minds about a variety of topics. Find out what girls are saying about everything from being proud of their heritage to how to organize their busy schedules.
For Educators top
The girlshealth.gov web site includes a section for educators that provides resources on the topics covered on the web site. These resources are for teachers, school administrators, and community leaders.
= This article, publication, web site, or organization is from the U.S. government.
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Content last updated March 28, 2008
