Grown Up Guide

A general overview of each of the 24 lessons is included as well as questions and conversation starters you can use at home to reinforce the learning goals of the curriculum. By stimulating conversations that build upon each lesson topic, we hope to further weave the Girls on the Run mission into the daily lives of the girls and the adults who care for and love them.

Why is this important? While children can be affected and inspired by their teachers and friends, it is parents and caregivers who have the ultimate influence in their lives. As you discuss the lessons, you will reinforce the goals of the Girls on the Run program while also deepening your connection with one another. If you are returning to Girls on the Run for the second, third or even sixth time, we strongly encourage you to continue asking your girl these questions. She is growing up and continually changing, and while the questions remain the same, the answers will evolve.

Click here for a Grown Up Guide sample.

Other Resources

The resources below are a listing of helpful books and websites that address the issues that today's girls are facing. For more information about any of these organizations, please visit their website by clicking the link provided.

Physical and Mental Health:

You Grow Girl!

This balanced, integrated workbook addresses core issues girls 9-16 struggle with every day. It helps girls see and be smart about connections between self-esteem, thought patterns, eating habits and overall health. Its interactive sections on weight/size/food issues, coping with stress, culture and peer pressures, deceptive media/Internet images, exercise, mindfulness and more, help girls get a healthy perspective that fosters good habits to serve them for a lifetime.

Girlshealth.gov

Girlshealth.gov was created in 2002 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Office on Women's Health  (OWH) to help girls (ages 10 to 16) learn about health, growing up and issues they may face. Girlshealth.gov promotes healthy and positive behaviors in girls, giving them reliable and useful health information in a fun, easy-to-understand way. The website also provides information to parents and educators to help them teach girls about healthy living.

Body Image and Eating Disorders

Eating Disorder Referral and Information Center

This informative website is dedicated to the prevention and treatment of eating disorders. Edreferral.com provides information and treatment resources for all forms of eating disorders. Their goal is to provide assistance, in the form of information and resources, to those suffering with eating disorders to get them started on the road to recovery and healthy living.

Empowered Parents

This website provides parents with information regarding the prevention and treatment of eating disorders.

National Eating Disorders Association

The National Eating Disorders Association is dedicated to expanding public understanding of eating disorders and promoting access to quality treatment for those affected along with support for their families through education, advocacy and research.

AdiosBarbie.com

This creative website is a body image site for every body. No matter what your size or background, they hope to inspire you to love your body through thick and thin!

Other

A Mighty Girl 

“A Mighty Girl is the world’s largest collection of books, toys, movies, and music for parents, teachers, and others dedicated to raising smart, confident, and courageous girls and, of course, for girls themselves! The site was founded on the belief that all children should have the opportunity to read books, play with toys, listen to music, and watch movies that offer positive messages about girls and honor their diverse capabilities. “

PBS Parents Guide to Raising Girls

“The PBS Parents Guide to Raising Girls will help you understand your daughter's inner and outer worlds. You'll find out how to help her grow up powerful, self-confident, and self-aware — with a critical eye towards the messages the media is marketing to her.”

Daughters.com

An online forum sponsored by New Moon Girls Magazine that includes a parent forum, expert advice, articles, and an in-depth and alphabetized list of parent resources.

Raising Girls

“Raising Girls, a project of The Equipoise Fund, provides a forum in which parents, caregivers and educators can share research-based best practices for rearing healthy, confident, thriving girls.” Includes topics and discussion forums, events, a list of resources including notes from past speakers, like Peggy Orenstein and Meg Meeker.

My Hero
My Hero is a not-for-profit educational web project that celebrates the best of humanity. My Hero's mission is to enlighten and inspire people of all ages with an ever-growing internet archive of hero stories from around the world. My Hero uses current web technologies to provide a unique educational experience that promotes literacy and cross cultural communication.

YouthActionNet 
Their aim is to provide a virtual space where young people can share lessons, stories, information and advice on how to lead effective change. It is a space where youth can get up-to-date information, resources and tools to strengthen their work.

Packaging Girlhood
This book written by Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown helps guide parents through attempts to claim them by marketers and the media. It shows parents the image of girls (sexy, diva, boy-crazy, shoppers) that's being packaged and sold, pretty in pink. They write about how "girl power" has been co-opted by marketers of music, fashion, books, cartoons, TV shows, movies, toys, and more to mean the power to shop and attract boys, and how girls are encouraged to use their "voice" to choose accessorizing over academics, sex appeal over sports, and boyfriends over friends.

Ask The Judge 
Answers for teens about the law

Balanced Steps 
The award winning bilingual book, We Are Girls Who Love to Run/SomosChicas y A NosotrasEncantaCorrer, celebrates girlhood, making positive choices, self-esteem, teamwork and running.

If you're interested in seeing your website listed as a resource, please email info@girlsontherun.org.