09/14/2025
A Mighty Girl Pick of the Day: “Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through The Seven Transitions Into Adulthood” by Lisa Damour. This insightful parenting book -- which was updated and revised this year -- explores the major transitions that girls go through on the road to adulthood and how the adults in their lives can help them along the way. According to Damour, a clinical psychologist and the director of the Laurel School’s Center for Research on Girls, says that a better understanding of these seven transitions can help parents more effectively guide their girls through this time of change while, at the same time, keeping the parent/child bond strong. In her reassuring and accessible book, she encourages parents to see how this process of raising a happy, healthy young women will "help [parents] grow too.”
Damour’s seven transitions, which include things like letting go of childhood, learning to plan for the future and take care of herself, and contending with adult authority, can be as difficult for parents to navigate as for teens. Parents, she says, will find that knowing these seven transitions will make their daughters less mysterious. “Often the parents’ experience is they felt like they understood their daughter and then all of a sudden they feel like they don’t understand their daughter. It’s so jarring for your own child to suddenly seem inscrutable.” However, she points out, “even some of the really difficult or contradictory things that teenagers do start to make a lot more sense if we see what teenagers are aiming at.” Moreover, she observes, “even when things are going well, the more that parents understand their adolescents, the better things go.”
“Untangled" is available at https://www.amightygirl.com/untangled
Lisa Damour is also the author of the excellent parenting books "The Emotional Lives of Teenagers" (https://www.amightygirl.com/emotional-lives-of-teenagers) and "Under Pressure: Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls" (https://www.amightygirl.com/under-pressure)
You can also find numerous guides to help girls through all stages of growing up, including physical, emotional, and social development, in our "Guides for Girls" book section at http://amgrl.co/2olmk9o
For more advice and wisdom about raising Mighty Girls of all ages, we've shared our favorite parenting books in our own blog post, "25 Parenting Books About Raising Mighty Girls," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=12416
