Dannah Gresh has a fabulous book out called “Six Ways to Keep the ‘Little’ in Your Girl“. It is a book designed to help mothers guide their daughters from their Tweens to the their Teens. No easy feat, right?

But it’s always good to start at the beginning–before those tween years. Dannah writes specifically to help you protect your daughter’s modesty, purity, and perception of beauty.

From a very young age our daughter’s will form a sense of what modesty, purity, and beauty are by what they are exposed to. This does not happen on accident. The media plays a huge factor in forming our daughter’s views of beauty and sexuality. Huge. Everything from what they see on TV to what toys they play with all form this view.

As a mother, it is our responsibility to shape this accurately for our daughters.

How can we do this in the midst of a lust-filled society?

It’s simple, and especially easy if you start at the beginning. However, if you have already allowed some things in, you’re going to have to make a tough decision.

Simply put, if we come across things–movies, toys, music, magazines, friends–that do not fit what is modest, and pure, and beautiful in the Lord, it must go. Without reservation, it needs to go.

We cannot tell our daughters that they need to be pure and acceptable to the Lord and allow them to listen to vulgar music–or even subtle music which focuses on a false view of “love” and attraction.

When my eldest daughter [who is now 9] was about 6 or 7 years old, I was listening to a country radio station in the car. Something that I did pretty often.

A song from Taylor Swift came on–Love Story.

I was singing along thinking nothing of it because I am an adult. A married woman. However, my [then] six year old had heard these lyrics so often already, she began singing along. That’s when I stopped listening to country music.

This song is full of messages that are not something I want my young daughter to go out and imitate. For one thing, the girl in the song disregards her dad’s instructions to stay away from the boy she “falls in love with”. She sneaks out of the house to meet with this boy. I do not want my young child to think this is OK behavior. It is not!

In addition, the music was simply too mature for her. She was six. Not sixteen.

When we allow our children to listen to this kind of music, are we not condoning the behavior by giving the media our “stamp of approval”?

We must use discretion when allowing media into our children’s lives — even our media. What we watch as adults around our young children has a great impact on them as well. I don’t necessarily mean that we can never watch a movie that our children cannot watch. Some movies simply have some material not suitable for young children. But there is a vast difference between age-appropriate and inappropriate.

If you want to shape your daughter’s future, you have to mold the present.

By Christin, Joyful Mothering