What Dad Can Do for his Teenage Daughter

Well, first off I have to say I do not have a teen-age daughter, so take this with a grain of salt. I am writing this from the viewpoint of helping girls become women who have value to the purpose of forwarding the purpose of civilization. This seems appropriate to me since women have traditionally promoted themselves as being civilizing influences.
First, I have heard it said that teenagers are living through a stage of their lives when their brains are still being “wired”. I would definitely use a good amount of salt here because I am pretty far from believing that people are their brains. Nevertheless, there may be some correlation that could be paid some attention to. First, ask yourself which gender is generally the more competent—men or women? Now, take into account that usually teenage girls tend to spend more time with their mothers at this stage of their life, and their mothers spent more time with her mother, and her mother spent more time with her mother, and her mother spent more timer with her mother, etc… Is there a pattern here? YES! All of this “extra time” is being spent at a time in their life when, supposedly, the teenage brain is undergoing its final wiring.
Maybe for the sake of future generations Dad could intervene in this cycle. Though there are probably many forms of intervention, here are a few of my suggestions:
1) Like the advertisement says, “Take her fishing”. I recommend taking her fishing on a creek or stream rather than a river or lake. The reason is that in a stream it is possible to predict not only WHERE the trout will be, but even where the BIGGEST trout will be. They will be in the best holes, and if you can teach her what kinds of things that trout like and what they don’t like, then she will have the basic tools to figure out for a particular stream where they may be. This will help her with her ability to align data from the general to the particular.
2) Have her make a fire without matches or lighter fluid. No, not all the way primitive with a fire drill or fire bow, but like her ancestors of 250 years ago did—with a spark from a flint and steel. Actually there are better spark producers than flint and steel you can pick up today at any sporting goods store, but the idea is for her to care for and grow the spark. If you don’t know how to do this already, please look it up on the internet before going into the field. Basically the idea is to land the spark onto a prepared “charcloth”, which is just what it sounds like, and nurse it along from there. Next time you do a barbecue you can make some charcloth by putting pieces of an old T-shirt of sheet into a small metal can and putting the can into the coals. You will have to figure how long to leave it there by trial and error. The cloth should end up to be uniformly charred black and still retain at least some structural integrity. Why is this so beneficial? Well the real lesson has only begun. To successfully nurse the spark into a flame there must be a prepared gradient of fuels beyond the charcloth from tinder, through kindling, twigs and larger fuel. So the lessons learned will be preparation, and a value of and judgement for gradients. These are analytical skills that are broadly applicable in other areas of life, and she will be able to impress future boyfriends.
3) Make sure she is not too easily impressed with the handling of force. This will allow her to more easily retain an independent perspective when dealing with men. There are many ways to do this. Hopefully she is already doing some.

• Sports, particularly team sports

• Sailing is great, since it requires the use of the mind to add up a set of forces in the moment in order to control the resultant to arrive at a destination in the future.

• Archery is good.

• Developing skill in working on cars, bikes or machinery is a possibility.

The idea is for them to be able to face up to and control the force involved. For this reason shooting may not be so good because the forces involved are usually more than most people can confront.