Book Club: Raising Worry-Free Girls by Sissy Goff

Note: I received a free copy of Raising Worry-Free Girls from the publisher in return for my honest opinion. This post contains affiliate links. For more information, please see my Terms of Use and Disclosure Policy page. Thank you.

I was very excited to read and review Raising Worry-Free Girls: Helping Your Daughter Feel Braver, Stronger, and Smarter in an Anxious World by Sissy Goff for Bethany House Publishers. I suffer from anxiety and—probably like any mom with anxiety—I worry if my daughter will follow in my footsteps. While our daughter is only four years old and the book is written with 6- to 18-year-old girls in mind, I have seen some behaviors in her that concern me that she may be a worrier like me. I was very pleased to read very helpful suggestions, tools, and tips to not only potentially help our daughter but also with my anxiety.

Raising Worry-Free Girls is divided into three sections (Understanding, Help, and Hope) with two appendices to help parents learn about the different types of anxiety and to also beat the bedtime blues. The paperback is 221 pages in length with chapters also containing Key Points to Remember and questions entitled Understand Yourself and Your Daughter Better. Finally, there are notes at the end of the book if you wish to look up the references to articles and books for yourself.

What Did I Think? 

I found the organization of Raising Worry-Free Girls: Helping Your Daughter Feel Braver, Stronger, and Smarter in an Anxious World by Sissy Goff to be excellent. If you are looking for a specific piece of advice, you can skim through the pages to find just what you need. Or you can read the book cover-to-cover as I did and glean all the helpful information. (And if you have read Raising Worry-Free Girls, the set up allows you to go back and refresh your memory with helpful chapter titles, headings, and questions.)

While Sissy Goff presents lots of references to a variety of books, websites, and articles, she also presents scriptural references and Bible quotes. This is in keeping with her desire for girls to find "God's strong, safe love for her and the confidence she needs to thrive." So even though the book is Christian and emphasizes that God provides a safe, strong love to help our daughters build confidence, I didn't feel overwhelmed with Bible quotes. There were just enough for me to pull out my copy of the Bible to read the quotes in a different translation. (There is a whole chapter, Overcomer, with Bible quotes to help you and your daughter.)

I highly recommend Raising Worry-Free Girls: Helping Your Daughter Feel Braver, Stronger, and Smarter in an Anxious World. I found myself stopping to take notes, to speak with my husband about what I read, and even to try some of the suggestions with our daughter as I was reading Goff's book. One of the things that I have started with our daughter is the 'square breathing' as outlined in the fourth chapter. While I haven't incorporated the breathing with our daughter, I have asked her to 'draw' a square or flower on her leg when she is in the middle of a meltdown. On some occasions, this simple act of having to refocus has helped her calm down more quickly. As she gets older we can add in the breathing technique part, too. I love that Raising Worry-Free Girls has already provided me with one workable solution in our family.

If you are on the lookout for a book to help you better raise your daughter or perhaps you want to even help overcome your own worry and anxiety, I encourage you to check out Sissy Goff's Raising Worry-Free Girls from Bethany House Publishers.