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About the Site
ADVISORS
Each advisor for this Web site presents her (or his) own unique perspective on girls. While many of our advisors are in agreement, they each offer distinct areas of expertise and (at times) differing points of view.
Lyn Mikel Brown, Ed.D.
Lyn Mikel Brown is a mom, professor and community activist. Her research on girls’ social and psychological development has garnered her notice in magazines such as People and Mademoiselle, as well as reviews in newspapers such as The New York Times and the Boston Globe. She is the author of four books, including Packaging Girlhood (with Sharon Lamb, Ed.D.); and Meeting at the Crossroads: Women’s Psychology and Girls’ Development (co-authored with Carol Gilligan), a 1992 New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Lyn is sought after as an expert on girls and aggression, girls and media, and girls and education. Her curricular materials are helping to address concerns about girlfighting in schools across the nation.
http://www.hardygirlshealthywomen.org
Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D.
Lawrence J. Cohen, the author of Playful Parenting, is a licensed psychologist specializing in children’s play and play therapy. In addition to his private therapy practice, he is also a speaker and consultant to public and independent schools, and a teacher of parenting classes and classes for daycare teachers. His regular column in Nick Jr. magazine was the winner of the 2003 Golden Lamp award from Education Press, and he also answers parents’ questions online at NickJr.com. Mr. Cohen is also the co-author, with Michael Thompson and Catherine O’Neill Grace, of Best Friends, Worst Enemies and Mom, They’re Teasing Me.
www.playfulparenting.com
JoAnn Deak, Ph.D.
JoAnn Deak has spent more than twenty years as an educator and psychologist, helping children develop into confident and competent adults, and focusing on working with parents and teachers in their roles as guides for children. Ms. Deak has been an advisor to Outward Bound; a past chair of the National Committee for Girls and Women in Independent Schools; and on the advisory boards of New Moon Magazine, the Seattle Girls’ School, Bromley Brook School, Lendl Montessori School, Power Play and Girls Can Do. She has been awarded the 2003 Woman of Achievement Award by the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools, and was given the first Female Educator of the Year Award 2002 by Orchard House School. Ms. Deak has authored two books, How Girls Thrive and Girls Will Be Girls: Raising Confident and Courageous Daughters.
www.deakgroup.com
Jane Katch, M.S.T.
Jane Katch is a teacher whose classrooms have become fascinating laboratories for the study of young children at play, as she has explored children’s violent fantasies and aggressive behavior. As a speaker and consultant, Katch has been able to translate her insights into successful strategies for other teachers and school administrators, helping them create safe environments that allow children to face and overcome both their anger and their fears in constructive ways. Jane Katch’s classroom has been featured in several articles, as well as radio and television specials on the subject of early childhood education, including the recent PBS special “Raising Cain.” Katch is the author of Under Deadman’s Skin: Discovering the Meaning of Children’s Violent Play and They Don’t Like Me: Lessons on Bullying and Teasing from a Preschool Classroom. She teaches five- and six-year-olds at Touchstone Community School in Grafton, Massachusetts.
www.janekatch.com
Diane Levin, Ph.D.
Diane Levin has been a professor of education at Wheelock College for more than 25 years, and is internationally recognized as an expert in helping professionals and parents understand and deal with the effects of violence, media, and commercial culture on children. She is the author or co-author of seven books, including What Every Parent and Teacher Needs to Know and Remote Control Childhood? Combating the Hazards of Media Culture. Levin’s newest book, So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Children (Jean Kilbourne, co-author), is due out in August 2008. Levin has been an advisor for three other PBS Parents Web site guides, including Talking To Kids about War and Violence and The Parents Guide to Going to School. She is a co-founder of Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children and of Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children’s Entertainment, which help parents deal with the impact of media and commercial culture on their children.
Rachel Simmons
Rachel Simmons is the author of the New York Times bestseller Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls, the first book to explore the phenomenon of bullying between girls. Rachel works internationally with girls, parents and teachers to develop strategies to address bullying and empower girls. Rachel is the founding director of the Girls Leadership Institute, a summer program for middle- and high-school girls, and currently serves as a consultant to schools around the country.
www.rachelsimmons.com
Catherine Steiner-Adair, Ed.D.
Catherine Steiner-Adair is an internationally recognized clinical psychologist, school consultant and author who has devoted her professional life to helping parents and children thrive. Over the past 25 years, Ms. Steiner-Adair has consulted with more than 350 independent and public schools, non-profit organizations and corporations, working on strengthening children’s social and emotional development and deepening parents’ connections to their children. Ms. Steiner-Adair is also the director of eating disorders education and prevention at the Klarman Eating Disorders Center at McLean Hospital, and a clinical instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
www.catherinesteineradair.com
Michael Thompson, Ph.D.
Author and psychologist Michael Thompson is co-author of the New York Times bestseller Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys and the host of the PBS documentary, “Raising Cain: Boys in Focus.” He is the author of Speaking of Boys: Answers to the Most-Asked Questions About Raising Sons and co-author of Best Friends/Worst Enemies: Understanding the Social Lives of Children. Michael served as senior advisor to the PBS Parents Web sites PBS Parents Guide to Raising and Understanding Boys, PBS Parents Guide to Going to School and PBS Parents Guide to Talking with Kids about Everything.
www.michaelthompson-phd.com
Meg White, M.A.
Meg White is a licensed mental health counselor with 18 years’ experience in the field of adolescent girls. In her private practice in Seattle and on Vashon Island, she focuses on an empowerment model with preteen, teen and parents of girls. She aids them in seeking balance by raising self awareness, communication and self-care in order to find better ways to achieve success and happiness in their lives. She works with individuals, families and groups to help facilitate this change. Meg uses psychosocial education, cognitive behavioral therapy and more, recently teaching girls the tools of Mindfulness meditation to help them reduce some of the stresses of being adolescents in today’s busy world.
Production Team
Josh Daniel
Executive Producer
Executive Editor/Writer
Josh Daniel has more than twenty years of experience in the production of online, print and television educational media. The president of Content Inventions, an editorial and interactive media production company, Josh has served as executive producer-writer-editor of numerous sites produced in association with Oregon Public Broadcasting including the award-winning PBS Parents Guide to Raising and Understanding Boys Web site, the PBS Parents Guide to Going to School Web site and the award-winning PBS Parents Guide to Talking with Kids Web series; and as senior writer for OPB’s History Detectives Kids Web site. Other credits include executive producer for BeginSmartBooks.com; executive producer-editor of iwaswondering.org for the National Academy of Sciences; and the executive editor-writer of the Early Learning for KCTS. Josh has functioned as senior editor at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; consulting executive Web editor for Oregon Public Broadcasting, senior editorial advisor to PBS Parents, senior online editor for Sesame Workshop, online editorial director for Nickjr.com, and online editor for Time Warner’s Parenttime.com.
www.contentinventions.com
John Kin, Producer
Heather Young, Web Developer
Jennifer Ingraham, Copy Editor
The producers would like to thank Marion Rice Ed.D., site creator.