We learn best when we're intrinsically motivated -- that is, when we try something new for the sheer enjoyment of the experience.

As parents, we must be mindful that our actions are matching our words.

There are no shortcuts to genuine friendship. Relationships are built over time.

Raising your hand when you're not sure you have the right answer helps you take risks with your ideas and put yourself out there.

Sometimes true girl power means accepting that we are actually vulnerable and even powerless -- then figuring out how to adapt and have our needs met in other ways.

Prom drops girls squarely into the beauty spending pipeline.

Jealousy is unavoidable -- it's part of the price we pay for intimacy.

If we want to end a culture rampant with harassment, we must listen to the adult women who are speaking out courageously. We must also make room for girls to speak: If we listened, we'd find that many middle schoolers are trying to tell us, 'Me too.'

Isn't prom just a fun dance that hardworking students deserve? Sure, but it's also an event where girls internalize damaging cultural messages.

No matter how much you urge them to relax and how much you mean it, your child probably grapples with highly stressful environments away from home, whether it's where they go to school, the teams they play on, or the peers in their social circle. Most teenagers I know long for empathy from their parents about their struggle.

Whether you chose a passive-aggressive husband, workaholic wife, or life of single motherhood, we are all officially allowed -- and uniquely qualified -- to critique our own life experience. Please don't pretend you're living mine.

You might be thinking that some people are just naturally good at speaking up, and others just aren't -- game over. Not true. Speaking up is a skill that you have to learn like any other, whether it's speaking Spanish or doing calculus or changing a tire.

The Internet has transformed the landscape of children's social lives, moving cliques from lunchrooms and lockers to live chats and online bulletin boards and intensifying their reach and power.

Despite girls' sparkling resumes -- including rates of college enrollment and high school grades that outstrip boys -- sexism is a barrier that still leaves girls ambivalent about power. Opening doors has not amounted to ambition to lead for many of them, even those with options, networks, and resources.

If you want to stand with me as a single mom -- and I know so many of my friends and colleagues do -- please don't appropriate my burden as a way to validate your own. To suggest that you are single-parenting when you are simply solo for the weekend devalues what real single mothers do.

Self-compassion encourages mindfulness, or noticing your feelings without judgment; self-kindness, or talking to yourself in a soothing way; and common humanity, or thinking about how others might be suffering similarly.

There are many ways to be the odd girl out. Your pain can brief or lasting, visible to all or none, with one or many. One of the longest, quietest ways to be the odd girl out is to be friends with two girls who are closer to each other than to you.

For the self-conscious or insecure girl, technology can become a crippling addiction, an insatiable hunger not just for connection but the elusive promise of being liked by everyone.

When I did the original research for 'Odd Girl Out,' I asked every bullied girl I interviewed to tell me what she needed most from her family. The answer truly surprised me. It wasn't having the best solutions, calling the school, or trying to act like everything was okay. It was empathy.

When you're motivated by external rewards, it's often because you're trying to accomplish goals you didn't create yourself.