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iQuestions Faculty, Joe White 
 
 
Question: 
 
How do you handle girls during the junior high years? 
 
Answer:  
 
Adolescents. Adolescent girls. What a great question for you to ask 
today, and I want to answer this question with a happy heart, because 
it’s so much fun, but also with an empathetic heart, because there’s so 
many tears. Those were tough days for me as a daddy. I failed a lot. If 
I were to do it over again, I’d let their mom do a whole lot more of it. 
But I loved it. 
 
I was one of these daddies that really wanted to be close to my kids. I 
wanted to be their best friend. I wanted to be my kids’ best coach, and 
their best cheerleader—and honestly, I was pretty naïve, because in 
middle school, things got really complicated in our house. 
 
I think the most important gift that I could ever give an adolescent girl 
is the gift of affirmation.  
 
Interestingly, I just learned not long ago that the last horse to win the 
triple crown was in 1978, and that horse’s name was Affirm. Isn’t that 
interesting? 
 
Affirming girls during adolescents—it’s not everything, but moms and 
dads, it’s close to everything. I’ve got to let my girls know that no 
matter, I will never leave them, no matter what, I will never stop 
believing in them.  
 
 
 
I remember so well, like it was yesterday, when Courtney, my second 
daughter, was in 6th or 7th grade, and twenty-four invitations went 
out for the party that all the girls were going to. There were twenty-
five friends. Twenty-four invitations went out. She was the one who 
didn’t get one.  
 
Kids feel rejected in middle school. They feel lonely in middle school. 
They feel ugly in middle school. Their body parts are developing. They 
are getting compared to other girls and other boys.  
 
If I had it to do over again, I would do a whole lot more affirming. And 
as a guy who’s fortunate to be married to a wonderful wife, I would let 
mom do a whole lot more of the coaching, especially the difficult 
coaching, with my girls. 
 
Dads, if I’m talking to a dad right now, you are the biggest affirmer, 
the biggest cheerleader, in your girls’ lives. And Mom, yes, you’ve got 
to do a lot of the disciplining—and dads, we’re going to stand by our 
wife for sure. There are times when we’ve got to discipline, but moms, 
I know you’ve got the toughest job of all, because you’re there day in 
and day out, all the time, and they’re getting their identity as a woman 
from you. 
 
But I’m disciplining—I’m disciplining with fairness and with firmness, 
but encouraging always, always, always ends the day. Tuck in those 
kids in bed at night. Be sure the last thing they hear before they go to 
bed at night is, “I love you. I’m proud to be your daddy.” 
 
You know, one of my last things, when I was having a difficult time 
with one of my kids, we were fighting upstairs, but downstairs, the last 
thing as I walked into that child’s room, I turned around and said, “I 
want you to know that I love you and I’m proud to be your daddy.” 
 
White -2- 
 
 
Through affirmation and firmness along the way, those adolescent 
years will go by, and they’ll pass. Remember, the days are long, but 
the years are short. You’ll wish that you could back to junior high 
sometimes. They’re rooms are lonely now. They’re gone. And those 
days weren’t all that bad. 
 
 
 
White -3- 
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