The seven year old girl was correct: It was not really a comic book store in the sense she had in mind. Instead it
was a store with comic books for
teenage boys and men and even there a fairly narrow
audience. The store was definitely not for children,
especially not for grade school or younger girls.

A lesson she might have learned: It's a big
world out there, and some of it, e.g., the
view of women in that store, is not good, and
sometimes, too often, in life we
have to be selective.

It's been a while since my brother and I were in grade
school and he was collecting comic books. So, only vaguely
do
I remember Donald Duck and Batman, and those
comic books
weren't right up against the line, the other side
of which was porn.

Instead, say, take your seven year old daughter to
a music store, not one for pop music but
one where seven year old girls have a nice violins
and are learning the "Preludio" to the Bach E major
Partita for unaccompanied violin,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KYRdRnnBYw

with Hillary Hahn, the Chaconne of Vitali,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4B1ifcWa9o

with David Oistrakh, the Bach "Chaconne"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tezau3hlRxs

with Alina Ibragimova, or the Bach Busoni
piano version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOFflFiLlT8

with Valentina Lisitsa, a store where
the seven year old violin students are looking
forward to playing the violin part to the
Wagner "Prelude to Act I" of Lohengrin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7prUFflX0_E

with Otto Klemperer, also from the
same opera In fernem land

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHHCeEO_0-4

with Peter Anders and, of course, especially
since she is a seven year old girl, starting
at about 3:00,
the bridal chorus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebx9KhcnyLM

with Andris Nelsons. Of course, also
tell her the story of Lohengrin.

More? Sure: Camille Saint Saens
"Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix" from Samson et Dalila

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X79OkSayPSw

with Elina Garancas.

More generally expose her to places
and media content where
girls and women are actually
doing things, good things. E.g.,
currently there is the Nova program
on he LHC and the Higgs boson at

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/big-bang-machine.html

Two detectors there found the same basic
result, and one of the detector groups
was led by a woman. That program
has more examples of women doing things.

Yes, there's a lot out there
where the women are all interested
in nose jobs, breast implants, micro skirts, and
thong panties, but there's also a lot out
there for women being productive,
building a home and family with love,
victory over loneliness,
being productive, and with
pride in accomplishments and
emotional and financial security.

Get her a copy of the classic
E. Fromm, The Art of Loving
which is about getting emotional
security, exchanging knowledge,
caring, respect, and responsiveness,
and a role for religion -- best thing
I ever read to understand people
and personality.

Maybe take her to some Saturday
classes in cooking school where
she can learn to make, say, some
really good cookies she could
make and share with her friends,
e.g., at school. If I were 7-9 and
a girl 7 gave me 2-3 really good cookies
she had baked herself, then she would
have a good friend for years, prom dates, etc.
If she could play classical music
on piano or violin or sing opera,
even better.

How to get her interested in working
hard on, say, piano or violin? One way:
Let her hear some of the music that is
easy to like. Then let her see some people
working hard on learning piano or violin
and liking it. Example: A sister in law
tried to get her daughter interested in
piano. No luck. At the farm at Christmas,
I was upstairs working on the Bach
"Chaconne", and a niece, about 7, came up
to watch. I put my violin under her left
chin, showed her how to hold the violin and
the bow, and to draw the bow across the strings.
The next day her father asked me: "How much
is a violin going to cost me?". It works.

More? Sure: Get her the DVD of the
Australian Ballet performance
of Coppelia -- it's a total sweetheart
story, nearly all about young women,
and where nearly everyone on
stage is a young woman. And the
actual
young women on the stage, the real
performers and not the characters they play in
the story,
are
examples of astoundingly hard work,
productivity, and, in particular,
are just fantastic as actresses,
artists, and athletes, especially
aerobic athletes.

Of course, at Christmas, get her all
dressed up in some sort of a princess
outfit -- when I was that age the style was
dresses with red or black velvet with
lots of satin ribbons and bows --
and take her to a good performance of
The Nutcracker. Also get her a
Nutcracker doll. It could be one of the
happiest times of her life, make her
feel more secure as a girl,
and be a memory she will have and
value forever.

Also get her DVDs of some of the
movies from American Girl. They
may also have some retail stores
it would be better for her to visit
than that fake comic book store.

For books, maybe Nancy Drew?
Or something similar but more recent?

Since she's seven, a girl, and
bright, it may be that she
could get good at French
with blinding speed -- try to
find a way. Talk to some people
who know about how a girl of seven
could learn French.
Maybe have her join a group, e.g., where also she
could meet other girls learning French.
Maybe try a local Alliance Française.
Maybe try some Internet learning materials.

Connection with her being
a girl? At that age, typically
girls have much better verbal
aptitude than the boys
and are just fantastic at learning
a language.

Be sure to have her learn touch typing --
one of the best skills to have in life now.
Talk to some people who know how a girl of
seven could learn touch typing,
get her some materials, and
pay attention her efforts,
encourage and praise them, and help her
learn.

Then encourage and praise her in
writing: Have her start writing
on nearly anything -- letters to
grandma, how to train a kitten or puppy,
how to bake terrific cookies,
how to tie a bow tie,
how to wash out stains,
how to iron a dress,
how to sew on a button,
how to use a text editor,
how to use Facebook,
blog posts (anonymous),
etc. Then get her started on
English grammar -- sentences,
subjects, verbs, prepositions and
prepositional phrases,
adjectives and adverbs.
Then make friends with
a high school English teacher
(nearly all women, right?) and have that teacher
help your daughter improve her
writing. Then have your daughter
write some longer pieces with
sections, subsections, table of
contents, figures, references,
etc. on anything: If your family
moves, then have her write on
moving to a new house. On
getting a puppy or kitten.
Whatever. Get her going on
writing, then reading, the
more in writing, then more in
reading.

For being better in talking to her,
and to others, too, get, read,
study, think about, and use

Thomas Gordon,
Parent Effectiveness Training:
The Tested New Way to Raise Responsible Children.

also called reflective listening.

For more, get her several, used
will be fine, high school texts
in plane geometry, pick a favorite,
use the others for alternative sources,
and work through plane geometry
with her, that is, get the
fun of doing the proofs.
Emphasize orthogonality and the
Pythagorean theorem: Orthogonality
is one of the most important ideas
in all of pure and applied
mathematics, mathematical physics,
engineering, multi-variate statistic, and
best approximation, e.g.,
in computing, right up to how
to do ad targeting on the Internet,
Fourier theory, the fast Fourier
transform, digital filtering, etc.
Sure: Quite generally every closed
convex set has a unique element of
minimum norm, and quickly get to
a supporting hyperplane with
orthogonality. Sure, one of the
biggest results in college math
is the polar decomposition in
linear algebra and, right,
about orthogonal eigen vectors.
Can get going on orthogonality
right there in high school
plane geometry, and she likely
has all the prerequisites.
If not, in a few places take
out a few minutes and get her
caught up.

Give her a little on
electrons, protons, neutrons,
atoms, energy and energy
levels, and chemical bonds.
Then, right, presto, bingo,
guide her to the Internet videos of the
Eric Lander
lectures on biology at MIT, say,

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/biology/7-01sc-fundamentals-of-bi...

Also, don't have her miss (get her
a bowl of popcorn for the
occasion)

http://www.princeton.edu/WebMedia/flash/lectures/20100419_pu...

with

April 19, 2010,

Eric Lander: "Secrets of the Human Genome"

Sure, have her watch some Brian Greene
videos.

Get her a freshman college chemistry
book and help her work through it,
learn about NaCl, CaCO3,
C-H bonds and methane, gasoline,
and converting O and C-H bonded
hydrocarbons to CO2 and H2O --
e.g., as in heating the house,
powering the car, flying an airplane, etc.

Look at the GED materials and
get her through all of them
by the time she is 8-9. A bright
girl of seven should be able to
get through all of that in one
not very busy summer.

The GED materials are minimal --
in particular in addition she will need to
get through algebra I and II and
trigonometry and high school physics.

Then, to heck with high school --
then get some good advice and
guide her in home schooling
through, say, at least the first
two years of college. So, for calculus,
just get her some good college
calculus books (my view of
AP calculus is that it is to be
avoided, skipped, ignored because
the authors
didn't understand calculus very
well -- similarly for Khan Academy --
repeat, just get some good college
calculus books, period), and, sure,
make friends with a college math
prof to help her not get stuck and
to stay on track. Then, sure,
have her do college freshman physics --
that's heavily just what calculus
is for.

Then when she goes to college she will
be nicely ahead.

"Youth is such a wonderful time
of life. Too bad it's wasted on
young people."

Don't have her waste hers.