Tomorrow morning at around 8:45 am PST/11:45 am EST, I will be a guest on the ‘FOX News Live’ program on the FOX News Channel. The topic is the growing trend of young girls wearing sexy Halloween costumes. Hopefully, I’ll be able to avoid sounding like an idiot and say everything I want to say about safety, self-respect, parental responsibility, and the hope that young girls can opt for the sugar rather than the spice for a little longer.

Although I tend to be fairly open-minded about a lot of issues, this is one that seems straightforward. Girls, especially those under the driving age, shouldn’t be wearing costumes that look overtly sexy or, as some of the young costumers are calling them “hot.” Certainly there’s a gray area here because it’s hard to determine what sexy means, but when you’ve got girls wearing get-ups with micro-mini skirts, cleavage-revealing tops, and even Playboy bunny-type one-pieces, it’s time to have a talk with your daughter.

And this is the key point. Most of us know that we won’t have a chance of a lesson sinking in if we simply say, “You’re not going out looking like that, young lady!” Instead, we need to ask our daughters if they understand what kind of message they are sending to the onlooking crowd. If the girls cannot explain the message, or even if they can, we need to dissect the consequences of wearing revealing clothing, even on a rare occasion like Halloween. The girls must know that boys and men will see a sexually available person and do everything from stare to catcall to (in worst case scenarios) grab, harass, or attack.

Your discussion should be age-appropriate, of course. For girls between the ages of five and nine, your explanation can be that they look too old and are showing too much skin. For young ladies 10 to around 14, you can start to explain the sexual messages (again, some kids may be more ready for a lot of detail than others). For both the previous group and the 15 to 17-year-old crowd, you might want to address the issue of self-respect. Ask the girls, “Do you want people to view you only as a sexual object?” This is a loaded question because many girls are still figuring that one out, but this is where you can help guide them.

Whenever possible, both Mom and Dad should talk with the daughter. Mom’s perspective involves the role model aspect and Dad’s view can offer an assurance that real men prefer girls who respect themselves. By no means should any conversations attempt to turn girls off from being sexy at the right time, place, and age. You might use this desire to “pretend to be sexy” as a chance to go over the nuances of body image and intimacy, again paying strict attention to age-appropriateness.

Whatever your approach, do not shy away from at least talking about your child’s sexy costume. One last suggestion, for now, is that you can negotiate a little if your daughter gets really indignant. You can try adding a t-shirt or shorts under the clothes to obscure a bit more skin or subtracting the garter belt or thigh-high boots.

My oldest son, now eight years old, isn’t exactly a superstar on the athletic field. He lacks a competitive fire and admits to being “much better at passing the ball than scoring.” Yet he loves to run, has great team spirit, and gets a little more skilled each year. If a recent article published in the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune (http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-sports2oct02,0,2174372.story?coll=la-home-health) is any indication, by the time my child reaches high school, there will be little room for his kind on the sports teams. 

The feature story explains that high schools lack the funding to carry more than a varsity or junior varsity or even sports beyond the major ones such as football, basketball, and baseball. With fewer teams, the competition for the available spots on the rosters is fierce, so only the elite athletes get the chance to play. Of these upper-echelon jocks, many of them get special coaching and even trainers. So what happens to the rest of the kids who want to play or just to stay in shape? It appears that there are slimmer pickings – compared to what was available for previous generations — in the way of teams or physical education at the high school, let alone lower school, level for anyone who isn’t a top-notch athlete. 

Although many of us have a while to go before our kids get to high school, the article brings out a key question. How do we keep our less-than-superstar athletes playing games? Since there is an economic reality to the lack of teams available at the high school level – one that probably requires solutions involving political means and serious local fundraising — the real answer lies within a child’s self-motivation to play sports and a parent’s ability to both make sports an option and instill a love for games that goes beyond perfection. 

From an early age, we need to offer as many athletic opportunities for our kids as we can. That doesn’t mean they have to play a season of organized sports for each, though you should consider trying a few, but it does mean that we teach them a little about many games, from baseball to badminton. Who knows what they’ll end up getting into? We also have to instill in them a sense of pride in trying hard, always endeavoring to improve, even when faced with the fact that they may not be the best jock on the field. And if there’s no team available for them to play on, then we can try to form our own regular games with kids in the community, renting out gyms or commandeering fields at a local park. We need to get our kids playing for health and for their spirits. We cannot give in to a sports culture that only attends to the elite and ignores everyone else.   As always, I look forward to your comments.

A few weeks ago, the Spanish fashion industry slapped a ban on underweight models for its show in Madrid (http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=2424595). This was an apparent response to criticism that models who are too thin for their frames influence young girls to have eating disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia. Modeling agencies felt this was discriminatory to naturally thin models and other critics found it to be inconsequential given Madrid’s lesser impact in the industry compared to Milan, Paris, London, and New York.   

I say bravo to Madrid. It’s an imperfect gesture, but it does get the ball rolling in an industry that has long perpetuated the idealization of rail-thin femininity. If a few supermodels lose some money because Madrid is focusing on a larger issue (no pun intended), then so be it. Eating disorders affect our young girls, often before they reach their teenage years. They look at fashion magazines and lingerie catalogues and think that being underweight is what boys and men want. The result is frequently unhealthy and sometimes fatal.   

Although the celebrity magazines have devoted some ink to poking fun at undernourished-looking actresses, Hollywood is also a place ripe for taking a greater stake in promoting healthy bodies rather than unnaturally size 0 figures. Kate Winslet is one of the few actresses who publicly discusses her unwillingness to get skinnier to become more of a sex icon. Frankly, there are plenty of people (and I unabashedly consider myself one of them) who find her sexy as hell because she looks healthy with all those curves. 

This brings us to an important point for fathers to consider. We have to teach our sons to appreciate the beauty of women in all shapes and sizes. Too often the message that comes across is that stick-figure females look pliable to the will of males who need to feel in control. Dads need to crush this thinking and promote an appreciation for women who look strong enough to be our partners and work with us in our relationships. For our daughters, we have to praise them for having the figures they naturally have, which includes everything from being naturally thin to being more curvaceous. Unless our girls are medically overweight, we need to help them feel good about themselves, not force them to compete with the supermodels of the world. I’ve got plenty more to say on this subject, so stay tuned. In the meantime, post your comments!