The 10 Best 11 Year Old Girl Gifts
This wiki has been updated 33 times since it was first published in September of 2015. Choosing a gift for an 11-year-old girl can prove to be quite challenging, as kids’ interests start to change drastically at around this age, and they often don't stop sharing them with parents too. Whether you think the tween in your life is interested in music, technology, photography, writing, science, or fashion, our selection has options that will help you pick the perfect present. When users buy our independently chosen editorial choices, we may earn commissions to help fund the Wiki.
1. Fujifilm Hello Kitty
2. Hot Focus Peace Secret Diary
3. Google Pixelbook Go
Editor's Notes
March 02, 2021:
Because what is interesting to tweens is constantly changing, this list is too. As such, there were a lot of eliminations and additions during this update, and for various reasons. It seems that children act more mature at younger and younger ages these days, so we wanted to remove any of our previous recommendations that could be considered a bit too childish, and the Enchantmints Ballerina Treasure Music Box definitely stood out in this regard. We replaced it with the Bag Wizard Faux Leather Backpack, since a lot of young girls really tend to start putting a lot of importance on fashion at this age, and this backpack is both a stylish and practical choice. The Seven Style Velvet Hair Scrunchies and Madellena Hair Chalk also allow them to play around with their personal style.
Speaking of practical choices, we replaced the MrCool Bedside Lamp with Speaker with the Divoom Timebox Evo. While both work as Bluetooth speakers, the former lacks an alarm clock, which is something that becomes more and more important as children get closer to their teenage years. Also, the Timebox Evo doubles as a cool room decoration thanks to its customizable LED display.
Another recommendation we eliminated is the Girls’ World. And this is simply because physical magazines are not nearly as popular as they used to be due to the digitization of the world. Instead, the Google Pixelbook Go is better suited to our modern world, plus it will be something they can use for years to come as they get older for homework, other educational purposes, and, of course, fun. We also removed the The Cookbook for Girls since it is intended for slightly younger girls, and they can now use their brand new laptop to look up great recipes anyways.
November 16, 2019:
Tweens can be the most difficult group of kids to shop for, but we’re here to help with some great gift options suitable for a wide variety of interests. Several new choices join our selection today, including the Hot Focus Peace Secret Diary, which helps kids keep their innermost thoughts under lock and key – and a spare key is included, just in case. It’s got a durable hard cover, the front of which is decorated in blingy peace signs and flowers. It provides ample writing space, with 300 lined, pink pages, with a spot to enter the date on the top of each. A pretty ribbon bookmark allows you to keep your page.
For a gift that’s sure to be appreciated by any long-haired girl, look to the Seven Style Velvet Hair Scrunchies, which comes with a whopping 60 scrunchies in almost every color imaginable, so she’s sure to find just the right one to match any outfit. They come conveniently in a pink see-through bag that ties with a pink ribbon.
Many young girls spend a lot of time curating their playlist of favorite songs, so give them a quality option to play all their music with the Mrcool Bedside Lamp with Speaker. It delivers impressive audio quality and can sync to a mobile device via Bluetooth. And, it also makes for a fun bedside lamp, with different modes for brightness and color. It features easy, touch-activated control, making it ultra-easy to handle when it’s on one’s nightstand or dresser.
In this update, the Penny Graphic Skateboard is replaced by the Penny Australia Cruiser, a highly similar model that’s great for anyone who wants to graduate from a bike to something flashier. And flashy this one is, with metallic fading colors and sleek, shiny wheels.
Also leaving the list today, due to a lack of availability, are the Zing Air Huntress and the SmitCo LLC Diary.
If you’ve also got a boy to shop for of the same age, check out our list of best 11-year-old boy gifts, which is a well-curated selection of suitable choices, including some cutting-edge toys and games, as well as some fun classics you might remember from your own childhood.
Special Honors
Things Remembered Natural Cosmetic Bag This durable pouch makes a nice present when filled with some of your tween’s favorite lip gloss or nail polish, or other trinkets. It is made from a natural canvas material and will come monogrammed with the name or phrase of your choice. thingsremembered.com
4. Divoom Timebox Evo
5. Penny Australia Cruiser
6. Seven Style Velvet Hair Scrunchies
7. Picun P26
8. Bag Wizard Faux Leather Backpack
9. Madellena Hair Chalk
10. 4M Crystal Growing Experiment
Developmental Milestones For 11 Year Old Girls
This makes it a good time to start using more difficult words when having conversations with your daughter.
The tween years is a period of rapid development for children. In addition to going through puberty, recent research has shown that there is a massive increase in the production of gray matter in the brain at this time. Much of this growth affects the frontal cortex, which is the area where executive functions are housed. These functions include the ability to maintain short-term memory, problem solve, control impulses, think, plan, and organize thoughts. All of this shows itself as broad leaps in cognitive functioning. An 11 year old girl will be able to reason using more adult-like logic, and consider more complex hypothetical situations.
A child's vocabulary grows at an exponential rate during the tween years, often gaining 4,000 or 5,000 new words a year. This makes it a good time to start using more difficult words when having conversations with your daughter. It will be easier for them to use context clues to deduce the meaning of words they have not previously heard.
Adolescent egocentrism makes an appearance around this time and will affect how your daughter feels about herself and how she reacts to you. She will pay more attention to her appearance as she begins to believe others notice and care about her looks. She will also enter a period in which she believes all of the emotions and experiences she is having are unique to her. In addition to being highly self-conscious, your daughter will most likely exhibit erratic personality changes. She may be happy at one moment and weeping the next, or act loving and sweet to you one day, then act as if she hates you the next.
You will most likely also notice that your daughter begins to act embarrassed that she has parents. This is because a greater precedence is placed on peer opinion at this time in her life. She will be looking to become increasingly independent and discover her placement and interests within a larger community of peers. You can expect your daughter to want to spend more time with friends, and seek acceptance from them at all costs.
Buying The Right Kind of Gifts For 11 Year Olds
Anything that allows your daughter to cultivate and show off her personal style makes a great gift for an 11 year old tween. She will be so hyper focused on her appearance and being accepted by friends that she will most likely be jumping from style to style. The type of jewelry or clothing she loved one day, she will dislike the next. This is because she is still finding her personal style. For this reason it is best to buy clothing and jewelry that is budget friendly, or find items that she can change to adjust to her new style, such as a watch that comes with a variety of band colors, or a craft jewelry set that allows her to make new styles of jewelry based on a whim.
This is also a good time to show her that it is okay to defy traditional gender roles. Gone are the days when women were not accepted as scientists or doctors. One can foster their daughter's interest in some of these fields by purchasing gifts that are entertaining and engaging within these realms, such as a microscope, science kit, toolbox, or games focused on biology or anatomy.
Since she will be looking to spend more time with her friends, gifts that she can use with them are generally a smart choice. A makeover set she can use with friends during slumber parties will get a lot of use, as will craft sets. This will give them a creative outlet to focus on while they stay up late and gossip about other school mates.
Fostering A Mother Daughter Relationship
The mother and daughter relationship is one of the most profound in life, and can give a feeling of closeness that no other bond can match. This does not mean that it is not without its troubles. As a girl moves into the teen years, this relationship is often at its most tumultuous. A 2004 study by the University of Cambridge found that arguments between mothers and their daughters occur on average every 2.5 days and last upwards or 15 minutes. To put that in perspective, mother-son arguments occur on average once every 4 days and last 6 minutes.
As a girl moves into the teen years, this relationship is often at its most tumultuous.
The strength and health of a mother-daughter relationship will affect many aspects later in her life, such as the ability to make and keep female friends and her self-confidence. This is why it's so important to foster this relationship at a young age, before the trying teen years are in full swing. Gifts that promote mother daughter time are a good choice for 11 year old girls.
The best way to promote mother-daughter time is by purchasing gifts that the two of you can use together. These gifts should be based on the interests of your daughter, rather than your interests. As the parent it is often your job to force yourself to perform activities your child finds interesting if you want to spend time together. This is because you will be placing more of a precedence on mother-daughter time, whereas your child may need some additional motivation.
A wandering writer who spends as much time on the road as in front of a laptop screen, Brett can either be found hacking away furiously at the keyboard or, perhaps, enjoying a whiskey and coke on some exotic beach, sometimes both simultaneously, usually with a four-legged companion by his side. He has been a professional chef, a dog trainer, and a travel correspondent for a well-known Southeast Asian guidebook. He also holds a business degree and has spent more time than he cares to admit in boring office jobs. He has an odd obsession for playing with the latest gadgets and working on motorcycles and old Jeeps. His expertise, honed over years of experience, is in the areas of computers, electronics, travel gear, pet products, and kitchen, office and automotive equipment.