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No More Mean Girls: The Secret to Raising Strong, Confident, and Compassionate Girls - Softcover

Hurley, Katie

 
9780143130864: No More Mean Girls: The Secret to Raising Strong, Confident, and Compassionate Girls
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0143130862 ISBN 13: 9780143130864
Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

In this Queen Bees and Wannabes for the elementary and middle school set, child and adolescent psychotherapist Katie Hurley shows parents of young girls how to nip mean girl behavior in the bud.

Once upon a time, mean girls primarily existed in high school, while elementary school-aged girls spent hours at play and enjoyed friendships without much drama. But in this fast-paced world in which young girls are exposed to negative behaviors on TV and social media from the moment they enter school, they are also becoming caught up in social hierarchies much earlier. No More Mean Girls is a guide for parents to help their young daughters navigate tricky territories such as friendship building, creating an authentic self, standing up for themselves and others, and expressing themselves in a healthy way.
     The need to be liked by others certainly isn't new, but this generation of girls is growing up in an age when the "like" button shows the world just how well-liked they are. When girls acknowledge that they possess positive traits that make them interesting, strong, and likeable, however, the focus shifts and their self-confidence soars; "likes" lose their importance. This book offers actionable steps to help parents empower young girls to be kind, confident leaders who work together and build each other up.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Katie Hurley, LCSW, is a child and adolescent psychotherapist, parenting expert, and writer. She is the founder of "Girls Can!" empowerment groups for girls between ages 5-11. Hurley is also the author of The Happy Kid Handbook, and her work can be found in The Washington Post, PBS Parents, and US News and World Report, among other places. She practices psychotherapy in the South Bay area of Los Angeles and earned her BA in psychology and women's studies from Boston College and her MSW from the University of Pennsylvania. She splits her time between Los Angeles, California and coastal Connecticut with her husband and two children.

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Chapter 1

What's in a Friend?

The way we will survive is by being kind.

-Amy Poehler

My mom says [my classmate] is a mean girl. You know? Like the queen bee? The one who tells everyone else what to do and who to talk to?

-A third-grade girl

Mean girls and queen bees certainly aren't a new phenomenon, and these popular labels have been around for quite some time now, but hearing those words out of the mouth of an eight-year-old girl was a bit jarring. I didn't know the "mean girl" in question, so my frame of reference was limited. What I did know was the girl in front of me had her mind made up: That other girl was labeled and placed in the "Do not friend" file.

The "mean girl" narrative is so old that it even pops up in literature I read as a child. In fact, when I began reading a well-loved copy of Little Women to my daughter not long ago, I found (two pages in) that "mean girls" have a long history in the life of girls:

"I don't believe any of you suffer as I do," cried Amy, "for you don't have to go to school with impertinent girls, who plague you if you don't know your lessons, and laugh at your dresses, and label your father if he isn't rich, and insult you when your nose isn't nice."

For reference, Louisa May Alcott first published Little Women in two installments in 1868 and 1869. Yes, mean girls come with the territory of girlhood, it seems. What's different is that those queen bees are getting younger and younger.

I was working as a school-based therapist in Los Angeles in early 2001 when I first noticed a subtle shift in the way elementary school girls related to one another. It was a small school, and the kids generally got along, but the tides turned for one particular group of girls in fourth grade. Together since first or second grade, they knew each other well and always sat in the same spots for lunch every day. Until they didn't. One day, three girls broke off and left the others devastated.

Molly was the first to come to me, a look of pure outrage across her face. In fairness, Molly was often outraged about something-homework, lessons she found boring, not enough to do at recess. She was the kind of kid who had advocacy running through her blood. On this particular day, the outrage was more personal. She was the first out to lunch and secured the usual table. Two of her daily lunch mates sat down within minutes, but three others never showed. After scanning the playground, Molly caught sight of them sitting under some trees.

In Molly's version of events, she walked over to the girls and politely inquired about why they weren't with the group. I knew her well enough to know that she likely marched over, fists clenched at her sides, demanding answers. Either way, the answer was a blow to Molly. "We just want to be alone today."

Had this been a one-time occurrence, it wouldn't have mattered much. But day after day for nearly a month, the three girls took off without inviting the others. They moved their seats in the classroom. They stopped playing with the other girls during recess. It was as if they formed a completely separate group. And the ones left behind felt hurt, confused, and abandoned.

At the time, I struggled to make sense of how the group reached that point. Sure, friends argue and kids often make new friends and move on from friendships that aren't working. But this felt different. It was as if someone took a giant Sharpie and drew a clear line down the middle of the group. Was it media influence? Older siblings? Did something catastrophic happen within the group? In reality, it wasn't any of those things. It was a powerful combination of frustration and poor communication skills.

After what felt like thousands of grievances and explanations coming in from both sides of the issue, I decided to offer a new solution. I created a girls' lunch group that met once a week during the lunch/recess period. It was open to any girl who wanted to join, and it was often packed. As it turned out, the girls were fairly bored at recess, and this negatively affected their relationships. They were high on complaints but low on solutions.

The larger problem, however, was that they were growing up and growing apart and needing some space some of the time, but they weren't communicating those feelings. Instead of talking to each other, they split off. Issues that annoyed them but went unsaid in an effort to avoid being "mean" came out in those lunch groups. It was slow at first, but a few weeks in they were sharing and communicating and yelling and apologizing. They talked about behaviors that bugged them (like one girl who always took over every conversation) and what they really wanted from a friend. It wasn't always perfect, but they were learning to work through the stuff that bothered them and caused them to pull away from one another.

If I'm being honest, there were weeks when I was convinced that this plan to reunite friends and teach social skills wasn't even making a dent in the problem. I didn't use a curriculum because I wanted to meet these girls where they were and go from there. It was complicated by the fact that the group was large and the lunch/recess period was short. But the day that I asked each of them to write a friendship compliment (a kind thought about one of their friends) on a balloon and toss it in the air was the day that everything changed. The girls laughed together as they tossed balloons around the room. They jumped around, joked, and acted like kids again. They let go of their insecurities and got lost in the moment. After that, they began to find their way again. Little by little, they chipped away at the negativity and worked through their friendship struggles. They also learned an important lesson: They could be friends and support one another without sitting in the same seats each day and following each other around.

In recent years, I've seen this behavior in girls as young as kindergarten. Behavior that was once considered middle school-ish in nature has trickled down to the early elementary years. By middle school, many girls have more complex social relationships. When they exclude others, spread gossip, or take to social media to air their grievances about other girls, they do it with intent to hurt. Young children, on the other hand, don't yet have the advanced social skills to understand this behavior, but they do engage in it. When a group decides to exclude one girl, for example, many of the girls in the group are likely to know that it's wrong and even feel uncomfortable about it, but they won't necessarily have the language to express it or the assertiveness skills to put a stop to it. Bystanders are everywhere.

Parent-Teacher Conference

Young children tend to engage in black-and-white (all-or-nothing) thinking and other cognitive distortions. Watch for these kinds of thought patterns when it comes to friendship troubles:

Overgeneralizing-Making a broad conclusion based on a single incident (e.g., I left her out one time, and she was upset, so now she'll never want to hang out with me).

Catastrophizing-Putting more weight on the worst possible outcome than makes sense given the circumstances (e.g., She'll never be my friend because I don't play soccer).

Magnifying or minimizing-These are the "mountains out of...

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Verlag
Penguin Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2018
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0143130862
ISBN 13 
9780143130864
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
336
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Verantwortliche Person
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