Odd Girl Out (40 page)

 

BETTER:
"
Do you want to brainstorm together about how we got here?
"

The problem may not always be developmental. Remember Erin: all her friends repressed their problems with her, letting their anger simmer quietly for years until finally it exploded. Remembering the dynamics between herself and her friends helped Erin understand why their anger felt so disproportionate. Erin could see where she inspired anger, competition, and jealousy, and where her friends might have been afraid to talk about it or express anger. Working backward with your child by walking her through memories of tension may be similarly effective.

 

ALSO:
Ask the school counselor or teacher.

Perhaps your daughter
could
improve her social skills; perhaps she's not responding to cues the right way and is drawing the ire of her peers. She may be too young or unaware to tell you that herself. Visit her guidance counselor or teacher for an evaluation. Research the resources that are available to help your family. Helping your daughter improve her social skills is another way to engage her in bettering her own situation. Asking how she may be triggering the behavior is not an inappropriate question, but as my mother always says, "It's not what you say, it's how you say it." Your approach should be balanced, respectful, and tender, one that reflects a mix of empathy for your child's pain and support for her social success.

 

WRONG:
"
This is the way girls are. You may as well get used to it.
"

Mothers who were once targets of girls' aggression often voice this sentiment. This is another instance in which the parent's experience may overwhelm the child's. No matter whom you're talking about, generalizing about a group of people never sets a positive example for your daughter. Teaching her to fear and hate other females is, of course, a mistake. There will always be challenging people in our lives. To suggest she give up the joys and comfort of female friendship will only hurt her more. Moreover, if you implicate all females in her situation, you imply that the relationship itself wasn't the problem, which is actually what your daughter needs to learn so she can find a healthier friendship the next time around.

 

BETTER:
"
Did you know that there is research about why some girls act in these ways when they get angry?
"

Teach your daughter about how girls are socialized. Explain how many girls are denied permission to express anger, jealousy, and competitiveness openly, and how that affects the ways girls express themselves. This doesn't mean apologizing for aggressive behavior; it's about understanding where it comes from so she can feel less isolated or singled out in the experience.

Guide her to understand how conflict avoidance appears in all kinds of relationships, not just the bad ones. Help her identify her own fears of conflict, even her own acts of alternative aggression.

This is a good time to wax philosophical about love, loss, and relationship. Conflict is an inevitable and vital part of relationship. It is also the price of having intense connections: "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

 

WRONG:
"
She's just jealous.
"

This is one of parents' favorite things to say, but it doesn't connect with girls in middle school and up. It's often the case that the girl who bullies or hurts your daughter appears quite self-satisfied, attractive, powerful, or otherwise well-off. Jealousy is the last thing your daughter believes this girl would feel. She thinks, Why would someone who appears that strong and satisfied be jealous of
me?

 

BETTER:
"
Why do you think she's doing this?
"

If you ask this question of an adolescent, you might well get some version of "Um, if I knew that, I would have told you already" or "Because she hates me." That's okay. Keep pushing your daughter to consider why the girl is acting this way. Little by little, as she reflects, your daughter may realize it has less to do with her and more to do with the other girl. Or she may begin to see that the friendship is fundamentally broken. This kind of clarity can actually be a comfort.

 

WRONG:
"
Maybe you're being a little sensitive?
" or "
But you two are such good friends!
"

As my grandmother would say, "Oy vey." It would be hard to overstate the resentment adult women still feel about this particular pearl of wisdom. You may think you're toughening up your daughter, teaching her to roll with the punches, but she experiences these remarks as a blatant denial of her feelings.

Naomi grew up in the kind of home where if she fell, her grandmother would laugh and say, "I hope you didn't break the floor!" When she told her parents how the others were whittling her down, they advised her to act as though it weren't happening. She recalled,

I couldn't cry about it. I couldn't ask for help. I couldn't fight back. I didn't have a right to defend myself. You couldn't show your pain. You couldn't react as if someone had done a really bad thing. There was this silence, this you can't speak. And I feel as though I have a right to nothing more than I have a right to my own feelings ... You have a right to do whatever you need to do to defend yourself and you have the right to feel dignity. I think that was the greatest thing that I feel was ever taken from me. And only now am I getting it back.

Remember that appearances can be deceiving. Girls easily tuck aggression into the folds of friendship, making it almost invisible. Your child's brief or casual disclosure may be the only warning you get. Faith explained how her bully's sweet exterior masked the girl's nastiness. "Nobody knew because Liz was like a straight A student, and they thought she was friends with all these people. Nobody knew what she'd do to some of her friends." If you find yourself arguing with your daughter, it wouldn't hurt to ask yourself why. After all, we see what we want to see. What do you have to gain or lose if your daughter is no longer friends with this person?

At the end of the day, if you weren't present for the episode your daughter is describing, calling her hypersensitive is unfair and judgmental. It's one of the clearest ways to signal you don't understand her or her life. It also perpetuates the silencing and invalidation of girls' aggression.

 

BETTER:
"
How can you tell they're not joking? Are you sure they really mean to make you feel this bad?
"

If your child is recalling a situation her friends insisted was a "joke," beware. As I show in chapter three, girls use humor as a vehicle to convey negative feelings indirectly. It is also extremely common for a girl to do something hurtful, then deny it happened at all. This can make your daughter second-guess herself and even feel a bit crazy. As she lets the other girl define what is true in the relationship, she surrenders the confidence and authority she needs to stand up for herself.

In a culture that denies the anger and meanness girls visit upon one another, it is incumbent upon you as a parent to validate your child's version of events. You may be the only one who ever will. That's not to say you should overreact and overidentify with your child's painful disclosures. But you do have to take her word for it. If you don't, you may risk never hearing from her again.

 

beyond empathy: raising a resilient daughter

As much as the parental instinct blares to protect your child from pain, her healthy development is dependent on learning to handle life's challenges. The stresses of friendship help her learn vital coping skills she will use across a range of contexts and throughout her life. Depriving girls of these experiences, and of the opportunity to wrestle with them, does not eliminate stress; it delays its arrival, dangerously. As psychologist Madeline Levine has shown in her book
The Price of Privilege,
adolescents whose parents deprived them of opportunities to be self-reliant were unable to handle the challenges of adolescence. These teenagers had high levels of anxiety and depression. They were more likely to engage in self-destructive behaviors like substance abuse and self-mutilation.
⁸⁰

Relationships are the fourth "R"—or should be, anyway. Just like math or spelling, successful friendships involve learning and practicing a set of skills that become more sophisticated over time. If we do not expect girls to arrive at kindergarten capable of adding fractions, we should not expect them to have flawless friendships from a young age. Girls have to learn, and we have to help them. This process takes time, not to mention some stumbles and missteps along the way. It also means giving girls the space to learn on their own. For just as we know that doing her math homework for her will stunt her learning potential, doing her "relationship homework" will be equally harmful.

Best-friend heartbreaks (or "friend divorces," as I call them) confer hard-won wisdom about what we're seeking and deserve in our most important relationships. Think back to the times you have had your heart broken, either by a friend or romantic partner. It is probably true that the experiences made you stronger and taught you things that improved your later relationships. Remembering the invaluable lessons of those dark days may help as you watch your daughter endure her own.

You are not a bad parent if she gets hurt or hurts someone else. Nor, of course, is she a troubled or unusual child. Think about it this way: when girls begin dating, most realize they won't end up marrying their first crush. They accept that they will probably get dumped and will do the same to others. Why not embrace this idea when it comes to female friendship? What if we could parent girls with the expectation that friend problems will inevitably crop up, and that these are formative obstacles on the road to adulthood? This doesn't mean excusing bullying or severe aggression. It does mean approaching the situation as an opportunity to learn, and not an instant crisis or the sign of a parenting failure.

Giving your daughter an opportunity to flex her coping muscles on her own will help her become more resilient. Resilience is defined as the ability to overcome stress, challenge, or adversity. I believe a socially resilient girl can size up a challenging friend situation, think about her options, and choose a strategy whose outcome has been carefully considered.

You can build these muscles in your daughter by asking her to take responsibility for her own decisions in a relationship. After empathizing with her, you can ask, "What do you want to do about this?" She will most likely say, "I don't know." Gently push her. You can say, "I know it feels overwhelming, but what's one thing you think you could do?" Allow her to generate a few choices (doing nothing, by the way, is a choice).

Go even further and try the four-step GIRL protocol with her, which your daughter can apply to any social challenge. It works like this:

G—Gather Your Choices. (List all the choices you might make in response to the situation.)

I—I Choose...(Make a choice. Pick one of the strategies you just listed above.)

R—Reasons Are...(Justify your choice. List the reasons you will choose this strategy.)

L—List the Outcomes. (Think ahead: what might happen if you make this choice?)

Below is a GIRL completed by Esther, an eighth grader, whose friend ignored her when another girl was around. When Esther asked her friend why she was doing it, the girl denied it and said Esther was being too sensitive.

The first step is G, Gather Your Choices. Esther listed her options:
stop speaking to her, talk about her behind her back, ask her about it on-line, tell her how I feel, talk to an adult, hang out with other people,
and
ask someone else if she knows why my friend is ignoring me.

The second step is I, or I Choose. Esther decided to talk to her friend about it online.

The third step is R or Reasons Are. Esther said she wanted to do it online because it was easier than asking in person and she could keep it more casual that way.

The fourth step is L, or List the Outcomes. Esther predicted that her friend might deny it again, or she might feel more comfortable communicating via Facebook.

Would I advise Esther to share her feelings with a friend on Facebook? No way. But it's important to let girls realistically explore their options during the "G" step, even if you don't agree with them. I could challenge Esther, of course, but it might be useful to let her follow through so she can fully own her choice and its consequences. I have found that when girls pick strategies that will hurt themselves or others, they have second thoughts once they get to the step where they list outcomes. They often backpedal and decide to do something else.

The GIRL protocol helps a girl become more resilient by sharpening several key skills she needs to be sturdy in the face of friend drama: First, it gives her a systematic method for laying out all the possible strategies to deal with a problem. Second, it asks her to make a choice. This gives her a sense of agency and control in situations where she would otherwise feel helpless or overwhelmed—or where choices are often made for her by other adults. Third, GIRL expects her to justify and own her decision, asking her to reflect on her personal values. Finally, GIRL asks her to think long term about the consequences of her choices. This practical way of thinking is especially important for girls who trend toward aggressive, indirect, or retaliatory responses. For example, you may choose to talk about someone behind her back, but if you think about the potential for retaliation, you are likely to reconsider.

You can use GIRL verbally, by asking your daughter to reflect on the questions informally. Better yet, write G-I-R-L on a page and ask her to fill it out with you the next time she comes home with a problem. Ultimately, the questions you ask your daughter should become the questions she learns to ask herself. In other words, the GIRL protocol should become part of how she thinks about life's challenges. The point is to build the internal muscles your daughter needs to think for herself in the face of stress.