On playgrounds all across the country, parents, teachers, administrators are shocked at the mean girl behavior they commonly see. As Rosalind Wiseman wrote in Queen Bees and Wannabes, girls today start younger and younger at seeing how much power they can earn by being exclusionary and playing the “Queenbee.” Girls are left with a choice no one wants to make: be a “Queenbee” who hurts and pits other girls against each other to maintain her status, or be a “wannabee” follower who doesn’t have her own voice, doesn’t have power, and can be tossed aside at any moment in favor of someone else the Queenbee deems as more cool. It gets even worse as girls approach middle school and can openly be cruel on social media. Have you had enough of seeing your girl come home from school distraught by something another girl did or said to her? Do you wish your girl stood up for herself more and had real friends?
Here are 5 things you can do right away to shift the dynamics for your girl from Queenbees/Wannabes to Real Friendship and Community.
1.) Ask your girl, “What does it mean to be/have a real friend?”
If your girl comes home crying about what a girl said or did to her, ask your girl what they believe it means to be/have a real friend. Get a piece of paper out and write down a list of the things/qualities she says she believes make a real friend. When a girl does or says something, go to the list, and ask your girl if what that person said or did matches the list SHE created of what it means to be a real friend. She can use this when she has a talk with a friend about the impact that friend’s behavior is having on her emotionally. She can use it to decide if someone who she has talked to repeatedly really is her friend. She can make new friends at any time and may see patterns where different types of girls and personalities would actually be better real friends to her based on this list. Your girl does not have to be mean, but she can choose, and take care of her friendship needs in this way.
2.) Teach Your Girl to Speak Up Assertively About Her Feelings
Girls Leadership is a program which teaches girls from k-8th grade how to be assertive about their feelings when something goes awry in a friendship. Girls take workshops with their parent and are taught through theater, games, and original curriculum, the 9 elements of friendship, and how to communicate as they navigate friendships. Mostly, girls are taught that when someone hurts their feelings, they need to let that person know, by using assertive communication statements: “When you did ____________, I felt ____________. I would like for you to (not to) __________________ next time.” They learn to identify the behavior, describe the impact on their feelings, and request a change in behavior. Skills that are useful throughout the lifespan to communicate with friends, loved ones, partners and children. http://www.girlsleadership.org.
3.) Share Stories About Your Journey Making Real Friends
Tell stories to your girl about different points in your life when you faced success and challenge making real friends. Let her know how you define real friendship. Give her lots of examples of real friends and what they do to have your back. Share stories about times when people were not your real friends, what you did to address it, how you made decisions to move on and how you made new friends. Sharing authentically with your daughter lets her see you as human, not perfect. It’s a learning process, one which teaches us self worth, boundary-setting, reflection, discernment...that we have the power to choose what is good and right for us.
4.) Create Community with Families Who Share Your Vision of Real Friendship
Spend time with families who share your vision of real friendship. If you value inclusion and community, being there for each other as real friends, then create a community that centers around those values, spend time together, have potlucks, go hiking, do nature-based adventures, community service, travel, stay off devices, demonstrate to all the kids what real friendship looks like in daily life.
5.) Teach/Model Responsible Tech/Social Media Usage
Much of the mean girl activity happens on Instagram, Snap Chat and other social media channels for middle and high school age girls. Many families create tech usage contracts which detail frequency of device-free dinners, location for device charging, and rules of conduct if and when something goes wrong on social media, and guidelines for how your child agrees to conduct her/himself on social media, as well as times they agree to be device-free throughout their day and weekend. Screenagers is a great film watch together and discuss. Many families are signing the Wait Until 8th Pledge which states they will not allow their child to have a phone until 8th grade. This is much more effective if an entire community of parents does it together creating a unified front.
Kiran Gaind is a mother of two young girls, former inner city high school history teacher and school turnaround consultant who owns The Connected Family, a boutique parenting/work-life balance and leadership coaching practice based in Silicon Valley. She is writing her first book called Cultures of CARE: A Model of 21st Century Leadership for Home, Work & School, due out in 2018. Her four month course, Cultures of CARE, runs from Feb-May every year, using an online platform for self-paced learning and a live FB forum for Q and A. She offers a free webinar series in Nov-Jan, covering topics for parents of all age children, workplace leaders creating effective teams, and educators/leaders for prek-12 schools. Sign up to receive her updates at http://www.theconnectedfamily.net.