Other things not to say:
They’re just jealous.
They’re just insecure.
You’re better off without them.
Just be strong.
Just don’t let it bother you.
Samantha just found out that Megan is behind the gossip bomb that has been ruining her life for the past month. Last night, Samantha got an anonymous voice mail saying she was a fat cow, and she could hear Megan laughing in the background. Today Megan is acting like there’s nothing wrong. But last period, when Samantha walks by Megan and her friends and they laugh, Samantha can’t take it anymore.
SAMANTHA: You want to grow up and say whatever you’re saying to my face?
MEGAN: What are you talking about? (She says this sarcastically, not subtly rolling her eyes to the other girls.)
SAMANTHA: You don’t think I can hear you laughing? What’s your problem?
MEGAN: No offense, but I don’t think I’m the one with the problem.
SAMANTHA: What’s that supposed to mean?
MEGAN: Don’t take this the wrong way but it’s completely pathetic to see how you’re throwing yourself on Dylan. He doesn’t even like you. But whatever, if you want to act like a total slut I guess that’s your choice.
SAMANTHA: What’s your problem, Megan?
MEGAN: I don’t have a problem. I didn’t say anything to you until you came up to me. If you can’t take it, you shouldn’t have asked. Come on, you guys. Let’s get away from drama girl before she completely loses it.
Can you blame Samantha if she gave up and slugged Megan? If you were Samantha’s parents, wouldn’t you think Megan was horrible, and that Megan’s parents were equally guilty for raising this monster? What should you do if you’re Samantha’s parent? What should you do if you’re Megan’s parent?
99.99 percent of girls gossip, including your daughter.
The longer and more adamantly you deny this fact, the worse of a gossip she’ll be.
While we’re on the subject, the worse gossip you are, the worse your daughter will be (and you thought she didn’t listen to you!).
Girls will almost always blame their behavior on something or someone else. Let’s say your daughter is accused of spreading a rumor. Instead of admitting her guilt, she’ll demand to know who exposed her as the information source, as if the snitch were the person who’s really at fault—conveniently forgetting that she was the one who gossiped.
If she’s over twelve, girls have probably called your daughter a slut and/or bitch. And it’s just as likely that she has called other girls a slut and/or bitch (that you have never heard these words out of your daughter’s mouth is immaterial).
Technology increases the power and damage of gossip. Your daughter could easily and understandably feel that once gossip is “out there,” it will never go away. She’ll never be able to escape its clutches because everyone will know about “it” forever.
The younger your daughter is when you give her a cell phone, the younger she’ll be exposed to gossip or more likely she will participate in gossip herself.
Starting from the age of around five years of age, “Just joking!” is used way too often as a way to tear someone down and then deny you did anything wrong.
In this chapter I will look at how teasing, gossiping, and reputations impact your daughter’s sense of self, social competency, and friendships. I will break down different ways of handling gossip and teasing whether the target is inside or outside the clique. I will give you more strategies so you’ll know which battles to fight for her and which ones you should let her fight on her own. But I will also challenge you to take action when your daughter is the one who starts the rumors. Most girls who are gossiped about gossip themselves. It’s more than possible that your daughter has been cruel to someone else. It’s up to you to teach her differently.
I know for some of you it’s hard to imagine your daughter being unkind or downright nasty to other girls, especially if she’s never shown this kind of ugliness around the house. On the flip side, you may know your daughter is a gossip but be so frustrated with her that you secretly side with her friends if they drop her.
I hate to say this, but I’d understand if my daughter lost all her friends right now. She’s so gossipy I think it would be good for her if someone in her group stood up to her. And I can’t believe I’m saying this because two years ago if you had told me I’d feel this way or my daughter would act like this, I wouldn’t have believed you.
—Meg
I can’t believe what I overhear my daughter and her friends saying about this one girl. And believe me I talk to her about it! I get so mad at her but nothing I do seems to make a difference. She really feels like it’s not that big a deal to be talking so badly about people.
—Karen
When your daughter walks down the hall to her history class, what’s she more likely talking to her friends about: the upcoming class or the latest gossip? Teasing and gossip swirl around your daughter’s head every day, and they’re the lifeblood of cliques and popularity. Although your daughter may feel that they provide the forum for bonding with her friends, teasing and gossip can also act as powerful weapons to pit girls against each other and destroy their self-confidence.
Your goal is to teach your daughter to identify when teasing and gossiping get out of hand and to do something about it. This is an ambitious goal to say the least, because it often means your daughter will have to go against her friends and risk her comfortable place in the group. But this is the Champion moment I talked about in Chapter 3. She may not think that standing up for someone else is worth the price of losing her status. Or she may know in her gut that what’s happening is wrong, but can’t really put her finger on it or feels powerless to stop it.
Let’s go back to the classroom. I often ask girls between ten and eighteen to tell me what they like about their friendships with other girls. These are their common responses. You can:
Be yourself
Tell her anything
Trust her
Depend on her support
Be silly
Hang out
Share clothes
Tell secrets
But, as you now know, these same friendships aren’t always so supportive. Just as the girls want to talk about “good” popularity for thirty seconds and focus on “evil” popularity instead, they would much rather get to my next question: “So, what are the things you don’t like so much about your friendships with girls?” These are their common responses. She can:
Talk behind your back
Gossip about you
Be two-faced
Be jealous
Be critical
Be judgmental
Tell your secrets
Be a tagalong
Take your boyfriend
Make you choose friends
Betray you
As the girls call out their answers, they laugh and crawl over each other to complete the list of mean things they do to each other. The amazing thing is that no matter the girls’ race, geographic location, class, or religion, I always get the same answers. Take a closer look at the “negative” list; a theme should become clear. They’re all about competition, about looks, style, friends, popularity, and boys—things girls think they need to secure a place in the Act Like a Woman box.
Are girls competitive about grades and sports? Yes. But there’s a nuance to it. About a third of the girls I teach include grades and athletics on the list. Girls tend to consider these attributes as part of the overall package you need in order to be successful. Simultaneously, they know they can’t be too overt about their academic or athletic accomplishments. The general rule in Girl World is you can’t make people uncomfortable with your success. This is not a lesson we want girls to learn and take with them into adulthood.
My students love to ask me if I was teased when I was in school and I was—but no worse than most kids. In seventh and eighth grade I was part of a powerful clique, but I was at the bottom of the totem pole within that clique. From the outside, I looked like I was popular. From the inside, I didn’t feel that way at all. The girls in my clique teased me all the time about precisely the things I was the most insecure about. I put up with it because I didn’t want to risk being expelled from my group. I was so intimidated by them that years later, after I’d graduated from college and was living in San Francisco, I saw the Queen Bee from my old clique in the grocery store and without hesitation ran out of the store.
Almost everyone has been on both sides of teasing. So how serious is it? Teasing is multifaceted, and just as I define popularity in two ways, I have different definitions of teasing. If you’re going to be credible to your daughter, you must distinguish between them. I struggle all the time trying to figure out when girls are teasing each other or being serious, and sometimes they do too. Things you would think are serious often aren’t, and sometimes your daughter sounds casual precisely because she’s covering up what she really feels. Depending on your daughter’s intention and the power dynamics between her and her friend, there could be a lot more going on than even she understands. How do you tell which one is which and how does your daughter? I break down teasing into three different kinds.
Good teasing is one of the cornerstones of great friendships. Someone who cares about you, knows you well enough, and is comfortable with you can tease and joke around with you—”with” (not “at”) being the operative word. With good teasing, there’s no intention to put the other person down, and the teaser understands what your “No Joking Zone (NJZ)” is—the specific things you never want to be teased about.* Your daughter will know if she feels liked by the teaser and doesn’t feel that the teaser’s motivation is to put her down. If your daughter says she doesn’t like it, the behavior will stop.
It’s easy to tease someone and not know you’re hurting her feelings. We’ve all done it and we’ve all been on the receiving end of it. It’s always hard to tell someone you like that you’re not happy with something they did. It’s extremely difficult for girls and women to be in situations like this because we’re taught to not make waves. But when the intent isn’t malicious (which isn’t to say it couldn’t be insensitive), once the teaser understands the impact of her behavior, she’ll get over her defensiveness and make a sincere apology because she recognizes she’s hurting someone she cares about. Your daughter will know when she doesn’t feel the teaser’s motivation is to put her down but instead that the teaser doesn’t know how she feels and that it hurt her.
Bad teasing isn’t really teasing because that would imply it’s harmless. It’s really more akin to being cut with words, because the person is being attacked precisely where they feel most vulnerable and exposed and where it is most likely to cause the most pain. Verbal cutting targets the NJZ I mentioned earlier. And who knows what those things would be more than the people we’re closest to? It can occur both inside and out of the clique, and either way, it’s ugly and done to put the recipient in her place (i.e., below the teaser on the social totem pole).
The classic strategy is for a relentless attack on a subject guaranteed to cause the most humiliation. Then, the perpetrators dismiss the target when she defends herself by saying, “Can’t you take a joke?” “What are you making such a big deal of this for?” What is so frustrating about being dismissed with “I’m just joking!” is that it lets the person who hurt you off the hook. Even worse, often the girl who is being teased ends up apologizing for speaking up in the first place (“I’m sorry, I’m such an idiot”) or swallowing it lest she lose her place within her group of friends.
A girl can’t tease like this “up” the ladder. If she does, the girls with more power will punish her by saying something that puts her back in her place. Sometimes it’s the girl who puts herself down by making a self-deprecating comment or apologizing profusely, which restores the equilibrium in the group.
Bad teasing within a clique is about maintaining order or demoting someone who has broken the group’s rules. Bad teasing outside of the clique is about maintaining the power of the group in relation to the overall community it is a part of.
Why do girls do this to each other, even when they “know” it’s wrong? Especially in early adolescence, girls change friendships frequently, and it’s common for those changes to create a high degree of anxiety. When this happens, it’s common for girls who used to be friends to turn on each other, and the verbal cutting can be brutal. When a girl leaves one group for another, the friends she’s left behind feel rejected. But they often cover that feeling by convincing themselves they should be angry at her for being “stuck up” and “fake.” Although there certainly may be a degree of truth in that, it is also usually the case that underneath the initial feeling are much more troubling questions, like “Why did she leave me? What’s wrong with me? What does her leaving say about me? Do other girls think the same thing?”
At the least, these dynamics can make it extraordinarily difficult to concentrate in school, and many girls will do anything to avoid the people making them miserable. Here are a few strategies girls have shared with me to avoid their tormentors:
Being so slow in the morning that she misses the bus. Meanwhile her parents are hitting the roof because she’s lazy, not taking school seriously, or being immature because she doesn’t realize how missing the bus makes them late for work.
Refusing to use the bathroom at school all day.
Taking a longer route to class, even at the expense of being late.
An unwavering commitment to listening to music with headphones or earplugs.
Always reading, so she can pretend (or not) to selectively hear what people are saying around her.
Pretending to be sick.
Pretending that she’s not hungry and she has to study so she doesn’t go to the cafeteria.
Sometimes I would make a pretty feeble attempt to tell my friends to stop teasing me that probably came off as whining that no one took seriously. And these girls were supposed to be my friends. … If the girl protests, even weakly, the teasers will say, “We’re just joking. Stop making such a big deal of this.”
—Jordan, 17
You don’t say anything because you hope things are going to get better. But then you always end up talking to another girl about it because you’re angry or you just want someone to talk to about what you’re feeling. But then sometimes she tells other people and then everything gets into a huge mess. I really don’t get why we do this.
—Pamela, 16
These girls are my best friends. I can tell them anything. They’ll back me up. But if we’re so close, then why do they tease me all the time? If they really are my friends, then why do they make me feel bad? Why am I so frightened to say anything?
—Greer, 14
Things would be a lot easier if your daughter asked herself to answer Greer’s questions. But girls, like many of us, often make excuses for their friends or convince themselves that they really don’t care so they won’t have to take action. And in any case, it’s hard for a young girl to get all of those feelings organized into thoughts, much less be able to ask you about them.
It feels like a no-win situation. She’s trapped hanging out with friends who make her miserable, and if she doesn’t address this, she’ll be angry with herself because she can’t hold her own against bullies who masquerade as her friends. Keep this in mind later when you ask yourself why your daughter dates someone you don’t think is respectful to her. She is learning to be silent in the face of intimidation. It feels less painful to put up with the intimidation than take a stand against it.
“But, Mom, that’s just what we say. We don’t mean anything by it.”
Does your daughter use “bitch” as a term of endearment? Like when she answers her cell phone with a cheerful “Hey Bitch” to her friend? If so, you may (a) think this is a problem and (b) feel blown off when she dismisses you with the above response. Well, you’re right. It is a problem, and here’s how to get her to think about it differently. The reason children and teens believe words like bitch and slut don’t mean anything is because they hear them so often it seems normal.
That’s exactly the problem. Just because it may be common doesn’t make it right. So this is what I’d say to your daughter:
I get that you think I’m overreacting but there’s something you need to know. Originally and even now, the word bitch has been used to silence a woman when she expresses her opinions and rights. The word slut or any other word like it is used to define women as only sexual objects with no right to an opinion. I don’t believe you’re a person who believes women should be shut down for demanding respect. I know I can’t control what comes out of your mouth, but now that you know, I’m asking you to be a strong woman by taking responsibility for the words you say. That is what powerful women of character do.
Gossip is like money. We exchange it, sell it, and lend it out. It’s what we have of value.
—Jane, 16
I’m never mean to people without a reason.
—Celia, 12
Whoever gossips to you will gossip about you.
—Courtney, 15
Let’s face it. We all gossip: on the phone and at parties, meals, and family reunions. Girls are no different. In fact, why do you think adults are so good at it? Because we’ve been sharpening our skills since we were young, and it’s almost impossible to stop. So do I tell my friend to stop when she calls me at work with some juicy information? Of course not. But there’s a difference. While gossip still has the ability to ruin your day, its impact on your adult life is usually superficial and fleeting. Hopefully, you shut your mouth when you know you’ll hurt someone. But it’s very different when you’re a teen. Along with teasing, gossip is one of the fundamental weapons that girls use to humiliate each other and reinforce their own social status.
As I said in the beginning, the power of gossip has dramatically increased with the advance of technology. It often feels like kids have lost any internal braking system to stop the automatic response to join in the gossip mill. Someone else’s embarrassment and humiliation becomes everyone else’s entertainment or opportunity to make the person feel even worse. Gossip has always been humiliating because girls literally feel like the whole world notices everything they do, and with everyone texting right under their parents’ noses, it’s true.
Most likely you’ve seen your daughter’s egocentricity in full bloom when she becomes embarrassed by something you’ve done or said in front of others. In Reviving Ophelia, Mary Pipher describes the “imaginary audience syndrome,” where a girl was humiliated by the way her mother clapped at a play. In reality, no one but her daughter thought she was clapping strangely, and even if they did, who cares? However, this girl truly believed that everyone was totally focused on her and, by extension, her mother. If you can embarrass your daughter by doing something no one notices, imagine how she feels when rumors are spread about her. She feels as if she’s wearing a neon sign advertising her shame and humiliation. And now that everyone can spread the gossip by texting, Facebooking, and instant messaging each other before, during, and after school, your daughter’s paranoia is actually justified.
Girls often pretend they are venting or getting advice from a friend when they’re really gossiping. Now, there’s nothing wrong with bouncing things off other people to get advice and feedback. So what’s the difference? Gossiping is when a person spreads information about someone else to embarrass or isolate them. Venting is expressing your feelings about an experience you had. For example, you get really mad at another girl and then tell another friend what happened and how you’re feeling about it. That’s venting. Your friend takes that information and tells other people to stir up drama and make people not like the girl. That’s gossiping. Your job as a parent is to teach your daughter the difference between reaching out to a friend to express her feelings and get advice versus trashing another person.
In some of my classes, we spend the entire time discussing gossip. When ten minutes are left in class, I ask the girls to sign a pledge not to gossip for any amount of time they think is realistically possible. They giggle and argue. Is it possible? Can they do it? Why would they want to? Most are doubtful they can make it past thirty minutes. During this time, they are encouraged to think about how much of their conversation with friends revolves around gossip. Here are some of their pledges:
“We the class of 8B promise not to gossip or be exclusive when we leave this class and go to our next class.”
“We the class of 6C promise not to backstab, lie, gossip, or spread rumors about each other for two hours today, April 2.”
Occasionally, the girls aspire to greatness.
“We the class of 9B promise not to gossip for three days.”
I don’t assume the girls will uphold their pledge. The purpose is for them to realize how much of their daily conversation revolves around gossip. Through this exercise, they get it. Their most frequent comment at the next class is “It was weird to realize that gossiping is all we talk about!”
In Fourth Grade
Which girl is boy crazy
Who is “girlfriend and boyfriend”
Which girl in the glass is being stuck-up
Which boy in the class has “germs”
In Sixth Grade
Friendships
Conflicts with friends
Rivalries in/between cliques
Boys and crushes
In Ninth Grade
Who’s trying to become friends with upperclassmen
Who’s popular
Which girls are stealing boys away from other girls
Which boys are being used by girls
Which girls are being used by boys
Which girls in the class are getting attention from older guys
Which parties you’re invited to and which ones you aren’t
Who’s drinking, doing drugs, or having sex
In Eleventh Grade
Which freshmen girls are throwing themselves at the upperclassmen
Who hooked up with whom at the last party
Who cheated on whom
Who got drunk and/or did drugs
Who made a fool out of themselves at the last party
Who’s getting used and why or why not they deserve it
Gossip and reputations can’t exist without each other. Reputations are a by-product of constant gossiping and, good or bad, they end up trapping girls. Like cliques, your daughter will probably perceive reputations more rigidly in her early teens than in her later teens. When I first discuss reputations with girls, I ask them the following three questions: (1) If a girl gets a bad reputation, is it her fault? (2) Once you get a reputation, good or bad, will you always have it? (3) Should you back up a friend when she gets a bad reputation?
The majority of younger girls and teens believe that you’re to blame for the reputation you get, you will always be stuck with it, and they’re torn about backing a friend. Older teens know that people can get reputations without “doing” anything to deserve it and sometimes you can leave your reputation behind, even if that means you have to switch schools.
The impact of reputations can last throughout your daughter’s teen years, because somewhere along the way, girls start believing it as truth. Who they are (their character, sense of self, and personality) gets tangled up with their reputation. This is another reason why girls are often confused about their own motivation when they know they’re doing something foolish and/or dangerous. Because they want to please their friends, boys, and/or you, they will do things against their better judgment to uphold their image.
The following is a compilation of different reputations I’ve seen or heard girls talk about. The first four are relevant for girls up to sixth grade. These and the ones that follow are found from seventh grade up.
She has to be the center of attention. She gets to decide which boys like which girls. When she’s mad, she puts out her hand to stop you from talking. She is an expert liar and thinks she’s better than all the other girls. She tells you what to do all the time.
She loves pink and maybe purple. She freaks out when she sees any kind of insect. She hates to get dirty. She gets her nails polished or if she can’t do that, expertly colors her nails with Magic Marker. She has a cloud of boys around her. She wants to be a fashion designer and talks about clothes all the time. She loves websites with princesses or dress-up games.
She wants people to open the door for her even when the door is already open.
—Keria, 11
Sometimes you get a girl who is a girly girl and a drama queen. That’s the worst thing that could possibly happen. It’s like your house catching on fire and then exploding.
—Annie, 10
Girls don’t trust her and, for the most part, teachers don’t like her either. In younger grades, she often makes things much worse for herself by becoming the rules enforcer when the teacher isn’t there. Her peers often find her incredibly annoying but will use her if she helps them with their homework.
Same as when you were growing up. The girl who won’t play with dolls or makeup kits and would much rather play dodgeball or four square with the boys.
Everyone thinks her life is perfect while she feels like a fraud and thinks that at any moment someone will pull back the curtain and expose her. She tries desperately to avoid making any mistakes, and she is impossibly hard on herself. She finds fault with herself easily and never thinks she’s doing enough. She runs herself into the ground trying to keep up with her image. She either never drinks or does drugs because she’s too afraid to lose control or can be a binge drinker/drugger to escape the pressure she’s under.
She insists that she “always gets along better with guys” because girls are “too dramatic.” One of the most frustrating things the guy’s girl does is back up the boys when they argue with girls about politics or gender issues, and the boys love her for it. She often neglects her own feelings and pretends she “doesn’t get attached” to guys. She ends up treating herself like a sex object, and guys treat her that way too. She tells herself she feels powerful so she can sleep at night.
She likes school, has had a boyfriend for three years, and is one of those preppy, peppy people. She’s on all the committees. Like the Emo/Goth Girl, this reputation seems to stand the test of time. Many parents love having a preppy kid because it appears that their internal lives are as clean-cut as the clothes they wear. This can be true, but it’s in no way a guarantee.
People have called it different things over the years, but this is the girl who wears all black, dyes her hair (usually black but not always), listens to dark music, and scares people who can’t see past the cynical expression and morose style. She comes across as having no patience for popularity and the people in the popular cliques. Sometimes she says things just to freak other people out. Notwithstanding her hard exterior, she can be easily hurt by others but feels like there’s no point in going to adults if the popular clique is making her life (or her friends) miserable.
In the sixth grade she played football with the boys, but by eighth grade the boys won’t play with her—and neither will the girls. She’s reluctant to join groups, is quiet, and often feels out of place. She can speak out defiantly if she has to, but then goes back into her shell. It’s common for her peers to spread rumors about her being gay (which she may be but not always). What’s important to realize is that this reputation is based more on her gender-neutral or more masculine appearance than her sexual orientation. Parents and teachers (myself included) can have a really hard time getting her to open up. But once you do, there’s usually a really interesting, compassionate kid.
She’s the chameleon. She changes herself constantly to fit in with the girls she emulates and the guys she likes. She looks to others for her opinions because she’s afraid to express an original thought. She can be horrible to a target and is easily manipulated by more powerful girls. Boys and girls can laugh at her behind her back for trying too hard.
Ho. Freak. Skank. Whatever. There are few other words that carry so much weight, have so much baggage, and control a girl’s behavior and decision making more. One of the biggest difficulties in my work is encouraging girls to be proud of their developing sexuality while making sure they understand how vulnerable they are in a world that constantly wants to exploit their sexuality. When it comes to the “slut” reputation, girls accuse each other of two things: acting like a slut, and being a slut. The fear of being accused of acting like a slut controls girls’ actions in a particular situation. For example, when your daughter chooses what to wear to a party, she’s trying to balance looking sexy while not coming off as slutty (i.e., being attractive to boys yet not incurring the wrath of other girls).
I was playing basketball with three friends. One of my friends was a girl and the other two were boys. We had been playing for a while when a girl in our school who was in seventh grade asked us if she could play. We said yes. After a while, she took off her sweatshirt and pants and she was only wearing a tiny tank top and shorts. We kept playing, but the boys couldn’t pay attention. I thought she was really showing off and flirting with the boys. The whole thing got really weird. I think she was acting like a total slut.
—Brett, 11
When I asked that girl how she felt watching this scenario unfold, her reaction was far more complex. As much as she didn’t approve of the seventh-grade girl’s behavior, she was conflicted because she envied the boys’ attention. Girls often feel they have to choose between being themselves and displaying a sexy costume, which is a huge conflict. If a girl opts for the costume and acts the part, she’ll get the boys’ attention, but she’ll also risk the girls’ resentment—and the spiteful talking behind her back. So she’ll try to achieve the impossible by pleasing groups with two competing agendas. She might also feel that once she interacts with boys in a sexual way, she won’t be able to hang out with them without her sexuality being the only thing they value about her. These conflicting emotions and confusion increase when girls accuse each other of acting like sluts.
For younger girls, the threat of being called a slut defines the limits of acceptable behavior and dress. They use it to describe a girl who is perceived as flirting “too much” and dressing “too” provocatively. They’re easily and understandably confused about their own personal comfort level regarding how they come across to others, because they’re literally transforming from little girls into women in a world that often perceives them first and foremost as sexual objects. It can be confusing, exciting, and terrifying all at the same time.
So, acting like a slut is a label a girl gets from her appearance and behavior in “public,” like the school hallway, movie theaters, malls, and parties, where people might see her drunk and/or “throwing” herself onto someone. The accusation of being a slut most often doesn’t come until eighth grade, when at least some girls are not only making out with guys but also giving oral sex and having intercourse. Then the slut reputation is more about pointing fingers at a girl’s sexual activity, whether she “gives it up” easily, hooks up with a lot of boys, and so on. It’s a reputation that’s almost impossible to shake because the accused is the repository of everyone’s judgment, jealousy, curiosity, and fear. When I work with girls with bad reputations, they’re initially wary of me. Why should they trust me? They’ve learned to build big walls around themselves to block out the judgment and rejection they so often feel from others.
When I have girls like this in my class, I can usually pick them out by their defiant expressions. The worst expressions come from girls who aren’t only on the outside of the Act Like a Woman box but are really suffering at the hands of the other girls in the group. At first, talking about these issues can feel dangerous for them. We’re talking about things that hurt them, and they have no reason to believe I’ll do right by them.
Kate was a student in one of my tenth-grade classes. The first time she came to class she was late, and her expression was both challenging—waiting for me to call her out for being late—and hostile, because she anticipated that the class would be boring. She started off sitting in the back of the room, but within five minutes she moved in front of me. The Act Like a Woman box was on the board and the girls were discussing the different roles girls play in cliques. Kate scowled and said something I couldn’t quite hear. When I asked her to repeat herself, one of the popular girls said, “Oh, don’t pay any attention to her. That’s just Kate.” Kate’s face clouded over and her back stiffened as she repeated herself, “I said that I hate girls. You can’t trust them. Girls are petty, stupid, and jealous. Like in this grade, the girls are just jealous because I get more attention from the boys. I know I’m known as a slut but I don’t care.” As she spoke, I felt the ripple of anger and resentment in the classroom in response. There are few things popular girls hate more than being accused of jealousy.
Consider this quote from a senior girl remembering what it felt like to see girls like Kate.
In seventh grade, I watched a girl who constantly flirted with boys. The problem was that she alienated herself from other girls. She pretty much accepted the slut role that people made her into. The boys she flirted with didn’t take their relationships with her seriously. Even though I didn’t want to be treated like she was, I wanted the attention she was getting. But whenever I was around her, I felt incredibly prudish and uptight.
—Grace, 17
Girls are at best uncomfortable with girls like Kate, and at worst treat her like dirt and refuse to have anything to do with her. In turn, Kate doesn’t trust girls and she has good reason not to. In her mind all girls are bad, and her mistrust of girls clouds her thinking about which boys to trust. Naturally, she seeks out people who’ll make her feel better; often the easiest, fastest way for Kate to get the attention she wants is hanging out with boys. The boys who will want to hang out with Kate the most are the ones who need to prove their masculinity by interacting with girls only as sexual objects. Kate, not wanting to turn away the attention she’s getting, will do what the boys want. She won’t reject someone who isn’t rejecting her.
But one of the saddest things about girls like Kate is that while many convince themselves that they can’t depend on anyone but themselves or that they are in a position of power over the boys, they still often romanticize love and sex. They’re still girls caught up with wishing someone will see them for who they really are and love them. Every time they hook up with someone, there’s a little part of them hoping this person is the one who will.
Boys may call me a slut. But at least they call.
—Sasha, 15
Did you ever feel trapped by a reputation you couldn’t shake?
Were you ever teased? What were you teased about? How did you handle it?
When you were your daughter’s age, did you ever spread gossip and get caught?
Were you ever gossiped about? How did you handle it?
Write down a list of your daughter’s closest friends. Do you think they support her or discourage her?
If you were mean, what would you tease your daughter about? How do you think your daughter would respond?
Do you gossip and tease other people today?
Does your daughter hear you gossip?
The first step to help your daughter is to acknowledge the role of teasing and gossip in your own life. As I said at the beginning of the chapter, if you gossip or dismiss hurtful words by saying “Just joking,” “No offense,” or “You’re too sensitive,” you’re modeling bad behavior for your daughter. Turn off the gossip shows and stop reading the gossip magazines. I know they’re a guilty pleasure for many people but this is your daughter we’re talking about, and you want to be a credible role model for her.
Now you need to arm your daughter with a battle plan for when she’s been ridiculed, dismissed, the object of bad teasing, or saddled with an unfair reputation. Let’s use an example that one of my students shared with me to show you how to proceed:
When I was a freshman, there was this new girl that a bunch of guys liked. Two girls in the grade made a Facebook group called “Lori Shore is a mega-whore.” The next day, another girl told her about the group. Lori confronted the girls. One of the girls flat-out said, “Yeah, I did it and what are you going to do about it?” The other girl was a really good friend of Lori’s and kept denying it.
—Hope, 16
As despicable as this story is, it involves all the issues we’ve been discussing. Let’s assess which girls did what:
The Queen Bee (the girl who admitted she did it), the one who made the Facebook group, is doing it to bring Lori down and to demonstrate her power over the other kids.
The Bystander keeps denying she was involved. She’s intimidated by the Queen Bee and too ashamed to come clean with Lori.
The Messenger is the girl who told Lori about the group.
If this happened to your daughter, how would you handle it? First things first. You’re allowed to hate the Queen Bee or any other girl who is being mean to your daughter. It’s easy to see how parents get so angry they feel totally justified going over to the other girl’s house and screaming at her parents. Honestly, I’d totally understand if you read that story and thought if it happened to your kid there’s no way you’d allow her to go to school the next day unless those girls were expelled.
Even in this situation, there are parents who believe ignoring it is still the way to go. This may sound like a mature strategy, but it’s exactly the kind of parental advice that makes girls feel that their parents don’t understand the world they’re living in. When girls have problems, they need help right away. Immediately. And it is absolutely realistic that every student in the school knows about the Facebook group and that even if the adults at the school knew about it, they would refuse to punish the girls because Facebook isn’t associated with the school and the girls did it off school grounds. Imagine if you were Lori. You wouldn’t care about anything else but how you were going to show your face at school the next day. Lori isn’t thinking in the long term. Next week may as well be next year.
Lori knows that everyone else in school, especially the girls who created the Facebook group, will watch her the next day to see how she’ll respond. She has to know what to say, how to hold her body, and what tone of voice to use so she can feel some control over this situation.
Other things not to say:
They’re just jealous.
They’re just insecure.
You’re better off without them.
Just be strong.
Just don’t let it bother you.
If you’re Lori’s parents, unless Lori comes home crying (which is possible because this is such a horrendous situation), it may be hard to know that something’s wrong, or what that something is. Review the strategies in Chapter 4 for how to tell if your daughter’s upset. Remember, you must be ready to talk when she’s ready to talk.
If your daughter wants to talk to you but also couches it as “no big deal,” don’t believe her; it’s a big deal. If you know she’s upset, approach her gently: “I may be totally wrong here but you seem upset. Do you want to talk about it?”
If she does approach you and you absolutely can’t talk to her that minute, tell her when you can. Always remember that by the time you’re ready, the opportunity may be gone, because in the interim she’ll have talked to her friends and/or reconsidered whether talking to you is a good idea in the first place. If you have to postpone, set up a time as soon as possible and don’t forget to keep your promise!
You have two goals in addressing your daughter’s problems with teasing and gossip. The first is to have a productive conversation with her. This means that through the process of your conversation, you want to affirm her and confirm that you’re a good resource and a nonjudgmental listener. The second is to help her come up with realistic strategies to confront the problem effectively—meaning you aren’t going to freak out and make the problem worse. You’ll never accomplish the second goal without the first.
Here’s how the conversation might go:
YOUR DAUGHTER: Um … well … can I talk to you for a minute?
YOU: (Paying bills, balancing bank account, in the groove of getting things done) Huh? (Your brain slows and the gears start to shift.) What’s up?
YOUR DAUGHTER: It’s nothing really. I mean it’s not that big a deal, but there’re these girls at school who did something on Facebook about me.
YOU: (Paying more attention but keeping a casual tone) What are they doing?
YOUR DAUGHTER: If I tell you, you have to promise not to freak out.
YOU: Can you define freaking out so I know exactly what you’re talking about?
YOUR DAUGHTER: You know, call the school, call their parents. Not let me go on Facebook ever again. If I tell you, you have to promise you won’t do anything like that.
YOU: OK—I can promise I won’t immediately start calling people. And I also can promise whatever it is you tell me, we’ll think about what to do together and take it step-by-step. But I can’t promise I won’t do anything else because I may have to and I don’t want to go back on my word.
YOUR DAUGHTER: (Silence. Tears welling in eyes.)
YOU: Listen to me, I don’t know what I’m dealing with here but I’m ready to listen. Later, if we do need to tell someone we’ll decide together who and when that will be. So … what are the girls doing?
YOUR DAUGHTER: They just say really rude things. It’s so annoying!
YOU: Can you describe specifically some of the things they do or say?
YOUR DAUGHTER: This girl at school made up a group on Facebook that she called “Lori Shore is a mega-whore.”
YOU: (Take a deep breath! Sit down next to her and give her a hug.) I’m really sorry that happened to you. I can’t believe anyone would say that about anyone, let alone you. But thank you for trusting me to tell me. I think the most important thing is to figure out what you can do to feel like you’re getting a little bit of control over this situation.
Now it is time to come up with strategies.
There are five options and if the first option doesn’t work, go to the next one. The goal is to have your daughter take the most ownership in addressing the conflict. For our purposes, I’m calling the girl who perpetrates the gossiping the RMG (Really Mean Girl).
Your daughter can confront the RMG.
She can ask a teacher or counselor for help.
You can call the RMG’s parents.
You can talk to the teacher.
You can talk to an administrator.
Step One: Preparing Your Daughter
As horrible as this situation is, it wasn’t a death threat—it just probably feels like one. So if your daughter doesn’t feel physically unsafe, then skip this part and go to Option 2. But you want to at least try to encourage her to confront the RMG—which is probably the last thing she wants to do. However, she’s going to take small steps to get to that moment. To get started, take your daughter to a quiet place and suggest she write down the specific details of the event, including dates, times, what was said to her, and what she said or did in response. She should include how she felt in the situation, her feelings now, and what she wants to happen so the behavior stops. Basically, she’s taking the horrible feelings in her stomach and putting them down in words.
There’s another reason to document the misdeed. You never want to assume the worst, but you want to be prepared for it. Your daughter needs to show a history of what happened and the steps she took to address it. And, if you show specific dates and times, the perpetrator’s pattern of behavior, and the steps your daughter took to address this problem, the school will take you more seriously because it’s more difficult to dismiss it as a she said/she said conflict.
Next, have your daughter practice having the conversation in front of a mirror. Her tone of voice needs to be calm and level and her eyes steady but not challenging. Her body language needs to be confident: standing up straight, face-to-face. You can even suggest that she practice the conversation with you or another adult she trusts. Remember to utilize SEAL (see Chapter 2 discussion of this technique) while your daughter practices what she is going to say. She needs to:
Stop and strategize.
Explain what she doesn’t like and what she wants to happen.
Affirm her right to exist without having people humiliate her.
Lock in / lock out the relationship (or take a vacation).
Step Two: Speaking to the RMG
If she feels physically safe, she needs to make at least one attempt to speak to the RMG. It needs to be somewhere she feels safe and secure and other people can’t observe for their entertainment. For many girls, the library is a safe zone; the librarian patrols there and it has a reputation for being a calmer place, but your daughter should choose a site she thinks is best. Under no circumstances should she confront the RMG electronically.
When your daughter’s ready, she should confront the RMG when she’s away from other people so she’s not making the RMG lose face and other girls can’t buzz around her. If your daughter confronts the RMG in front of her friends, even if the RMG feels bad about what she did, her need to appear in control in front of her peers will trump any motivation to do the right thing. If the RMG is in a group, your daughter should request a private meeting. (“Can you meet me during study hall in the library at 11:00?”) There’s one thing to watch out for: sometimes girls will bring their friends to a meeting like this for physical support. If that happens, your daughter must request that the other girls leave because this is a “private meeting” between her and the RMG. This may create huge drama among the girls, but the situation is huge drama anyway so it doesn’t really matter.
Here’s how the private conversation might go:
YOUR DAUGHTER: Can I talk to you for a minute?
RMG: What about?
YOUR DAUGHTER: I know you did the Facebook group. I want it stopped and I know you have the power to stop it. I don’t know why you hate me, but there’s nothing I can do about that. I know you can blow me off or try to make my life worse, but I am asking you to stop.
RMG: Whatever.
YOUR DAUGHTER: Look, I don’t need to be friends either, but I have a right to be at this school without you attacking me online.
You may read this and think two things: (1) there’s no way my daughter would do this and (2) it would never work; why bother if the RMG is just going to blow you off? Here’s my response. Any step of this that your daughter does is a success. If she writes down her feelings, even if not as articulately as the above, but then decides not to confront the RMG immediately, it is still a success because she has to take the first step of learning to confront people.
SEAL’s overall goal is to give a person who feels stuck in their anxiety and anger a way to move. In this scenario your daughter was specific about what happened, how it made her feel, and what she wanted stopped, and she finished by saying something positive. She lost nothing by admitting that the other girl “won.” In fact, it can be empowering for the targets to say, “I admit it. You did something to me and it’s making me miserable—but I’m strong enough to stand here and call you on it.”
Notice that the RMG concluded the conversation by saying “Whatever.” Please tell your daughter that almost all mean people when confronted with their behavior will blow you off. It’s not like the RMG is going to say, “I’m so sorry! I had no idea that calling you a mega-whore was going to hurt your feelings! I promise I’ll never do it again!” And even if the RMG did that, your daughter wouldn’t believe her anyway. So “Whatever” is probably as good as it’ll get. Girls often feel they’ve failed if the RMG doesn’t immediately apologize and then the two become friends or your daughter has verbally destroyed the RMG, leaving the RMG regretting she ever did it. The immediate goal is to stop the RMG’s behavior. The only way she’ll do that is if Lori communicates that she’s not easy prey. Just like any predator, RMG goes after easy targets first, and Lori’s proving to be too difficult. The unfortunate reality is that your daughter can’t control the way an RMG will respond to her. She can only control her own actions.
If the RMG tries to sidestep the issue by asking “Who told you that?,” don’t let your daughter get distracted. Girls typically avoid taking responsibility for their actions by blaming the person who got them into trouble. If the RMG raises this red herring, your daughter can say, “It doesn’t matter how I know. What matters is that it stops now.”
If the RMG is a friend inside the clique, your daughter can “take a vacation” and spell out exactly what it will take for the friendship to continue. “Look, at some point maybe we can be friends again, but only if you understand how much that hurt me. Friends don’t do that to each other.”
Lots of children and teens are extremely reluctant to tell their teachers when they are experiencing a problem like this. In my experience, the reason is because by third grade, many kids have been told by bullies not to tell or else their lives will get worse, and if and when they do tell, adults rarely know how to handle the problem effectively. They tell the kids to apologize, remind them of the community values posted on the walls, and leave it at that. But like I’ve said before, not all adults are useless. Your daughter needs to go through the process of learning when to go to an adult and which one to go to.
You need to go to a teacher if your daughter talks to the RMG and the behavior continues or this problem has gotten too big for her to handle on her own. But just the thought of “tattling” or “snitching” will make many girls shut down because they are certain the RMG will want revenge if they do. Now, that’s true if she doesn’t have a good strategy and have good people to help her implement this strategy. But the reality is that if she doesn’t do anything but hope the problem goes away, it probably won’t and she’s letting her tormentors have all the power. I’m guessing that your daughter, just like anyone else, doesn’t want to go through life letting the bullies have all the control.
So the next step is to talk to a teacher or counselor. Your daughter should choose a teacher she feels listens to her, respects her, and follows through on her promises. Remember the ally from Chapter 4; you should use the same criteria here. Here’s how the conversation might go in person or by e-mail:
YOUR DAUGHTER: Ms. Wiseman, can I talk to you privately after class today?
ME: Sure, is this something we are going to need some time for or privacy?
YOUR DAUGHTER: Maybe.
ME: No problem. Why don’t you come back after last period today?
Notice that this is the Stop and Strategize part of SEAL.
After last period …
ME: Hey, Lori, what’s up?
YOUR DAUGHTER: Well, some girls did something that really bothers me.
ME: Can you tell me what they did?
YOUR DAUGHTER: (The Explain of SEAL) RMG and her friends made a Facebook group about me being a whore.
ME: I’m so sorry! Coming to school today must have taken a lot of courage. And I want to thank you for trusting me to tell me because I can imagine how hard this has been for you. So how can I help you?
YOUR DAUGHTER: I just want it to go away.
ME: I totally understand. Let’s figure out together a strategy for dealing with this. Tell me what you’ve done so far.
YOUR DAUGHTER: I told her to stop, but she wouldn’t listen.
ME: I can talk to her. Let’s decide together what you would like me to say.
YOUR DAUGHTER: Okay, but I don’t want her to know I told on her.
ME: No problem. I can say I found out about it on my own.
Your daughter should then give the teacher a copy of everything she’s written about the incident. Your daughter’s goal is to come up with a mutual agreement that she can write down between her and the teacher about what will be done and when. After the meeting, you should e-mail the teacher, thank her for the meeting and for being a resource for your child, and reiterate your daughter’s understanding of what will happen as a result of their meeting. Request to hear back within forty-eight hours, because everybody works better with deadlines. If the deadline passes, your daughter should ask the teacher two days later about what’s going on—which you follow up with another e-mail for confirmation.
If that deadline passes, it’s time for you to get involved.
For any teachers reading this, please note: if you are a good teacher and have created a positive learning environment in your classroom, chances are good that your students will come to you for help with serious personal issues. It’s one of the rewards of being a great teacher; you can literally transform or save lives. But it can also be really scary because you may have not been trained for it. Just remember you are the bridge for your students to a person with more expertise. You don’t need to have a counseling degree to do that—all you need is a relationship with the child. So when a student comes to you, use the same script I describe when the child comes to the parent looking for help. “I’m so sorry that happened to you. Thank you for telling me. Together we’re going to work on this.” If the student requests you not to tell anyone else, follow the same strategy I outline on page 61. Don’t underestimate your importance in this situation. By handling these situations effectively your student is affirmed for going to an adult for help and they have had a positive experience emerge out of a horrible situation.
No matter how tempting it may be to call the RMG’s parents and scream at them about their evil child, this is not an effective way to handle the situation. And even if the other parents did exactly what you want—get off the phone with you, then scream at their daughter and ground her for a month—guess what happens next? The next day your daughter goes to school with an RMG bent on revenge. At some point, the RMG’s and your daughter’s paths will cross without adult supervision around. The harassment will escalate.
Your involvement is critical, but you have to be smart about it. Assume that the RMG’s parents don’t know what their kid is doing. Go to them asking for their help in solving this problem, not accusing them of bad parenting or having bad kids. Now it’s your time to implement SEAL.
YOU: Hi, I’m Lori’s mother. This is an uncomfortable call to make, but I need to talk to you about something that’s going on with our daughters. Is now a good time to talk?
RMG’S PARENT: Well, I’m really busy right now but sure.
YOU: Thanks (which you try to say sincerely, not sarcastically). We need your help and I have to tell you, parent to parent, this is really hard. Your daughter created a Facebook page that said my daughter was a whore.
RMG’S PARENT: What?!! Are you sure? How do you know it was my kid?
YOU: Lori has talked to your daughter to try to get her to stop, but it hasn’t. Lori is dreading going to school, so I really need your help to make this situation better.
RMG’S PARENT: But why do you think my daughter did it?
YOU: (Take a deep breath and remember the goal) Your daughter admitted it. We’ve really tried to work it out between the girls but that hasn’t helped.
RMG’S PARENT: Well, I’m going to talk to my daughter but what do you want me to do?
YOU: Lori would like the Facebook group pulled down immediately, and I would really like to request that your daughter apologize to her. I’m also worried that when the adults aren’t around, Lori will suffer even more, because your daughter will be mad she got in trouble. Do you have any ideas about what to do so that won’t happen?
If Lori has a dad who is actively involved in her life (like if he has a heartbeat), he is more than capable of making this call. So, dads, don’t shy away from this opportunity to show your daughter she can rely on you as a sane advocate on her behalf.
If You’re the One Called
It’s 6:00 and you’re blissfully alone, heading up to your clean bathroom to take a bubble bath (or more likely, desperately trying to get dinner on the table and telling your kids to stop fighting) when the phone rings.
LORI’S MOM: Is this RMG’s mother?
YOU: Yes … what can I do for you?
LORI’S MOM: I need to talk to you right now about your daughter. (Voice trembling with self-righteous anger)
YOU: OK … what is this about? (You glare at your daughter, who is beginning to clue in that this conversation is about her and it’s not about her latest community service project.)
LORI’S MOM: I just need to tell you I have never been so disgusted in my entire life! I know girls can be mean but your daughter is absolutely the worst. And I have no idea how you’re raising her but if my daughter did what your daughter did, I would ship her to reform school.
YOU: Excuse me????
LORI’S MOM: Your little angel created a Facebook group calling my daughter a whore. My daughter is crying herself to sleep every night and won’t go to school because she’s so humiliated. (Your head begins to throb and your eyes narrow. Where is your daughter? You walk into the living room and find her talking on her cell phone. You begin to wonder, “Is my daughter capable of doing something to terrible? Am I a horrible parent? Does everyone at the school meeting I am about to leave for already know about this?” Put all those thoughts out of your head and immediately acknowledge the other parent’s feelings.)
YOU: As hard as this is to hear, thank you for calling and I’m really sorry. Can you tell me what happened and when? Can you give me more details? (Write them down.) Let me talk to my daughter, and then I would like to call you later tonight. When is a good time?
Because Lori’s parent usually wants to vent, these calls can take a long time. So if you don’t have the time, apologize, tell Lori’s mom why you can’t talk, and let her choose another time to talk. Then call exactly when you agreed.
One of the things I think also happens in a situation like this is the mom of the RMG would hold her daughter accountable, but the mom of the victim is so over the top that the RMG’s mom gets defensive and her kid’s offenses pale in comparison to this psychotic woman’s response. So basically, this mom shoots herself in the foot by being crazy from the get-go.
—Emily, 20
I listen to them and then listen to my daughter. It’s her responsibility. I think it’s wrong to be accused without seeing the accuser. I also don’t use pronouns. For example, I will say, “A call came in … it reported X. Do you know anything about it?” Then I think my daughter has to make a choice. She can continue her crappy behavior or she can change. Now, this doesn’t work all the time because I’m so pissed off.
—Peggy
If the first three strategies haven’t worked, you and your daughter need to meet with her teacher. Before your meeting, familiarize yourself with the school’s policies and state law concerning student conduct, bullying, and/or harassment. Think of yourself as an advocate for your daughter, not a mama or papa bear out for the kill, and approach any school professional with an attitude of collaboration and respect. Don’t assume, unless you have direct evidence, that they’re part of the problem.
This is really important, as most teachers and administrators interact with parents only when something is wrong. As a result, parents are often perceived as overly emotional micromanagers who are often defensive and unwilling to take responsibility for their child’s actions. In addition, far too many parents go over the teacher’s head as soon as something goes down in the classroom they don’t like. Believe me, doing that will make the problem bigger rather than smaller.
In preparation for this meeting, I want your daughter to go through SEAL again while you write down what she says. Then, there should be an agreement that if at all possible, your daughter does most of the talking during the meeting. If she is too uncomfortable, reassure her that at her request you will speak for her using the things you have just written down.
Once you are in the meeting, thank the teacher for being there and then implement SEAL. In this conversation, one of you needs to state that your daughter must feel safe at school so she can learn her best. The Facebook group isn’t allowing her to feel safe and focused. You have already made different attempts to solve the problem, but the situation hasn’t improved. Get a firm deadline for action from the teacher. If you feel disrespected or dismissed by the teacher and/or the deadline isn’t kept, write a short note or an e-mail telling the teacher you are contacting the principal.
REPORTING VERSUS SNITCHING
As girls get older, the pressure to not snitch and never tell an adult gets increasingly intense. For this reason, even when kids do attempt to tell someone, they can be unclear or very general in their description of what’s happening. It is also true that as kids get older, the bullying gets more extreme and therefore more humiliating and difficult to talk about. If adults aren’t trained to understand these dynamics, they won’t be able to hear what the child is really saying and ask the right questions to get a better picture of the problem.
So it is critical to review the section on Tattling vs. Telling to help you and your daughter overcome this challenge.
If you’re unsatisfied with the teacher, you now have to speak to the principal. I wrote extensively about this in my Queen Bee Moms book, but in sum you’re there to establish the following: your daughter has asked for help from a member of the faculty, you’ve also asked for help, and help hasn’t been forthcoming. There’s a consistent pattern of behavior where your daughter is going to the school for help and the school isn’t providing assistance, and, as a result, your daughter’s ability to concentrate in school is suffering.
If Your Daughter Is the Bystander
Remember when I first described this situation? There was another girl who participated in all this as a semi-involved Bystander. Should she have stood up to the RMG and risked her wrath, or kept quiet? How responsible is she when she didn’t help create the Facebook group but she joined it?
First of all, you may not hear anything from her about it. You’ll hear it from other parents or you’ll get called into the school yourself. Either way, once you hear something and your daughter’s friends are involved, even if she wasn’t as directly responsible as our Bystander is here, she’ll still know about it and would have been in a position to do something—no matter how small. You’re going to have to ask her about it. Why won’t she tell you? She’s afraid of four things happening: (1) you’re going to be angry with her; (2) you’re going to make her do something about it (i.e., apologize); (3) you won’t let her hang out with the RMG anymore; or (4) probably most important, you’re going to cut off her Internet access or take away her phone.
So, if you do find out, here’s how you use SEAL to frame what you want to say.
YOU: So I heard about the Facebook page. You want to talk about it?
YOUR DAUGHTER: No, not really.
YOU: Well, I want to talk about it. Was there really a group calling Lori Shore a mega-whore?
YOUR DAUGHTER: Yeah, things just got totally blown out of proportion. It’s so stupid! I really didn’t want to do it. I wish RMG would back off a little, but she never does.
YOU: What does RMG have to gain by doing it?
YOUR DAUGHTER: I don’t know, RMG just hates her.
YOU: But there must have been a reason in her mind that this was something she needed to do.
YOUR DAUGHTER: She’s just really mad at all the attention Lori’s getting from the boys. She thinks Lori’s getting really stuck-up about it.
YOU: Now I want to ask you a question. What do you have to gain?
YOUR DAUGHTER: What are you talking about?
YOU: Well, tell me if I’m wrong, but does it sometimes seem easier to let RMG have her way when she gets mad?
YOUR DAUGHTER: Maybe.
YOU: Well, I’d understand that it’d be really hard if I were in your shoes. But, with that said, it’s really important to me that you stand up and do what’s right in these situations. And by not trying to stop it or telling an adult, you contributed to the problem. So what do you need to do right now to make it right? (Possible options include: using SEAL to frame a conversation with RMG, apologizing to Lori and her parents, Internet/cell phone restriction)
If Your Daughter Is the Nasty Gossiper
I do gossip all the time. And I do tell my parents most things. A lot of things. But if I’ve done something sort of mean, I don’t usually tell them. Or at the most I’m selective about what I say.
—Eve, 13
When you confront your daughter about her nasty behavior, tell her the facts as you know them. No matter what her excuse or justification, she should be punished in a way that communicates how seriously you take this issue. It’s hard to admit that your daughter has behaved like a jerk, but it isn’t a reflection of poor parenting if you admit her misbehavior. Quite the opposite. Guess which parents teachers and people like me complain about? The parents who think their daughters are little angels and blame everyone else for corrupting their little darlings.
So say you just hung up with Lori’s parent and you ask your daughter to meet with you privately—away from any siblings. If possible, both parents should be involved in this conversation so she can’t take advantage of any information gaps between the two of you. If you’re divorced, and have any kind of working relationship with your ex-spouse, please apprise him or her of this situation so he or she can be part of helping your daughter take responsibility for her actions.
YOU: OK—as you may or may not know, I just received information about your creating a Facebook group calling Lori Shore a whore. Did you in any way participate in making and/or creating this group?
RMG: (Crossing her arms and grumbling) This is so stupid! That girl just blows everything out of proportion!
YOU: I need you to answer my question.
RMG: Well, I knew about it, but it wasn’t my idea. It was Monica’s.
YOU: Did you have any part in writing it?
RMG: Fine! Whatever you say! (Rolling her eyes)
YOU: Well, there are a couple of things you need to know about what I think about this. Most important, I don’t really care whose idea it was. I hold you responsible for participating.
RMG: Fine! Ground me forever!
YOU: Not quite. First, I’m going to need your cell phone, which I will keep until I think you’ve learned to handle technology more responsibly. You will also be forbidden from using Facebook for the next month and I will be checking your page to see when you last logged in. I’m going to call Lori’s family and see if we can come over, and you will apologize to Lori in front of me and her parents.
RMG: No way! You are totally insane!
YOU: When you do something that is unethical, it is my responsibility to you to hold you accountable. I love you with all my heart, so I can’t stand by and do nothing about this. You must have the courage to right this wrong. I know it’s going to be difficult to do this but I’ll be beside you the whole time. And, while I believe what you are telling me, you need to know that if I find out that you are more responsible for this than you are telling me right now, then that will mean additional consequences. There is a chance I won’t find out, but there’s also a chance I will.
RMG: Fine. Believe whatever you want. I don’t care!
YOU: This is a hard situation, so if after this conversation tonight you remember anything else about what happened, you can come back to me and I won’t consider it lying. After that, however, I will. The last thing that I really need for you to get is that if Lori’s life becomes more difficult because of this conversation or anything the school decides to do, I will be forced to take much more severe actions. I’ll put it to you this way—I understand if you’re really angry about this, but under no circumstances are you allowed to seek revenge. You aren’t in trouble because Lori told. You’re in trouble for what you did to her.
Then, call Lori’s parents and ask them if you can come over to apologize. If they say yes, set up a time the next day to go over there. If they say no, then have your daughter write a letter of apology, which you should drive over to her house and have her physically put in the mailbox.
Just a little note on how hard apologies are to give: it’s natural to feel defensive when someone has told you that you messed up or you were caught doing something bad. So the child may need some time to reflect on what’s happened and what she needs to do. Ideally, give your child a night to sleep on it. That way you have a better chance of having them process and internalize what’s happened so they can take true ownership of their actions.
When parents see someone else’s child being rude or mean, they usually do one of two things: look away or march up to the offending kid and yell at them—often demanding an apology (that even if the child gives is insincere). But neither of these options is effective. If you run away, the kids feel like you don’t care or are too scared. If you get in the kid’s face, you can be so overwhelming that the offending child shuts down or fights back by being disrespectful so she can save face in front of her friends. The goal here is for all the children involved to believe adults can handle conflict with calm, ethical authority. So, instead, use SEAL to frame your approach and your words.
Teaching your child to apologize is one of the most sacred responsibilities you have as a parent. Unfortunately, true apologies are precious and rare. Our public figures apologize when they get caught, not when they realize they have done something wrong. The media often portrays apologizing as a loss of face and respect, when in fact the opposite is true. We just don’t get to see good apologies role-modeled. We have to change that.
Apologies are powerful because they’re a public demonstration of remorse, an acknowledgment of the consequences of hurtful behavior, and an affirmation of the dignity of the person who has been wronged.
A true apology has to be:
Given with a genuine understanding of what the person did. Especially when your daughter is younger, make sure she understands what she’s apologizing for. Otherwise, she may very well hurt the other person again. Don’t let her put the best possible spin on her actions (“I didn’t mean to say X to her, I think she just took it the wrong way”).
About the apologizer’s actions alone—her apology can’t include what she thinks the other person did or said.
Given without including any “last licks” in which the speaker buries another insult within the apology (“I’m sorry you’re so sensitive that you need an apology. But here, ‘I’m sorry.’ Feel better?”).
Given without qualification. It’s not an apology if it includes “But I only did it because …” or “I wouldn’t have said that unless you …”
Genuinely contrite—there’s nothing worse than an apology clearly rendered only because the girl was told to apologize (“My mom says I have to apologize” or “I guess I’m supposed to say I’m sorry”).
Given without the expectation of a return apology. If the listener has the grace or goodwill to say “I’m sorry, too,” that’s a bonus.
Rendered with the understanding that it may invoke further recriminations (“Yeah, well, you really hurt me! I can’t believe you did that!”).
Beware that apologies can be manipulated! Girls in lower positions in the social hierarchy apologize when they inadvertently challenge a more powerful girl. Then they aren’t apologizing for something they did that hurt someone, they’re apologizing for challenging the other girl’s right to make her miserable.
Just remember you’re on a long road with her toward becoming a decent human being. You’re going to have to role-model what it looks like. Both of you should go over to Lori’s house and you can apologize to Lori in front of her parents on your daughter’s behalf like this:
Lori, on behalf of my family, I want to apologize for what my daughter did to you. That was an incredibly hurtful thing to do and it should never have happened. If it ever happens again, I want you to contact me. Here’s my e-mail and phone number. Thank you for seeing us.
Look, if your teen daughter insists on acting like she’s five by not apologizing herself, then you need to treat her like she’s five. It’s her choice.
If your daughter gets an apology, there’s one last thing you have to teach her. Instead of saying, “That’s OK, don’t worry about it,” she should say, “Thanks for the apology.” This is critical. Because when you say it’s OK, you are dismissing your feelings that you needed the apology in the first place. And one of the things I realized this year from working with a group of eighth-grade girls is that a great way to know if someone is truly your friend is if, when they apologize to you, you believe it. And, if you apologize to them, they believe you too.
You and your daughter could use every strategy I’ve described and girls may still be mean to her. And I wish I could give you a magic spell that would make girls stop gossiping and tearing each other down. But you know I can’t do that. What we can do is have your daughter create, maintain, and communicate her personal boundaries to other girls through difficult experiences like these. We can teach her to give and accept apologies in a way that transforms her relationships. And as I tell my students, if you can handle these situations using SEAL, no matter what the outcome, the sting of cruel words will lose their venom, and you gain a degree of mastery, pride, and competence as you face some of the most difficult conflicts you’ll ever experience.
* Rachel Simmons, The Curse of the Good Girl, Penguin, 2009.