Dear Rosalind,
Please help me. There’s a boy that I really like and he likes me also and we went out and were boyfriend and girlfriend but then he broke up with me and he told me that he wanted to listen to his mom and not have a girlfriend because he can’t sleep at night and it’s a distraction to him. So I said OK that’s fine. Then I found out about three days later he was dating a girl named Katya and he kept it from me and they didn’t tell me and Katya is my BEST FRIEND and I knew her since fifth grade and we are now in eighth. We made a promise to each other that we would never date a guy that we went out with.
Thanks! Jasmine
Dear Rosalind,
There is this guy that I really like and he says he likes me a lot too and then the other day I found out he was making out with one of my closest friends and it was like a dagger in my heart and he calls me and tells me that he’s sorry and that I wasn’t supposed to find out. I spent 1 hour crying in the bathroom and I don’t know what to do cause we are very close friends and now he pulls this on me and it made me sad and mad. What should I do?
Yours truly,
Alisa please help me !!!
In the last year, I have created a web video program called Rosalind’s Inbox where teens, parents, and teachers ask me questions. Then I post my answers on a variety of social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube, and my own website. I get hundreds of questions like the ones above, which begs the question: why are girls so willing to betray each other for a guy? Why are girls so good at talking about how unforgivable boy stealing is and then do it anyway?
If your daughter was Jasmine or Alisa, how could you help her think through this situation without condoning an attitude of “girls can never be trusted”? How can you give her the skills to use SEAL to have a conversation with the girl and the boy who have betrayed her? And this is only the beginning. How can you channel your own concerns, fears, and frustrations as she develops these relationships so she’ll listen to you instead of tuning you out? Because let’s be honest: if you knew your daughter was being knowingly used by boys or betrayed by her best friends, wouldn’t you be slightly annoyed that she was putting up with that? Wouldn’t you wonder what in the world was wrong with her? After all, you didn’t raise her to be a doormat, did you?
All of these issues reflect major challenges girls face as they get older. This chapter looks at how Girl World traps girls in a vicious cycle of craving boys’ validation, pleasing boys to obtain that validation, and betraying the friends who truly support them. It will show how you can help your daughter stop the cycle. This chapter, and the one that follows it, will be intense for some people. So I’d like you to keep two things in mind as you read. One, I’ve made a conscious effort to write the earlier chapters in a way that girls fourteen or younger can read. These two chapters are more appropriate for eighth grade and high school girls. If you’re reading this and are under age fourteen, ask your parent, ally, or an older sibling to read it first and see if it’s relevant for what you’re going through. Two, up to this point, the format of this book is to describe the issues, ask you to think about them from your own experience, and then I provide strategies. I’m doing the same here. So if you start getting really anxious about what you’re reading, remember, solutions are coming.
Getting validation from boys boosts a girl’s self-confidence and confirms that she’s in the Act Like a Woman box.
Girls understand that their social status and identity are tied to relationships with boys.
Even when she knows better, a girl may sacrifice her personal boundaries and do things that defy common sense, in order to please a boy.
In trying to please a boy, she may betray and sacrifice her friendships with girls.
At some point, most girls will lie, connive, or backstab to get the boy they want.
Your daughter may lie and sneak behind your back to be with her boyfriend, especially if you don’t like him and/or forbid her to see him.
Girls, just like everyone else, have trouble defining the difference between acceptable flirting and sexual harassment.
Technology is encouraging girls to present themselves in ever increasingly sexual ways to prove they’re not uptight or as a way to get boys’ attention.
Denial is a reasonable response to your daughter’s developing sexuality. For her welfare, get over it.
Your daughter can become trapped in an abusive relationship even if she’s confident and self-assured and there’s no history of violence in your family.
For most teenage girls, guys are everything. Boys validate their existence; they define who they are and where they stand in the world. You can talk to boys differently than your girlfriends. Until they screw you over, they can be really fun and comforting.
—Ling, 17
As girls get older, their relationships with boys become more serious. Do boys and girls still date? Does it count as a date when people go out in a big group of friends? First, let’s define some terms. As you’ll see from the comment below, definitions have probably changed a lot since you were a teen. With my students “dating” means going out—one-on-one. Dating is rare and it’s a big deal. Much more common is the umbrella term, “hooking up,” which usually refers to a spectrum of behavior, from literally hanging out to making out to having sex—but the common denominator is it’s always no strings attached, whereas dating refers to a more long-term, exclusive relationship.
Group dating is the best. It makes dating a whole gray area. Group dates are safer because you don’t have to be alone with the person and if you decide you don’t like him, you can ignore him.
—Isa, 16
This whole hooking up thing is a gray area. It allows people to not communicate straightforwardly or bank on the fact that the other person is too uncomfortable.
—Aliesha, 16
The quality of your daughter’s experiences with boyfriends and her perception of her choices within those relationships are based on four things: (1) what examples you and other adults she’s close to have modeled, (2) what she absorbs from the media, (3) her past and current friendships with girls, and (4) her role in the clique.
Being in a clique is an easy way to meet boys. Whichever clique she belongs to, there’s a boy group that goes with them. If she strays outside of the accepted group of guys, then that’s a problem.
—Portia, 18
There’s often a boys’ group that’s linked to the girls’ clique, and the girls may date those boys. Relationships usually don’t develop by going on one-on-one dates, but rather when both cliques hang out together. By the end of high school, it’s common for boys and girls within a large group to have hooked up with almost everyone in the group. This doesn’t mean they’re having sex with each other, but sexual interaction is often a part of the group dynamic.
When I was in high school, the clique I was in had two “Queen Bees,” which divided us up a lot but we were still all friends. One of the Queen Bees made a hookup map with the other Queen Bee as the center (the “sluttiest” girl) to show how we all connected through our hookups.
—Charlotte, 19
The girls’ social hierarchy can dictate how much flexibility a girl has in her choice of dates. To a certain extent, a powerful Queen Bee has dating immunity, as she can date whomever she wants because the guy she anoints as her current love interest automatically becomes cool. At the same time, she’ll be careful to be interested in someone who has some of the Act Like a Man box qualities because she has her image to protect.
It’s gossip central [if a Queen Bee dates outside the box]. People will joke and say, “Is he paying her?” Or they’ll ask her “What are you doing?” They won’t be supportive of it until she breaks up with him.
—Dawn, 15
Girls learn that one of the fundamental criteria for group acceptance is dating someone who has the group’s approval. There’s powerful pressure for a girl to discount her feelings and her own personal standards to date someone who superficially looks the part even if he doesn’t treat her well.
By fifteen, most girls have one or two very close friendships—the kind people develop when they go through boot camp together. But most also continue to have the kind of friendships with other girls that are an extended, although more sophisticated, version of their friendships in late adolescence and junior high. It’s hard to convince older girls that their individual behavior is still affected by what they learned in the clique from earlier years. It’s still there, it’s just more sophisticated and subtle so it flies under the radar.
Older Queen Bees now focus their attention on boys as the final arbiter for measuring their power among girls.
The summer before my sophomore year, my best friend set me up with her boyfriend’s best friend. I felt obligated to go out with him but I didn’t like him. He was extremely sexually aggressive, and he really scared me. Alyson said it was “cute” to have two guys who were best friends go out with two girls who were best friends. I would consider Alyson a Queen Bee and I would be the Pleaser. When I told her what the other guy was doing, she said that I was being a prude, so I just shut my mouth and kept going out with him. I was miserable. Finally, I talked to her boyfriend about it. He understood and apologized for setting us up. He helped me break up with my gross boyfriend. It’s really hard to be the girl being set up. I said no numerous times, but she kept pushing!
—Ella, 18
Here you can see the direct connection between girls’ friendships and girls’ unhealthy experiences with boys. Ella, in spite of being miserable, dated and couldn’t break up with a boy she was frightened of because she wouldn’t risk going against her friend. She was more afraid of displeasing the Queen Bee than of being with a sexually aggressive boy. People often link girls’ vulnerability to making poor sexual decisions and even sexual violence to their difficulty standing up for themselves with a boy. Yet one of the reasons Ella found herself with this sexually aggressive boy is that she was unable to hold her own with a girlfriend.
In previous chapters I discussed how girls often jockey for position within their cliques by blowing off friends for a better offer—a better party, a more popular friend, or a chance to see a new movie with the more popular friend. As girls get older, more and more the “better offer” involves boys. A girl makes plans to hang with her friends at someone’s house, then “he” calls or texts, and all bets are off. This is where older girls follow the invisible rules of the Act Like a Woman box, which values boyfriends over almost everything else. According to its rules, girls are allowed to blow off girlfriends for a guy. Girls don’t like it. They’ll complain and talk behind the back of the friend who blew them off, but girls will almost always take her back.
We all do it to each other. It’s understandable. It’s part of the code. If she ditches us, then we talk behind her back and say she has no self-esteem and how pathetic she is, but we’ll take her back. Sometimes it gets out of control [with the boy] and we never see her anymore.
—Melanie, 14
We have to forgive each other if we hope to be taken back.
—Ellie, 21
Ironically, girls often blow each other off for the same reason girls blow off their parents—it’s safe. A girl knows her parents won’t reject her if she decides to go out with her friends instead of staying home and playing Scrabble with them. Likewise, her friends won’t reject her because she’s choosing a boy over them. It’s the rare girl who will stand up and tell a girlfriend how hurt and angry she is that she was dumped for a boy. And if she does, she often gets accused of “holding the girl back” or “not letting her have her own life.” There’s a point in most friendships where the girl being blown off won’t take it anymore, and it can cause huge fights between close friends. This dynamic sends girls the message that their friendships don’t count as much as romantic relationships. It teaches them to discount themselves and to value themselves as less than males.
This happens A LOT, and when the relationship with the boy ends, the girl is left friendless.
—Lily, 15
By high school, girls’ friendships are often made or broken over boys, and this can have a chilling effect on the support girls can expect from one another. Some girls become so mistrustful of other girls that they shrink down their circle of friends, confiding in only one close friend, or deciding that only their diary is trustworthy. When a girl betrays another girl by hooking up with her boyfriend, she has violated a sacred bond between girls. No matter who in the new couple took the initiative, rarely do girls blame the boy as much as the girl, if they blame him at all.
Girls will excuse his behavior by saying that the girl was all over him, she was being a slut and what was he supposed to do.
—Amanda, 17
Many girls are conditioned to believe that boys are less capable of fidelity, so they don’t hold them to the same standard they would a friend. Since girls’ friendships are still often more intimate than the sexual relationships they are having with a boy, the feeling of betrayal often runs correspondingly deeper. Girls excuse boys’ behavior. They don’t excuse girls’ behavior. This double standard of not holding the boy accountable has repercussions in other aspects of intimate relationships, as we’ll see shortly.
Two things happen when girls can’t trust each other. First, they miss out on having strong relationships now and in the future. Second, when girls don’t watch out for each other, they often walk away from or ridicule a girl who is caught making bad decisions with guys. Girls often turn away from each other in situations ranging from being drunk and having sex with someone a girl met a few hours ago to being “stupid and weak” if she’s in an abusive relationship. The sad and frustrating truth is that so many girls forget or never learn how invaluable they are to one another. But look what happens when they do:
I have about five close girlfriends who have stood by me during this long process of trying to break free from my ex-and now-again “boyfriend” (this word would entail responsibilities, none of which he possesses, so I have trouble referring to him as such). Rather than tell me I’m stupid and weak and shouldn’t care so much, they have tried their best to understand that the relationship is hard to break free of because he was my first everything. No matter how much pain he causes me, my friends understand that he has played an important role in my life and understand why it’s a long and winding road. This, to me, is major support and tolerance.
—Brooke, 18
I had a friend stay up all night with me as I finally talked about how mean my boyfriend was. She told me I didn’t have to put up with it and there was nothing to be embarrassed about. I really think she gave me the strength to break it off with him.
—India, 17
I hooked up with someone who told me from the beginning that he was not interested in monogamy. I said it was fine because I thought I could be happy with what I could get, but I wasn’t. When he hooked up with friends of mine, I’d get so jealous and so angry, but I couldn’t tell him why.
—Zoe, 17
Think about the many dynamics that intersect when girls become more interested in boys. They want true love the way they see it in the media. They want boyfriends to show off to their friends and to increase their social status. They want to explore the excitement and drama of romance. In the course of achieving these goals, they learn that they can get away with blowing off their friends for a boy, that it’s hard to trust a friend around their man, and that maybe the more valuable relationship is with the guy.
Combine that with what they learned in early adolescence about maintaining relationships no matter how they are treated, how they learn from the culture to express their anger and depend on online platforms as the way to communicate, and you can see how girls face major challenges to have healthy relationships with boys. Pleasing boys governs what girls say and their perception of their power within a relationship. The desire to please affects the way they date, how they communicate what they want or don’t want with boys, and even the way they dump a guy. Girls are looking for an insurance policy against their own insecurity. When Girl World is set up to increase your daughter’s insecurity, she’ll seek validation from a boy and can become desperate to please him.
Of course, it’s harder to please a boy if a girl can’t figure out how to talk to him. And now it’s that much harder when the default method of communication to create and maintain intimacy is online. In addition, communication moves to a whole new level when girls have to figure out whether boys are being nice because they genuinely like them, or flattering them because they’re physically attracted to them. By the time they’re ready to date, girls have had years to hone the fake compliment. Girl World compels girls to compliment each other, so girls realize how hollow words can be. Picture yourself in the fitting room at a clothing store; the saleswoman tells you with a fake smile how great you look in a skirt that obviously makes you resemble a large bran muffin. You know she’s lying, but there’s some small part of you that wants to believe her. When a boy compliments a girl, it’s the same thing. She wants to believe him, even if her gut tells her that there’s an ulterior motive. She’ll feel grateful and then obligated to him.
Your insecurity kicks in. At some point the fact that the guy wants something sexual doesn’t matter because getting the validation is more important.
—Zoe, 17
Many girls initially give in to boys and agree to things they may not want. Later it may make them angry with themselves and resentful toward the person and situation. They start to smolder and simmer, waiting for the boys to understand and reach out to them. Of course, boys rarely do this, because they’ve been trained to dismiss what is stereotyped as overemotional behavior.
Many of us feel that our negative emotions aren’t as worthy as guys’. This is certainly true for me and it’s aggravating. When I finally tell my boyfriend how I feel, I immediately apologize. So girls end up saying yes when we really mean no. I think a lot of girls also feel like they need to keep up this mystique—it’s in everything we do. We cover ourselves in makeup, we wear clothing just short of being completely revealing. Most of us (including myself) never let down that barrier when it comes to our emotions. We don’t say “It hurts me when …” Or “I feel like …” We just aren’t speaking up and very few boys listen when we do.
—Anna, 16
You’re either supposed to know everything about everything or be an innocent little angel. There’s no in between. I’m confused a lot.
—Katia, 16
Communication is another place where the expectations girls bring from their intimate relationships with girls inform their relationships with boys. Girls define a great relationship as one in which the other person knows what you’re thinking and you can finish each other’s sentences; you’re totally in sync with each other. This is essential to girls’ closest friendships. They think they’re going to get it with the boys they like, and when they don’t, they feel betrayed. They want to be understood without having to explain everything.
Isn’t it easier to hope someone will guess how you’re feeling than gathering your thoughts in your mind and bringing it up? Even now I watch my mom do the same things with my dad.
—Jordan, 18
I wanted to break up with this guy and I just couldn’t. It was so hard! I sat down with him and gave him a million excuses why I couldn’t go out with him anymore. “I’m having a lot of personal problems right now, I just can’t handle it right now.” The more he questioned me, the more excuses I made up.
—Ella, 18
All this miscommunication, further complicated by cell phones and computers, is the stuff of romantic comedies and the subject of bestsellers. Part of the joy of a girl’s first more serious relationship is figuring out how to get on the same page as the boy. And it does happen. But the process is hampered by a girl’s ingrained need to please and not say what she really feels. This dynamic creates a coded, unclear language when a girl wants to break off a relationship. “I didn’t want to hurt his feelings,” “I didn’t want to be rude,” “I didn’t want to assume what he was thinking,” and “I didn’t want to tell him what I wanted because I didn’t want him to not like me” are all examples. The result is often a seriously mixed message, and it’s more of a problem in relationships among older teens because the stakes are so much higher.
Recently I went on a date with a guy that I have had an on-and- off thing with for about six months. Today was our first official date. Right when he gets to the movie he hugs me and gives me a kiss on my cheek. When we sat down he tried to kiss me on the lips. What I haven’t mentioned is the fact that this is my first kiss. I didn’t tell him that though. All he wanted to do was make out and that bothered me a little. If we are on a date I understand if he wanted to kiss me but he kept whispering to me, “you are soooo sexy,” and “you are way too hot.” And when I finally gave in and made out with him, I got really into it and sort of lost control. Before I knew it he was trying to stick his hand in my shirt and he grabbed my butt. This bothered me A LOT and I pulled away. At the end of the movie I gave him a kiss good-bye, but I’m not going out with him again.
—Caroline, 15
Caroline’s experience encapsulates most of the dynamics I am describing. I didn’t talk to her date, but I would bet any amount of money that he thought the date went well. She was sexually attracted to him, she was excited to be on the date, she did want to make out with him. But she didn’t know what her personal boundaries were or how to communicate them until she felt like it got out of control. From his point of view the only thing she communicated is that she was into him but didn’t want him going down her shirt or pants at that moment—because she kissed him at the end of the date. To her date that probably means she wants to keep going—just at another time and maybe not in public.
A sixteen-year-old girl recently asked my advice about how to tell a boy she wasn’t interested in dating him. Part of her liked him and part of her didn’t, but she was fairly sure she didn’t want to be his girlfriend. On the phone, she had told him that she couldn’t date him because she wanted to get to know him better and her parents wouldn’t approve. Because she felt obliged to explain this to him in more depth, she made plans to have dinner with him alone—something her traditional parents wouldn’t have approved of, so she lied to them about what she was doing that night. She told me she believed that she had clearly communicated to this boy that she wasn’t interested in being his girlfriend. I really don’t think so. First, instead of explaining her own feelings, she blamed the barrier to a relationship on her parents. When the boy heard this, he could reasonably assume, “If we get rid of this obstacle, then we’re back on.” When she said, “I can’t date you until I get to know you better,” what did the boy think when she made plans to go out to dinner with him? That she wanted to get to know him better. What she said and what he heard were totally different. Just imagine your daughter having this conversation secretly with a boy in her bedroom.
Flirting is a time-honored ritual. It’s how teens test their fledgling romantic social skills, and it can be a lot of fun. It can also be another haven for miscommunication. Hardly anything about teens is subtle, and flirting is no exception. Walk down any school hall-way and you’ll probably be disconcerted by the way teens overtly display their bodies, talk to each other in sexually explicit ways, and constantly touch each other. It’s a huge part of teen culture, but that doesn’t mean that all teens like it.
This is the environment where sexual harassment occurs. When does flirting cross the line? Flirting makes both people feel good, and sexual harassment makes the recipient feel small, uncomfortable, powerless, and/or intimidated. What is relevant to your daughter is that sexual harassment can create a hostile educational environment.
When I give presentations on sexual harassment at high schools, I ask the students to give me examples of sexual harassment separated into categories of verbal and written, visual, and physical examples. These are their responses:
| Verbal/Written | Visual | Physical |
| Sexually explicit notes | Hand gestures | Pinching |
| Cat calls | Licking lips | Grabbing |
| Showing lewd pictures | Staring at body parts | Hugging/kissing |
| Calling someone bitch or ho | Flashing | Blocking a path |
| “Can I get some of that?” | Grabbing crotch | Rubbing |
| Grinding (when boys grind their bodies against girls at dances) |
Then I ask the students if everything on the list is always sexual harassment. The answer is always no, but it never fails to spark a heated argument. The key to understanding why sexual harassment is so confusing is appreciating that it’s defined differently by different people, and that calling it harassment places a huge burden on those who speak up about it (Targets) and who subsequently may be labeled an “uptight complainer.”
Several criteria determine whether the action in question is considered sexual harassment: what relation the person doing the action has to the Target; how comfortable or uncomfortable the Target feels; the boundaries and personal space of those involved; and the threshold for harassment. If the Target is attracted to the other person, she might have a higher threshold for what she considers sexual harassment.
Girls and boys each have distinct and different reasons why it’s often hard to tell a harasser to stop. The following are two stories that may shed some light on these difficulties.
Jim, Craig, and Jess are friends who have history class together. One day during class Jim convinces Craig to write a note to Jess that details the various ways they want to have sex with her. Jim encourages Craig to give Jess the note after class. When Craig hands it to her, he realizes, by the look on her face as she reads it, that she’s upset, but she doesn’t say anything. Craig immediately realizes how stupid it was to give the note to her and just hopes she’ll blow it off. However, when she leaves the classroom she tells her friends. She didn’t realize that boys she considered friends would think about her like that. With the encouragement of her friends, she tells the principal, who then suspends both boys. The boys are infuriated. If Jess is as upset as she claims, why didn’t she say anything to them when she first got the note? Why did she go to the principal first instead of telling them?
Why didn’t Jess tell the two boys off? First, she was so flustered—guy friends of hers think that way about her?—that she couldn’t think of anything to say, much less the perfect comeback. Second, these boys didn’t pick her by chance. They picked someone they weren’t intimidated by. They didn’t pick a girl who would have gotten right back in their face. Jess is a quiet pleaser. It would be hard for her to stand up to them. Jess is programmed to not want to make a big deal out of it. What if people think she’s uptight, frigid, or a bitch? She’s confused about the boys’ motivations—maybe they meant it as a joke, or even a weird kind of compliment?—and her own reactions—maybe it’s good that someone thinks you’re sexy, even if the note makes you feel bad? With the Act Like a Woman box controlling her actions, Jess says nothing to them to their faces. Only when she has the support of her clique does she feel she can take any kind of action.
I was teaching a coed class on sexual harassment with juniors and seniors. The girls had just explained how violated they felt when they walked down the hallway and boys tried to put their hands up their shirts. When I asked if there were any boys who had been sexually harassed, a handsome guy raised his hand. He was on the track team and when he was practicing, girls would call out suggestive things to him as he ran by or slap his butt. He didn’t like it.
The same girls who’d complained of harassment moments earlier now screamed with laughter. This is the double standard boys are up against. Some girls and boys don’t believe that boys can be sexually harassed because they “always want to have sex with anyone at anytime.” If a boy complains, he’s called gay.
It comes down to this: boys can never say they don’t want sexual attention for fear of being called gay, and girls worry that if they say they don’t want sexual attention, they’ll be called frigid or a bitch. Both boys and girls are conditioned to never say no.
Aggressive girls corner boys when they’re drunk and have their way with them when the boy doesn’t want to hook up.
—Ben, 18
A girl in my school sent a really dirty e-mail to my friend about all the ways she wanted to have sex with him, but she never would have gotten in trouble for sexually harassing him. Never.
—David, 17
Let’s go back to my school auditorium presentation. Examples of sexual harassment are written on the flip charts, and I think the students are getting it when a boy stands up and challenges me. “What about people’s First Amendment rights? Don’t people have the right to say what they want? If they want to talk about a girl in the boys’ locker room, that’s their right and how does that hurt the girl?” I pressed him, “Why would you want to have the right to say something that would make someone else feel bad? Why is it so important that you have that right? Do you think people will like you for exercising this right?” He answered with, “You’re trying to control the things we say. You can’t do that.” I said, “You’re right. I have no control over what you say, but don’t you want people in your community, including yourself, to be able to walk down the school hall and not be preoccupied with what someone is going to say to you?”
A teen girl gave a very eloquent summary of how that locker room chat does indeed violate a girl’s rights:
The First Amendment gives you your personal rights as long as, in practicing them, you don’t take away someone else’s. A guy should have the sense of responsibility enough to know that talking to a bunch of random guys about a girl will have repercussions on that girl, and those repercussions will violate her rights of expecting safety and comfortable surroundings in a school environment. He will indirectly take away her sense of safety and security in an environment where she should be concentrating on studying. However, it’s not that indirect because he knows that she will get a disrespectful or some type of sexually harassing response from the guys in the locker room based on what he tells them.
—Nidhi, 16
Most sexual harassers don’t realize the impact of their behavior. There are also people who do realize and don’t care, or are intentionally using sexual harassment as a way to intimidate. How can your daughter tell the difference? It’s actually a lot like the different definitions of teasing I discussed in Chapter 6.
An unaware perpetrator doesn’t realize the consequences of his or her actions, but will stop if told in an effective manner.
An insensitive perpetrator harasses to impress his peer group and can dismiss girls’ feelings by laughing or making stereotypical comments; for example, “You are so emotional. You are so uptight.”
An intimidating perpetrator most likely intimidates boys as well through verbal and/or physical bullying, but he can have excellent social skills.
Some people think sexual harassment is totally blown out of proportion by the media and a few overzealous school administrators and teachers. We’ve all read about the five-year-old boy suspended for kissing a girl in his class. Forget about the extreme cases. The goal, as I say to students, is to have a school environment where people feel safe and comfortable so they can focus on their education. If there are students who feel uncomfortable because other people are doing something in a sexual manner that they don’t like, shouldn’t we address the problem? We all have to be honest. Girls and boys both act inappropriately with each other all the time—usually because they’re trying to figure out what is appropriate. Girls rub up against boys as they’re pushing them away and saying “Get off of me!,” and they mean both. Boys are often deaf, blind, and dumb when girls send clear but nonverbal messages like tensing and pulling away when they’re hugged or running away when someone asks if they can be their boyfriend. While it would be better if all girls could tell a boy directly when they don’t like his behavior, it doesn’t help the problem when we blame the girl for not speaking up or accusing the boy of being insensitive.
Instead, our goal should be to create a way for girls and boys to live together in a civilized, respectful way. The challenge is to educate girls and boys about the obstacles they face that make listening to each other so difficult. They have to know how the Act Like a Woman and Act Like a Man boxes guide their behavior and take responsibility when they behave in confusing, threatening ways.
The senior girls don’t like freshmen hooking up with “their” [senior] guys. The girls of higher social status feel like this girl who isn’t as cool or pretty as they are takes “their” guys. They feel threatened. If they’re close to the guy, the girls make comments to the guy when the girl isn’t around or they’ll try to hook up with the guy not because they like him, but because they want to get the “lowly” girl away from him.
—Ella, 18
By far one of the most frustrating and recurring problems I deal with is senior girls bullying a freshman girl because they have decided that she doesn’t know her place. In some senior girls’ minds, that girl’s place is underneath their feet apologizing for her existence.
This isn’t something that happens all the time, but it is a problem. What’s going on is the seniors are jealous and threatened because their male peers think that freshman girl is really hot or “frosh meat” (the “o” in the word indicates that sophomores are included). But the senior girls rarely admit that to themselves, let alone anyone else. It’s much easier for them to humiliate the freshman girl. Here are things senior girls have done to freshmen in some of the schools I work at:
Laughed at a freshman girl at a party because she’s drunk and vomiting.
Laughed and yelled “Slut” and “Skank” as they see the freshman girl go into a bedroom with a senior boy.
Created a rules list for all the freshmen (which included not hooking up with any senior guys or any ex-boyfriend of a senior girl), stating that if they didn’t comply their lives would be made into a “living hell.”
Getting a can of sardines, opening it, and rubbing the contents into a freshman girl’s bed (that was at a boarding school, which is why they had access to her bed).
What’s absolutely amazing to me about this is the consistent belief among these groups of senior girls that “This year’s freshmen girls don’t have any respect for the seniors. It’s not like when we were their age. We didn’t dress like whores. We didn’t throw ourselves on guys. We treated the seniors with respect. These girls deserve what they’re getting.” There’s no empathy. They have no sense that treating these girls so horribly isn’t the right thing to do. It’s all about the older girls’ right to teach the younger girls their place.
On the other hand, if your freshman daughter is hooking up with a junior or senior boy, especially an Act Like a Man box boy, there is a good chance she’s attracted to him precisely because she won’t be able to hold her own with him. You can imagine how angry girls can get with me when I say that but this quote sums up what boys tell me perfectly.
I guess there’s a possibility that an older guy in high school would hang out with a freshman because he actually liked her but not very often. What freshmen girls need to realize is that when you go out with a guy like that, his friends tease him relentlessly about it. And we talk behind his back because it’s so obvious why he would do that—and it’s not because he likes you or respects you. It’s because you’ll do what he wants.
—James, 18
Teens don’t use this term anymore to describe when two people are friends and have sex—with the expressed acknowledgment that there is nothing more to the relationship than friendship. More likely, they’re going to call it a “booty call” or a “fuck buddy.”
Most teens I work with see it as a way for girls to be sexually active without getting the tag of being a slut. It lets her escape the slut/player double standard because it looks like she’s in control of the situation and isn’t emotionally invested in its outcome. But for many girls and boys alike, that’s easier said than done.
You constantly have to convince yourself that it doesn’t mean anything. And if you do feel something, then you feel guilty about it because it’s not part of the agreement.
Unfortunately, it’s almost inevitable that your daughter will date a guy you don’t like or even hate. Your daughter doesn’t have to date someone who physically abuses her to sustain a serious blow to her self-esteem.
This is my criteria for a bad boyfriend:
When they argue, he questions her perspective and feelings.
He tells her she needs to lose weight or makes other denigrating remarks.
He questions her intellect and makes her doubt herself.
He blows her off by saying she’s uptight.
He calls her a slut or a bitch.
He insults her.
He humiliates her.
He does all of the above and then says “I’m just joking. You know I don’t mean those things.”
Please notice that this list is basically the same criteria as those for a bad friend. All relationships have drama, but anytime your daughter is in a relationship where she is made to feel “less than” or smaller, where her perspective is questioned, she shouldn’t be in that relationship. Later in the chapter, I’ll offer some advice on how to help her handle that kind of situation.
I realize I’ve focused in this chapter on the more negative aspects of relationships, since these are the issues girls most often ask about. Not all boyfriends are bad, however, and your daughter may have a wonderful boyfriend. (And, although you might not want to admit it, she can even have a healthy and responsible sexual relationship with that boyfriend.) Remember, girls develop their personal standards for relationships from watching you, their friends, and the world at large.
A healthy relationship is one where the people respect each other and can be themselves without being criticized or corrected. When the person is mad at you, he or she still treats you with dignity. If the person has a moment where he or she doesn’t treat you with dignity, the individual apologizes and stops. And of course all of this goes both ways.
SECURITY BLANKETS
There are always a few couples who date exclusively throughout high school. Parents and teachers think they’re cute, and other students refer to them as married. But often, one of the two eventually wants to hook up with other people but is unwilling to let go of the security blanket that the old relationship has become. If the boy wants to play the field (“I really think we should see other people, but I still want to see you, too”) and the girl doesn’t want to let go, she may feel that she has to go along with what he wants. She’ll put up with his being nonexclusive in the hopes that he’ll come back, because it’s better to have something than nothing. She’ll say she doesn’t need or want monog amy when she really does. She doesn’t communicate what she really wants and hopes for the best.
The result is that they’re still a couple but they aren’t technically going out. They can use this technicality to treat each other like dirt. They can still have casual sex with each other, but it will be casual to one and not to the other. The girl in this situation is in a terrible bind. She’s upset about the status of the relationship, but knows that she has no “right” to complain. If she does, her “agreement” will be thrown back in her face (“You said it was okay if we saw other people”), her feelings will be dismissed, and she’ll have no one to blame but herself. The only thing she can do is create dramatic situations where she either drinks too much, does a lot of drugs, or does something reckless so he can come to her rescue. And he will, because he does still care for her and her request fits in the “Act Like a Man” box. He feels special because he’s the only one she wants to rescue or soothe her. The end result of these dramatic moments are long (I’m talking hours) tear-filled conversations, often at a party where the happy couple locks themselves in a room to discuss their relationship problems.
Close your eyes and remember your first serious love: Do you remember the first time you saw this person?
How did you feel? What did it feel like to be alone with that person?
Did you ever date someone your parents didn’t like? How did you react to their disapproval?
Have you ever been sexually harassed? How did you handle it? How do you think your daughter would? How would you want her to?
Did you ever have a girlfriend hook up with a person you were dating? Whom did you hold responsible? How did it impact your future friendships and relationships?
Did you ever go along with something a romantic partner wanted because you didn’t know how to say no?
What has your daughter learned from you about relationships? What have you modeled, for better or worse?
What would you look for to know that your daughter was in a healthy relationship?
OK—I just described some very difficult situations girls get into. Now I’m going to give you my best suggestions for how to address Girl World meets Boy World issues.
Teach your daughter to not blow off girlfriends for a boy. This is an ironclad rule that begins when she’s little. It doesn’t matter if it’s the love of her life; keeping her commitment to what she’s promised is more important. Ask her about the unwritten code that says it’s okay to blow off a friend for a guy. Where does it come from? What would happen if she told a guy she liked that she already made a commitment to someone else? Why would she like a guy if he wouldn’t accept that she already had other plans? What’s important to focus on with your daughter is that breaking or keeping plans has nothing to do with how much you like the person or vice versa. Keeping commitments is about honoring an agreement you made—regardless of the relationship you have with the person.
Help your daughter create criteria for dating on her own terms and on her own timetable. Remind her that every girl has her own pace and interest in guys and wherever she is with that is fine.
Help your daughter frame her difficult conversations with boys using SEAL. For example, here’s what she can say to a boy she wants to break up with:
Stop and Strategize: She thinks about what exactly she doesn’t like and where she can tell him.
Explain: She articulates what she doesn’t like. For example, “I don’t feel respected when you’re around your friends and you make fun of me or you laugh along with your friends when they’re making fun of me. I don’t want to hang out with you if that is going to happen.”
Affirm: “I realize talking to your friends about it before going to you looks like I was going behind your back and I’m sorry for that.”
Lock: “Right now I feel more comfortable not hanging out or calling/texting/IMing each other [meaning he should feel respected as a person but still know that the relationship is over].”
Unfortunately, breakups are rarely clean and dignified. Most people aren’t going to feel comfortable having an extended conversation about why your daughter doesn’t want to date them any longer. Most will run away and lick their wounds privately. Sometimes they’ll get angry and retaliate, doing things like this:
My friend dated a guy for only like two months when he went crazy. After she broke up with him, he was devastated. Apparently he felt the need to get back at her so he went on her Facebook and commented on every single picture she had taken on a trip with him with some version of “ruined,” “fucking whore.” This wasn’t like one or two pictures, it was a full 60-photo album. Needless to say the album had to be deleted.
—Margaret, 18
Or he could do it the old-fashioned way by spreading rumors about her. If your daughter has this experience, here’s an example of what she can say:
YOUR DAUGHTER: You’ve been saying that I’m a slut/frigid bitch who wouldn’t give it up. I have the right to break up with you without you saying mean things about me to other people (or going after me online). I can’t stop you from doing it, but I’m requesting that you stop immediately. If you feel I disrespected you or you didn’t have the chance to talk last time, I’m open to it, but only if you treat me respectfully.
THE GOLDEN RULES OF HOOKING UP WITH A FRIEND’S EX’S AND PREVIOUS/CURRENT LOVE INTERESTS
In an ideal world, parents would talk to their kids about this subject but it may be a little too close to the sun for everyone involved. However, there really need to be some ethical guidelines about when a person is in her or his rights to hook up with other people. So this is the part where you hand the book over to your daughter and let her read the following.
First, if you are going to do this, you have to know that 99 percent of the time, you won’t get out of this free and clear. And you can’t say, “She’s not allowed to get mad at me because …” “It’s not my fault, he likes me better.” Your friend can get mad—even if she doesn’t necessarily still like the guy, it can still bother her. Know that you’re in for drama. But, if you still want to go for it, here are my suggestions:
If there is any possibility of hooking up with the ex on the horizon, you prepare your friend by telling her that you’re interested.
If you have an unplanned hookup with a friend’s ex, you tell your friend within twelve hours. Don’t assume you can get away with it, because you won’t. Someone will text something or send a photograph, and you will be discovered. There are no private hookups anymore.
If you think there is a possibility your friend still likes the person, think about that in your SEAL preparation
You don’t owe her anything except to treat your friendship with respect. Which means under no circumstances are you within your rights to make out, and so on, in front of her. Also, there should be no gratuitous flirting, like sitting on laps, pushing, being picked up and thrown around, and shrieking. Especially don’t ditch her to go out with him. You’re not doing this to kiss up to get permission to be with him. Rather, your actions should reflect a conscious effort to be sensitive to how she may be feeling.
If you are the ex: Your position is really uncomfortable and it can easily feel like you have no power. The reality is that you always have the right to your feelings, but you can’t control what people do or how they feel. If you find out that a friend has hooked up with someone that you are currently interested in or involved with, then you would have two conversations. One with the friend and one with the hookup, using SEAL to frame both conversations. But under no circumstances are you within your right to get revenge on this girl, talk smack about her, or try to get everyone to hate her.
And last, both of you can’t let the object of all this attention get away free and clear. Seriously, he knew what was going on. He is just as guilty, if not more so. Don’t let this person sit back and watch girls fighting over him.
4. Help your daughter respond to sexual harassment—this includes applying the same standard of behavior to boys. Just as she wants boys to respect her body, so she must as well with boys. Overall, what’s most important here is to “denormalize” the behavior. If she’s seeing it every day, then it will be logical for her to think that there’s nothing really wrong with the behavior—except for the fact that she doesn’t like it. One of the best things adults can do is challenge this reality. And remember, just because it’s something you may see every day doesn’t make it right.
Because sexual harassment is so common, there is a good chance that the person who harasses your daughter doesn’t realize his behavior is a problem. And if at all possible (meaning your daughter feels physically safe with this person) she should make the first attempt one-on-one, using SEAL.
YOUR DAUGHTER (Explain): Todd, can I talk to you for a minute? This is difficult for me to say, but I really need to talk to you and for you to take me seriously. When you hug me in the hall, I often feel like I’m being felt up. I want you to stop.
(Affirm) As friends, we have to be honest with each other and not let that ruin the friendships.
If he gets defensive or accuses her of sending mixed messages:
YOUR DAUGHTER: You’re my friend, and as your friend it’s important for me to tell you when something is bothering me, that it’s respected, and that you feel I’m doing the same for you. I’m sorry if you think I’ve sent mixed messages, so the next time you feel I’m doing that, you need to tell me directly.
If he knows that what he’s doing is a problem:
YOUR DAUGHTER: Todd, I need to talk to you. I want you to stop making comments to your friends when I walk by your locker. Maybe you believe girls like that kind of attention, but I want to be clear to you that I don’t. Now that I have said this to you, I assume you’ll respect my request.
If he laughs at her:
YOUR DAUGHTER: Let me be absolutely clear. I want you to stop. I have now asked you several times to stop. If you won’t, you will force me to go to (best person in the school) for help.
If he does it again, she should go to her adult advocate in the school for assistance.
What if she does any or all these things to him? It is more than possible that your daughter could be on the giving side of things. She could be the one who gets dumped and goes after her ex. She could be the one who isn’t respecting his boundaries. So just as you would with a son, I’d sit down with your daughter and be clear about respecting people’s boundaries. She can’t trash her boy online. She can’t make fun of him if he breaks up with her. So just as you need to talk to your daughter about her strategy when she is on the receiving end of these conflicts, you must also be clear with her that being hurt and feeling rejected doesn’t justify revenge.
5. Help your daughter recognize the difference between a good boyfriend, a bad boyfriend, and an abusive boyfriend; and have the best strategies possible to help her get out of an unhealthy relationship.
Many parents have shared with me how unbearable it is to watch their daughter date someone they believe is unworthy.
Or is he? Before you pass judgment, invite the boy over to dinner and attempt to get to know him a little better. He may have more piercings than you would like, he might have horrible posture, or he may be shy. Forget all that. Does he treat your daughter respectfully? Is he polite? Does he seem to value her opinions? Many kids with green hair and tongue studs turn out to be terrific guys. Frankly, I’d worry more about the Masterminds and the Muscles.
I’d make a huge effort to get to know him better by inviting him over to dinner. If I still didn’t like him, I’d give her a factual list of why, like if he smokes or he’s lazy about grades, not that he burps at dinner.
—Nina, 17
I have a policy that my best friend and I devised which originated sophomore year when I dated this guy named Rick who I was really into, but he could never get it together to call or see me. I knew he liked me, but he was just dumb. But my parents would always be on my case about it, and thus I would end up defending him! We then created the “Defending Rick” philosophy, which has come to describe just about every relationship I’ve encountered since then. The worst has been with Dylan (the one I’m struggling to break free of) because I’ve had to defend him in order for people to understand why I’ve let him back in my life after he broke my heart nine months ago.
—Carmen, 18
Okay, you’ve tried your best and you still can’t stand him. The thought of him makes your skin crawl. What can you do? You know that if you voice your disapproval, she’ll stay with him forever. Try to keep your mouth shut and wait for her to come to you. Girls want their parents and people they respect to approve of their boyfriends. When asked, you can be honest, but first check your baggage. If you don’t like what he wears, forget about it. If you don’t like the way he talks to your daughter, that’s something else entirely.
If you don’t like him for a superficial reason, you can say: “I may not like his choice of clothes, piercings, hair color, etc., but I respect your right to make your own decisions and I have faith that you want to be in a relationship with someone who treats you with respect. But please come and talk to me about it anytime and don’t feel uncomfortable bringing him around.”
If you don’t like him for a really good reason, you can say: “I would like to talk to you about Seth. Yesterday, when you came home from school together, I was really worried about how he was talking to you. Maybe I’m wrong or making too much of something, but I felt like he was belittling you. You have the right to have a boyfriend, but you also have the right to have a boyfriend that doesn’t tell you things that make you feel bad about yourself or doubt yourself. What do you think about what I just said? Can you see why I’d think these things?”
To which your daughter will say, “Thanks, Mom/Dad, for telling me what you were feeling. I didn’t see it before, but now that you’ve said it, you’re right and I’ll break up with him right now.” Yeah, right. And then the Lotto van will back up to your driveway with your jackpot winnings, you’ll fit into your high school jeans, and your gray hairs will disappear.
Or perhaps your daughter will flip out and tell you that you don’t understand her relationship. Then you need to respond with: “I’m not asking for answers or telling you I want you to stop seeing him. All I’m asking is for you to think about what I’ve said and talk to me later.”
The times when I get into trouble are when I’m sneaking around and can’t talk to my parents.
—Grace, 16
I’m 14 years old and a freshman in high school. Now, my parents have always been overprotective, but lately things have gotten out of hand. I love my parents, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes they are just too much. My mom is more understanding, but my dad just will not listen to anything I have to say. I’ve gotten into multiple arguments with him before, and every time I try to get my point across he is always interrupting me telling me that I’m wrong and that I don’t make sense. He says that I shouldn’t date because he doesn’t want me getting distracted from my schoolwork. But the thing is that I’m doing perfectly well in school. I’ve also had a boyfriend for about two months now. I really want my parents to meet him, because he’s such a nice guy and I know for a fact that they will love him once they get to know him. But they (especially my dad) are really quick to judge. But I really want to tell them that I’m actually dating him, so I wouldn’t have to sneak around and lie about where I’m going all the time. How can I tell them the truth without having them freak out on me?
—Hayden, 16
I’m a 15-year-old girl with Hispanic parents, so they’re really like protective when it comes to guys. I’m okay with them being concerned, just not going overboard. They believe I should just concentrate on school; there is no room for boys. I have a boyfriend that I do really like (no I’m not going to say love, I don’t think I know what that is yet). We have been “dating” for a month but I have known him for a year. It’s getting real hard to see him since I always have to be sneaking around. I really don’t want to keep lying to my parents, but I feel that if I tell them I will lose a lot of privileges. My mom always tells me that guys are a distraction from school, but I have actually continued getting straight A’s. I wish my parents and I could communicate better; they still want to believe I don’t know what sex is. Manuel, my boyfriend, doesn’t really seem to pressure me into telling my parents, but I can tell he wants me to. He is a genuinely good guy and I want my parents to know about us without them flipping out like they normally do with me. How do I ease them into the idea about me dating?
—Pilar, 16
Like so many girls, Pilar and Hayden want their parents’ approval, and they understand their parents’ concerns. However, they want an increased degree of freedom and for their parents to recognize they can make good choices. This is what I say to girls who come to me for advice:
Although I totally understand why you are sneaking, you have to stop, because eventually you’ll get lazy, make a mistake, and get caught. Then your parents will be so mad about the sneaking that it will be harder for them to see the merits of your argument. Plus, they may also think that the boy is influencing you to sneak, so that doesn’t put him in a very good light with them. And it is true that guys can be a major distraction. But if you are handling the distraction by keeping up your grades and your other responsibilities, then I think you go to them like this: “Mom, Dad, I really respect you and I want you to be proud of me and the decisions I make. I know you don’t want me to have a serious boyfriend but I really like a guy and I would like to go out with him. I’d like to go out to the movies with him. How can we work this out so I get a little more freedom and you feel good about how I’m conducting myself?” Now, if you get them to agree, it is REALLY IMPORTANT that you abide by the terms. So if you say you will be back by 11:00 P.M., do yourself a favor and plan to get back home at 10:50—because you will lose all credibility if you don’t do what you say.
Of course, you want your daughter to have positive experiences with the people she dates, and no parent expects that their daughter will be involved in an abusive relationship. But if you know four girls (your daughter and three of her friends), you know a girl who has been or will be in an abusive relationship. How will you know, and how can you get her the help that she needs?
Girls don’t get involved in abusive relationships out of the blue. They’re vulnerable when certain ingredients combine. Those ingredients include wanting to be that someone special in another person’s life, loving someone and wanting the best for them, being part of a community or family that doesn’t admit that family violence could occur within it, seeing verbal and/or physical abuse in the family, and a peer social system that measures social status based on a boyfriend.
At its core, an abusive relationship is one in which one person verbally, emotionally, financially, and physically (but not always) dominates, intimidates, and controls another. Abuse is at once terrifyingly simple and complex. “Why doesn’t she leave?” people ask. Because she loves him and it’s impossible to fall out of love overnight, even when the person who loves you treats you like dirt. Because she has been brought down so much that she has lost any confidence that she can make any decision. Because her clique thinks they look good together. And even the most abusive relationships have good moments, especially because abusers can make you feel like the most special person in the world. And if you love someone, you want to believe him. You see no other option, so you hope for the best.
Have you ever gone to a party and stayed later than you wanted to because a friend, spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend wanted to stay? Ever gotten into a car with someone who drank enough wine at dinner that you knew they shouldn’t be behind the wheel and you had no business being a passenger? I’ve done both. If you’ve stayed at that party or gotten into that car, you did so because you didn’t want to offend someone, go against someone else’s needs, or openly acknowledge that someone was doing something dangerous and irresponsible. Now imagine that if you did stand your ground, people would ridicule you or talk about you behind your back. If it’s so hard to stand up to someone in these situations, imagine how hard it is for someone dealing with abuse.
Girls are particularly vulnerable to abusive relationships simply because they are who they are—teens. They think in extremes and in the short term (next year may as well be the next century), are prone to narcissism and drama, and have little experience with which to compare the relationship.
Notwithstanding some of the jokes I’ve made about girls not wanting to talk to their parents, it’s not hard to imagine why your daughter wouldn’t want to tell you if she’s in an abusive relationship. Look at it from her point of view:
She wants her privacy: Abusive relationships are maintained by creating a sacrosanct sphere around the couple.
She thrives on intensity: She could be in love for the first time. An abusive relationship feels like a drug. She needs the fix. The lows are very low, but the highs are amazing. She can feel like the most loved person in the world. The drama reinforces the feeling that she’s in a mature, adult relationship and it’s them against the world.
She feels special: She feels as if she’s the only one who understands her boyfriend and can take care of and save him.
She’s afraid of your response: She worries you won’t let her see him anymore or date anyone else again for the rest of her life.
She cherishes her independence: Because of this, she’ll resist going to people she sees as an authority. She could easily feel, rightly or wrongly, that if she seeks help, her newly gained independence will be taken away or her future relationships will be controlled.
She’s afraid of disappointing you: She’s ashamed and feels as if she let you down. You may like him, and if she tells you, you won’t like him. Or you tried to warn her, and she didn’t listen.
She’s afraid she’ll lose her status: Most likely she attends the same school and shares the same friends as her abuser. She could easily perceive her social status as dependent on her relationship with him.
She’s stubborn and feels invincible: She won’t admit to anyone (sometimes including herself) that she’s in over her head.
She’s inexperienced: She could believe that his jealousy and controlling behavior are expected and normal aspects of relationships and has little to compare them to. She could see both as proof of his love (that’s why what she sees modeled in her home is so important!). So, by the way, texting and leaving voice mails every hour is not healthy.
She feels helpless: She feels the abuser has complete power over her, so nothing will make it better.
She’s afraid he’ll hurt others: He could threaten to hurt people, animals, or things she cares for.
She feels it’s normal: She sees it in her own family and thinks she doesn’t deserve better.
She apologizes for his behavior (either to herself and/or others).
She’s stressed out. She’s hypervigilant and overreacts to minor incidents because she’s living under extreme tension. Reacting to this kind of constant stress may cause her to explode or become hysterical over things she can give herself “permission” to get upset about—like lashing out at you.
She gives up things or people that are important to her, such as after-school activities or friends.
She has difficulty making decisions on her own, from the clothes she wears to what classes she wants to take. An abuser is very effective at making her feel that any decision she makes is stupid and a mistake, so she becomes paralyzed. She has to check with him for every decision, such as if she can go somewhere.
She changes her appearance or behavior because he asked her to.
She comes home with injuries that she cannot explain, or whose explanation is inconsistent with the nature of the injury.
She believes jealous, controlling behavior is an expression of love.
She tries to be the “perfect” girlfriend and seems frightened of her abuser’s reaction if she isn’t. Or she believes if she can just be better in the ways he wants, he won’t treat her badly. That way it becomes all her fault.
Do
Ask about the relationship.
Maintain open and respectful communication.
Help her recognize controlling behaviors in the relationship.
Use all resources at your disposal, including counseling, school, and the legal system.
Check how often and how long she is spending online and texting with the person. (This would be an example of the importance of needing her passwords. If something goes wrong, you need to able to see what she’s been saying online.)
Plan for her safety.
Call your local domestic violence agency for help.
Assure her confidentiality. If you need to tell someone else, ask her permission first. If you need to tell the police or other authorities, tell her first and then jointly agree about who she wants to talk to. Make a plan with her so she feels safe and in control.
Appreciate that she believes that sometimes the relationship is good for her and that the two may feel that they’re in love with each other. She may feel that she can’t survive without her abuser.
Ask, “What can I do to help you?”
Tell her that you’re sorry she feels bad, but you know that you can’t understand how she’s feeling (teens hate it when adults pretend they know what teens are feeling, unless they have their own story to prove they do).
Ask questions to help her recognize that her relationship is abusive.
Support her courage for asking for help and respect her limits. You’re helping her establish boundaries with others, including yourself. For example, if she wants to remain in an abusive relationship, don’t tell her that her decision is wrong, but do tell her that you’re worried for her safety and help her see the danger she’s placing herself in if she returns to the relationship. Explain to her how you would intervene if you felt she was in immediate physical danger.
Help her recognize that the explanations and excuses for his violence don’t justify his behavior.
Help her see that her feelings are valid. The abuser does not have the right to dismiss her feelings or recollection of events.
Don’t
Present her with ultimatums. Don’t make her feel that she has to choose between you and her abuser.
Assume she wants to leave or that you know what’s best for her. If you make decisions for her, you reinforce that she can’t make decisions for herself.
Ask what she did to “provoke him.” This type of question reinforces her feelings of self-blame.
Talk to her and the abuser together.
Take secondhand information. If you want to use information, say what it is and then ask, “Is any part of that accurate from your perspective?”
Pressure her into making decisions.
Threaten or physically attack the abuser. Not only is this dangerous, but it will likely make her side with the abuser.
He exploits a victim’s sympathy and guilt.
He lashes out, calls her names, or demeans her.
He causes fear through intimidating statements and actions.
He calls her persistently or texts her incessantly.
He shows up without warning at home, at her classes, or at her after-school job.
He follows her.
He tries to enlist family and friends in attempts to maintain the relationship.
He’s possessive to the point of controlling her behavior.
He has public displays of anger or ridicule toward women.
He feels entitled—the community’s rules do not apply to him.
He has a two-faced personality. He’s charming in public and mean and degrading in private.
He’s abusive toward others, especially small children or animals.
You’ll never have a more important opportunity to practice your listening skills. Remind your daughter that she has more courage and resilience than she knows, and that no matter what, you’re there for her.
In preparing yourself for the worst, it’s easy to forget that watching your daughter learn to navigate more adult relationships can be fulfilling for you both. Remember, this can be your time to shine. You can role-model positive, honest, caring, loving relationships with men. Dads, if she comes up against a guy who is treating her poorly, she’ll know by your example that it’s not right and she doesn’t have to take it. Moms, you are important role models, too. Show her by your own actions how to have loving relationships based on mutual respect and equality. All of this can be overwhelming, but you can be an involved parent who guides her toward respectful, responsible relationships that will give all of you joy.