Dealing with the drama and divas of middle school
Haley Kilpatrick is taking her crusade for a kinder, gentler adolescence directly to the battlefront — the middle school cafeteria or, as she describes it, the “social minefield.”
At 25, Kilpatrick can still recall the tensions and hurts of the lunchroom in her private school in Albany, Ga.
“I’d head toward an open spot in the lunchroom only to watch some girl throw her purse down…I ended up eating lunch in the restroom, especially if I had a test after lunch because I knew the worst thing I could do is go eat lunch with these girls because I wouldn’t be able to concentrate.”
In high school, Kilpatrick found herself brooding about the lunchroom slights, the mean “I love your shoes…Just kidding” comments and the parties from which she was excluded.
When she realized that she wasn’t the only wounded teen, Kilpatrick resolved, “Instead of always talking about how bad middle school was, we either need to get over it or do something about it.”
She opted for action, creating Girl Talk, a program in which high school girls mentor middle school girls to help them deal with the “tween” and early teen years. From that first group Kilpatrick organized at her own high school in 2002, Girl Talk has spread to 35,000 girls in 43 states and six countries.
It is likely to spread even farther with the publication of Kilpatrick’s new book, “The Drama Years: Real Girls Talk about Surviving Middle School — Bullies, Brands, Body Image and More.”
Haley Kilpatrick (Special)
Now married and living in Atlanta, Kilpatrick says Girl Talk and her book are forcing her to “step outside of my comfort zone. I am a complete introvert. But I am passionate about this.”
Her goal is more than creating less drama in middle school; she wants to create kinder girls who will grow up to be kinder women who don’t belittle others for sport.
Kilpatrick says schools and parents should not underestimate the power of even a handful of mean girls to infest a school with a negative social dynamic that can even affect the classroom performance of the classmates who become their victims.
“How they rise to the top, how they have these powers to control is probably a great mystery. But it is happening every day in almost every middle school hallway. A lot of it comes from their confidence. Most of these girls get a thrill out of bringing people down. In some psychological way, it brings them up.”
Kilpatrick has asked girls what parents and teachers can do to help.
They tell her: “We want our parents to have tough conversations with us about the really awful stuff. And the earlier the better. Be aware. Talk to us. Ask us questions. We are dying to tell you what is going on. What we need schools and parents to do is tell us that this behavior is not acceptable and it will not be tolerated. Do what you have to split these girls apart and keep them from forming this cluster.”
Kilpatrick encourages schools to adopt policies that minimize the opportunity for exclusion, from students eating lunch in the classrooms to assigned cafeteria seating. But the greater challenge is changing how girls feel about themselves and their worth.
Most girls define self-esteem as how their peers perceive them, says Kilpatrick. “We have to show them that self-esteem comes from within, that they can’t take it away from you…Most middle school girls feel very alone. As parents, you are the one thing that is not changing in their lives. You are that unwavering presence.”
If their daughters feel bullied or marginalized, Kilpatrick encourages parents to find “anchor” activities where the girls can gain a sense of purpose and belonging and feel good about themselves — sports, dance teams, church youth groups, babysitting jobs, volunteer posts. She advocates service as the best way to provide girls with perspective and shake them loose of too much self-focus.
In her conversations with middle school girls about why they mistreat each other, Kilpatrick says they have no explanation. But the perspective of distance allows high school girls to offer a reason.
“Almost all of them say that they went along with it because they were so relieved it was happening to someone else and not them. That’s why they didn’t stand up to it.”
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
Haley Kilpatrick will appear at five Parent/Daughter workshops — free to the public — in the next two weeks. She encourages middle school educators and counselors to attend.
1. Monday, 7 p.m., KSU Center at Kennesaw State University, in partnership with Siegel Leadership Institute and Girls Inc and sponsored by WellStar.
2. Wednesday, 7 p.m., Decatur High School Performing Arts Center, in partnership with Decatur Education Foundation.
3. Thursday, 5:30 p.m, Warren/Holyfield Boys & Girls Club, Atlanta.
4. Friday, April 20, 7 p.m., Holy Innocents Episcopal School, Atlanta.
5. Saturday, April 21, 11 a.m., Bloomingdale’s Lenox Square
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
66 comments Add your comment
God Bless the Teacher!
April 13th, 2012
6:40 am
Kudos to Haley! However, talking about problems and convincing girls that self-esteem comes from within doesn’t address the systemic issues in our society and media that have helped evolve our children into the drama queens/kings and divas that many are. Way back, I’m talking pre-1970s (and the older posters will have to respond to this question), were children (say ages 10-16) as dramatic and influenced by the “attitudes” portrayed as acceptable in the media? Too many times as soon as some sassy or degrading saying is used on a popular show directed at the demographic mentioned do I hear it used in daily conversation between student in that demographic. I’m leaving out the way children dress, even though that also puts wedges between cliques and such. Even if students were as bad as before, what were the consequences? Until our society begins to reign in behaviors or portrayals of behaviors that are detrimental to the advancement of humanKIND (but are accepted as cute or acceptable), all of the gurus and self-help programs will only bandage the growing wound that will ultimately be the demise of what we claim to cherish – freedom. (okay, that last sentence may have been “dramatic” but I still believe it). TGIF!
Mr. Kieran Pavlick
April 13th, 2012
6:44 am
I don’t believe parents realize what an effect these Internet sites have on children. Many, use the Internet as parents in the fifties used television, as a baby sitter. Fortunately for us kids back then,it was only communicating one way and ouput was only decided by adults who determined what we saw.
Mom of 3
April 13th, 2012
7:08 am
This is not just a middle school issue. It continues in high school, but looks a little different. Many girls are just plain mean and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. They are desperate for attention and will get it any way they can, even if through negative attention or putting other girls down. Also, this discussion can’t take place without pulling in Facebook and its detrimental effect on young people.
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Georgians for Educational Excellence
April 13th, 2012
7:39 am
A physician-friend refers to his 13-year-old daughter as a child. She agrees. Both are correct.
Jeff
April 13th, 2012
8:10 am
Sounds like a great idea for boys AND girls. Too bad she didn’t care enough to include half of the population.
catlady
April 13th, 2012
8:14 am
We have “mean girl” 4th graders, too!
carlosgvv
April 13th, 2012
8:32 am
All of us adults know bullying is a problem that is as old as schools. Now that it is at the forefront, we are realizing just how difficult it’s going to be to completely stop it.
A Conservative Voice
April 13th, 2012
8:45 am
C’mon, I think you’re blowing this up into something that’s not entirely correct. Not all, as a matter of fact, I would say only a small minority of young girls act this way. And that’s probably because of a lack of parental guidance. All in all, our young people are great. An anticle like this Maureen, throws a bad light on all of them and you should be careful in categorizing all of them this way (yeah, I know, you didn’t write the book but, you are promoting it with this misleading article). Just go to church on sunday mornings…….the young ladies in attendance are fine examples of our future leaders…….hey, how about writing an article about their service, accomplishments and leadership at school and church.
Jessica
April 13th, 2012
8:52 am
Has anyone else noticed that the ‘mean’ girls in this age group often have mothers who tolerate or even encourage that sort of behavior?
Laurie
April 13th, 2012
8:55 am
God Bless wrote: “Way back, I’m talking pre-1970s (and the older posters will have to respond to this question), were children (say ages 10-16) as dramatic and influenced by the “attitudes” portrayed as acceptable in the media?”
Well, I wasn’t in school until the 70s, so I can’t give personal testimony. But Lord of the Flies was written in 1954.
“Kids will be mean” is a true statement; insecurity breeds cruelty, and middle school kids are especially insecure. But that shouldn’t be the end of the discussion. It’s also true that the negative effects of cruelty can be very substantial, and that how the adults (school and parents) responds can make a big difference. Kudos to Haley Kilpatrick and others who try to make a difference.
As far as the difference between middle/junior and high school, there is a line in the movie Welcome to the Dollhouse where the bullied junior high student asks her older brother whether high school will be better. He says something like, “Yeah … I mean, they’ll still say st[uff] about you and all, but they don’t usually say it to your face.”
Shar
April 13th, 2012
9:30 am
@God Bless The Teacher, I was in school in the 60’s and yes, vicious bullying, particularly by girls, was just as prevalent. When my daughter was being bullied in middle school, I talked about it with a mother who had recently moved to the States from India, and she said that this precise behavior happened there too, except it was even worse because the caste system there restricts friendships so girls have a harder time finding another group or activity to use as Kilpatrick calls an “anchor.”
@Conservative Voice, those perfect little girls in church who look as though butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths can be the absolute worst offenders. Their “leadership” is often of the queen bee variety; they take over and demand obedience from their followers and maintain supremacy through fear of being the target of their unbridled nastiness.
Boys are much more direct – they establish a pecking order through sports, who has a cute girlfriend or sometime who can beat up whom, and that’s that. Research has shown that girls, from a very young age, are much more tuned into interpersonal networks and subtleties, and at some point in early adolescence they learn that friendship can be used as a nearly unconquerable weapon. The exhilaration of using this power seduces them into using it more and more, and having been so mean to others they have to continue using it or be called to account for their actions. It is a nearly universal experience, and if you ask just about any woman what the nadir of her life was, it will most likely be middle school for just this reason.
In my experience, intervention by a well-meaning adult can only make things worse as the mean girl will rip into a victim even more if she has been called to account by some authority. Those “anchor” activities are indeed very important, as is sitting down with your daughter and explaining why the situation is happening, that it happens to everyone and that eventually the mean girls will end up isolating themselves as their “court” gains confidence and becomes ashamed of what they have helped to do. This stuff helps, but it is a very rough few years.
NONPC
April 13th, 2012
9:37 am
If their daughters feel bullied or marginalized, Kilpatrick encourages parents to find “anchor” activities where the girls can gain a sense of purpose and belonging and feel good about themselves — sports, dance teams, church youth groups, babysitting jobs, volunteer posts.
Bingo. I tell my girls (3) that popularity in grade school means nothing in life. There are mean people and there is nothing they can do to make those people less mean. So while I know that their feelings might be hurt at school, it won’t last forever. I do this proactively, without knowing how they truly are being treated at school. But I know how kids are, and MOST kids get some amount of grief in school. And then we get them involved in activities that they love, and where they are clearly loved.
Jane W
April 13th, 2012
9:38 am
An excellent reason for segregating the sexes in the middle years, as is commonly done at many private schools.
For parents whose son or daughter might be better off in such a setting, giving parents the right to choose is yet another benefit of a tuition voucher system. Were the typical big city public school system not built around the needs of unionized teachers rather than parents—parental choice and the marketplace would quickly provide more options.
cris
April 13th, 2012
9:40 am
@Conservative Voice – I’m not going to paint with a broad brush here, but as a high school teacher who also attends church within my school district, sometimes the girls who are thought of most highly at church almost lead a double life – they are totally different in their actions, demeanor and treatment of others at school. Unfortunately, there seems to be a real disconnect for a lot of girls between Sunday & church versus the rest of the week in the “real world”.
A Conservative Voice
April 13th, 2012
9:44 am
@Shar
April 13th, 2012
9:30 am
@Conservative Voice, those perfect little girls in church who look as though butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths can be the absolute worst offenders. Their “leadership” is often of the queen bee variety; they take over and demand obedience from their followers and maintain supremacy through fear of being the target of their unbridled nastiness.
Shar – You, my dear, have a terrible attitude and are severely misinformed……either that or you’re an “Alien” sent to earth to stir up trouble
Shar
April 13th, 2012
9:55 am
@Conservative Voice, you must be male. Sad to say, no woman would doubt it for a minute, because we have all been through it. As cris says, these girls are phenomenal chameleons, presenting themselves to adults and just about any male as patterns of charming perfection and turning on both weaker girls or girls they think might challenge their own popularity with outright and very finely honed savagery.
Electric_Pink
April 13th, 2012
10:24 am
@A Conservative Voice, I’m not picking on you but I think you’re a bit out of touch. Unkind treatment of their peers among teenagers is definitely a prevalent issue in middle and high school. Just because you see a number of teen girls in church on Sunday doesn’t mean that a few are not doing dirt every other day of the week. You make it sound as though a young girl couldn’t possibly do something mean after sitting up in church all morning. You don’t likely see them in school or at their hangouts and how they interact with their peers when their parents aren’t watching. I’m hopeful about this generation and believe they’ll be okay, but don’t mislead yourself into thinking that “parental guidance” will keep all teens from acting out and being mean. But I agree that unwavering parental/family guidance and involvement are critical to shaping our young people into responsible, kind adults. And this article isn’t about highlighting teens’ community service and leadership qualities; it’s about addressing mistreatment among teens and the author’s efforts at encouraging them to be kind(er) to each other. It’s more of an issue than you think it is. Everything has its place.
TeacherMom
April 13th, 2012
10:25 am
As the mother of 2 teenage daughters I see how the “mean girl” frienenemies (enemies who pretend to be friends) destroy lives and reputations. My oldest sailed through middle school without much drama but lord knows she has been tortured in high school. She has been friends with this one girl since elementary school and when an older “mean girl” befriended her last year. These 2 girls have my our lives a living hell since then. My beautiful, smart, very active daughter wants to forgo her Senior year and enter college. These girls have tormented her, talked about her (and me for that fact), and pyhsically threatened her. She is now withdrawn and not the same bubbly girl. I have spoken with the parents who say that girls will be girls and they mean no harm is bull. Teaching a child how to act starts at home. The ring leader is the preachers daughter and I was met with a brick wall when I spoke with those parents. Facebook has added to the problems due to the fact they can make general statements about my daughter and nothing can be done, even though everyone in our town knows who the post are generated about. I am at my wits end and as a teacher in the same system, I feel the system should do more to protect our girls (and boys).
Jeff
April 13th, 2012
10:27 am
Summing up many of the comments:
Females are manipulative, backstabbers, betrayers, cheaters, brutal, uncaring, insensitive human beings? Yet, I’m supposed to believe they change into angels when they reach adulthood and become wives and mothers (in whichever order)?
Lol.
A Conservative Voice
April 13th, 2012
10:42 am
@Shar
April 13th, 2012
9:55 am
@Conservative Voice, you must be male.
I was the last time I checked
Jayne
April 13th, 2012
10:44 am
Chris is not going to paint with a broad brush…just throw the paint on the smear from the bucket.
GRD
April 13th, 2012
10:49 am
Mean girls grow up to be mean women. The cliques continue into adulthood.
Ron F.
April 13th, 2012
10:49 am
We see the same tendency towards cliques and all the “he said, she said” drama in high school. The difference is that in high school they tend to be less obvious about it. The drama queens have always been there and will always be. What we have to teach our kids is how to have enough self-esteem to walk away from it without so many scars and be involved enough in their lives to know how and when to respond. Kilpatrick’s character is a perfect testimony to the strength one learns from being an introvert in a tough world. I’m not justifying the meanness, but it isn’t going to go away. I think the mentoring is a perfect way to help those who are hurt by it learn to cope. They need an older sibling or parent they can talk to about it; someone who can help them learn to be strong and get through it.
SouthernGal
April 13th, 2012
10:51 am
I hope ya’ll don’t think this is something new…back in the 60’s girls were the same way!
Mom of 3
April 13th, 2012
10:53 am
Shar and cris are right on. Of course, not all girls who attend church are like that and I would contend that not even many are. But there are definitely some. I know several boys and girls that go to both school and church with my high schooler that are living a double life. They are well mannered and “godly” at church while at the same time immoral and crude at school. All the while their parents are completely clueless. I do my best to keep open communications with my child, teachers, other students, and other parents so I do not find myself one of the clueless ones. Not to mention doing the hard work of actually being a present and engaged parent.
@Jeff– Many do not grow up and become angels. They grow up to be mean, gossipy mothers and wives. They are just better at hiding it behind smiles. They then produce the same attitudes in their children. Fortunately, some do eventually realize the pain they caused as a young person and change their ways.
Shar
April 13th, 2012
11:02 am
@Jeff: It has long been my completely unfounded belief/hope that most women, being on the receiving end of this behavior, painfully learn just how tender feelings are and become more cherishing of true friendship, which in turn allow us to have, in general, more friendships in adulthood than does the average male.
This, of course, is probably hogwash, but it seems as though we should get some psychic reward for going through that middle/high school fiery furnace!
Perhaps you should add “delusional” to that charming list you made….
Formerteacher
April 13th, 2012
11:09 am
Here’s a question- when did kids become so emotionally fragile that any unkind word or action sends them into depression and, in some extreme cases, suicide? As many have already noted, mean people-not just kids- have been around since Cain and Abel. I think that parents have been so concerned with insulating their kids from any negative experience that the kids end up unable to cope with the curve balls life will throw.
I also think that Facebook has added another method of spreading hurtful things, but is it really much different than whispers in the hallways or rumors written on bathroom walls?
I tell my daughter- when people say mean things about you, as long as you know they are not true, as long as you know who you are, then you have to learn how to let it go. There will always be mean people. You can’t make them not be mean. You can only control your response to them.
And I also agree that some of the sweetest girls when adults are around can be the most vicious harpies when adults aren’t looking. I’ve seen it. Sitting in church on Sunday doesn’t guarantee nice behavior Monday through Saturday. For anyone of any age.
weetamoe
April 13th, 2012
11:12 am
These mean girls grow up to be Maureen Dowd, Gail Collins, Jodi Kantor, Katie Couric……
Infinite
April 13th, 2012
11:18 am
Being a single father of a 6 year old girl has shown me two things. 1) The qualities we are discussing begin VERY early. 2) You usually don’t have to look any further than the mom to see where it starts. My daughter often sees other kids from her school when we’re out and about in the neighborhood, and they are generally very excited to see each other. There have been a few times when my daughter has spoken to kids who simply ignored her. In all of those situations, the parent didn’t make their child speak.
what's best for kids???
April 13th, 2012
12:17 pm
Laurie, I remember hearing an interview with William Golding, and he explained why he didn’t write about little girls. He said that the little girls would have handled it much better…
I am a proponent of same sex education. I think it makes things easier for both boys and girls. Maureen, was there a lot of bullying in your girls’ school growing up? When I was in high school in the 80s, girls weren’t so bad. I don’t recall them being super mean. The “lower class” was the group that stirred up the drama.
Shar
April 13th, 2012
12:24 pm
@what’s best, I went to a high-powered girls’ school from 6th grade through my senior year. It was brutal – hideously competitive from an academic standpoint and even worse interpersonally. We wore uniforms to try to cut down on one-upmanship in that area but it didn’t help. My graduating class was all of 29 girls, and of that number two were anorexic, two more alcoholic and one had slit her wrists on a junior class trip. In a school of 610 girls K-12, at least one girl tried to kill herself every year and it was successful perhaps every other year. I shudder to recall that time, and would never have put my kids in that situation.
williebkind
April 13th, 2012
12:25 pm
“Until our society begins to reign in behaviors or portrayals of behaviors that are detrimental to the advancement of humanKIND (but are accepted as cute or acceptable), all of the gurus and self-help programs will only bandage the growing wound that will ultimately be the demise of what we claim to cherish – freedom.”
This is such a nice socialist group! Communism is your cup of tea no doubt.
ELMom
April 13th, 2012
12:25 pm
@Conservative Voice I agree with Shar. I went to Catholic school and the girls who appeared to be the most devoted in church were the worst offenders during the week. Those girls were down right EVIL during the week. So much so that during “sharing time” on our Confermation retreat I used my time to call them all out on their “Christian values” or lack their of. Needless to say after I was done with my 13 year old rant I heard nothing but crickets from the girls.
Prof
April 13th, 2012
12:29 pm
@ SouthernGal, April 13th, 10:51 am: “I hope ya’ll don’t think this is something new…back in the 60’s girls were the same way!”
They were back in the 50’s up North too. Though sometimes the mean ones could be boys too if the targets were real outsiders.
I remember back in the mid-1950s when a member of my Christian church (never mind the denomination) was picked on mercilessly by both boys and girls during Sunday School while the parents were in church. Everyone involved was in the 6th or 7th grade. Junior High, as it was called then. He was the son of Greek immigrants, short, fat, smelled funny because of the hair-oil he used, and had a funny name. “Socrat is so fat,” everyone would chant around him in the church court-yard. I once asked, “Why are you so mean to Socrat when he’s never done a thing to you?” Everyone turned on me, so I at once shut up in fear.
Then everyone went on to high school. In the 9th grade one day, the principal announced on the loudspeaker that Socrat had shot himself in the head that morning.
ELMom
April 13th, 2012
12:30 pm
@Shar for me my saving grace after middle school was a small all girl school. I thrived in the competative academic environment. We had so much homework and so many service hours to perform that most girls didn’t have the time to be too petty. We were all a mess. No time to shave, put on makeup and look pretty. I think that it all depends on the school and environment. If it weren’t for my all girl school I’m not sure that I ever would have come out of my shell.
Shar
April 13th, 2012
12:50 pm
@EL Mom, I think that the worst of it happens in middle school, and high school sees a slow easing off except for the hardcore mean queens who eventually self-immolate. My small, all-girl school was – still is – the academic top-of-the-tree in the unforgiving world of New York City private schools, and we lost a lot of girls to boarding schools after middle school so the meaness got concentrated. We, too, had a lot of homework – 6-8 hours on a weekday and twice that on the weekend – so there wasn’t much time for Kilpatrick’s “anchor” activities or making outside friends. Also, it was the late 60’s and early 70’s and the idea of a school counselor or of trying to address social relationships was pretty much unheard of. You stayed in your shell because it was too dangerous to open up to any classmate and you really didn’t have time, anyway.
It was the finest academic experience imaginable, but devastating in every other way. I think the addition of boys would have changed the dynamic significantly, and there wasn’t any way it could have been worse.
Once Again
April 13th, 2012
12:56 pm
Would this be another example of the “great socialization” that ONLY government run schools can provide???
Everyone thinks that a homeschooled child is like a prisoner kept in the basement with no light and no contact with the outside world. On the contrary, a homeschooled child is one whose social interactions with others is actually “controlled” by the parents, supervised by the parents, and guided by the parents (well if they are doing their jobs). They do not learn how to interact with others or behave from their peers, but their superiors. They do not pick up the horrible habits of kids their own age but learn how to properly behave from their parents.
You can use all the justifications you want to bash homeschooling, but I do not see either the government (with it chronic immorality on so many levels – theft, murder, violence, etc.) or a child’s peer group as the appropriate folks to teach a child how to grow up. That is the job of adults.
I know that someone is going to bring up some child they know who is homeschooled as an example of why I should not paint with such a broad brush, but the same is true of government-”educated” kids. Remember the kids at Columbine are a great example of socialization too. You never hear of mass killings at either home schools or private schools. I think more parents really need to think about what kind of environment they are subjecting their children to. Far too many take the easy and “free” way out. Parenting is supposed to be a personal responsibility – not one that gets passed off onto the government schools or society.
Local Girl
April 13th, 2012
12:57 pm
“I also think that Facebook has added another method of spreading hurtful things, but is it really much different than whispers in the hallways or rumors written on bathroom walls?”
It’s incredibly different. Whispers die down and rumors can be washed away, but once it’s on the internet, it’s there FOREVER. Personally, I am grateful that when I was in middle and high school, everyone didn’t have a camera/video camera in their pocket to record the many stupid things I’m sure I did. Now they do, and once it’s posted, even taking it down won’t really make it go away – it can spread like a virus. Also, the internet allows the bullies to follow you anywhere. You can leave the school building, but they can still get you through FB or G-chat or any number of other ways.
I work with middle and high school students and I definitely see the impact this makes. As adults we can say, “block them!” or “turn off the computer!” but it really isn’t as easy as that for these students. They don’t always have the maturity or clear-thinking needed to make the right decision. That’s where groups like this (and parents, teachers, ministers, coaches, etc.) come in – to help give the girls the resources they need to be able to deal with these situations.
Once Again
April 13th, 2012
1:00 pm
Although I do not have as many objections to the multi-grade environment I found at the Montessori school I attended and feel that certainly plenty of private schools do foster an environment that can move kids forward into adulthood generally far too many are as bad as the government school format and far too few parents consider this aspect of the school when they are evaluating them.
Once Again
April 13th, 2012
1:06 pm
And before it comes up, the comparison between the “real world” and government school is also an inappropriate one. You can walk away from hurtful relationships in the real world. You generally don’t see this kind of behavior in professional work environments, and petty crap doesn’t form the basis of relationships or work collaborations in the “real world” either. Want a child to learn how adults behave?? Put them around adults (preferably ones who have actually bothered to grow up). Don’t put them around children.
And forgive my boldness, but you are supposed to be raising a child into an adult. I see folks talking about treating 13 year olds as children still, but in most non-western cultures that is the age that childhood ends. Modern day “public” schooling is about perpetuating childhood well into what should be adult hood. How is your child every going to become an adult if you never treat them like one?? It doesn’t happen by chance, and you can just look around our culture to see that it generally doesn’t even happen at all anymore. This is no coincidence. The government is not prepared to deal with adults who can stand on their own.
ELMom
April 13th, 2012
1:37 pm
@Shar, NYC private girls school is anther animal I’ll admit. I lived in NYC for years.
Just to clarify I came out of my shell during my time at my all girl high school. The academics forced me to come out of my shell. I think that my school set it up in such a way that we NEEDED each other to do well academically. We had to collaborate very often with classmates that we weren’t necessarily friends with. It was my coed middle school that was the nightmare. The girls fed off of cruelty to get the attention of the boys.
Call it the way I see it
April 13th, 2012
1:42 pm
It starts in Pre-school. I deal with it every day with 4 and 5 year old girls. One day Ann gets angry at Betty because Betty doesn’t feel like playing with her. Ann tells Betty that Betty will not be invited to her next birthday party (which is a year away). Betty says she’ll be busy that day anyway, playing with Cathy. Cathy will then pipe up that she’ll be at Ann’s birthday party, and besides, Diane needs to stop putting her hair in pigtails in order to look like Emily…The hands go to the hips, the hair starts being flipped, the noses and chins go up, and all I can think is I can’t wait to see them in middle school.
Girls can be cruel at every age. When my kids were little I picked out several girls in each of their classes who I thought would become the “popular” girls in high school by the way they acted in early elementary school. I was correct on all of them. They were the girls who used their looks and possessions to get what they wanted from classmates, teachers, and parents. I watched them turn on their charms when necessary, and I watched their little horns sprout when they thought no one “worthy” was watching. And who did they learn their actions from? Hint: I was very good at matching daughters to moms.
Shar
April 13th, 2012
1:44 pm
@EL Mom, I know what you mean by girls sacrificing each other to look “better” in the eyes of boys. One of the competitive areas at my school was simply whether you had friends who were boys or not.
Academically we were frankly set at each others’ throats quite purposefully. How else were we all going to get into at least one Ivy and thereby justify the tuition? My parents and I were called on the headmistress’ carpet when I blew off Harvard and insisted on throwing away my education and potential at Duke. She did her best to correct my misguided stubbornness and then washed her hands of me.
It was quite a place.
catlady
April 13th, 2012
2:52 pm
Shar, you must be a lot younger, because if you were my age, neither Harvard nor Duke was open to women. (You could go to Duke if you were willing to go into nursing, and Harvard’s co-ordinate college was open to women)
I think one thing we should do is try to “bullet proof” our daughters, so they will say “pfft” to those who try to mistreat them, male or female. Bring them up as women of substance and grit, not a wilting flower who needs to be rescued.
ELMom
April 13th, 2012
2:58 pm
@Call it the way I see it, you are so right. I am watching this play out in my son’s preschool right now. I’ve already figured the future cliques out. It’s very disturbing to watch. I hope that I’m wrong and they grow to be tolerant children who appreciate the differences in their peers. We shall see sooner than I would like to think.
Archie@Arkham Asylum
April 13th, 2012
3:13 pm
@cris: Unfortunately, there seems to be a real disconnect for a lot of ADULTS between Sunday and church versus the rest of the week in the “real world.” (Just “keeping it real!”)
God Bless the Teacher!
April 13th, 2012
3:18 pm
@williebkind…”This is such a nice socialist group! Communism is your cup of tea no doubt.” I don’t quite get where you equate this group (or me?) with Socialism or Communism based on my comment. I based my comments on Christian doctrine under which I was raised and to which I try to adhere every day. Being kind to one another is not unique to the doctrines to which you refer. Wishing that media and other venues that market products (entertainment or otherwise) to vulnerable demographis (children) which glorify immoral behavior, nasty attitudes, and general negativity toward fellow humans isn’t wrong. Freedom is at risk of being lost if we allow materialism to dictate our desires and control how we act toward each other. How is that uniquely Socialist or Communistic? Maybe you’re a mean girl at heart??
God Bless the Teacher!
April 13th, 2012
3:23 pm
I should have said wishining the media…would NOT market…
God Bless the Teacher!
April 13th, 2012
3:23 pm
WISHING…TGIF!
NONPC
April 13th, 2012
3:33 pm
Jeff wrote Females are manipulative, backstabbers, betrayers, cheaters, brutal, uncaring, insensitive human beings? Yet, I’m supposed to believe they change into angels when they reach adulthood and become wives and mothers (in whichever order)?
This is bullying… there is usually a small group who hold sway over a much larger group. Most girls do not do this. But have heart! Even the mean girls get older and fatter. By the time they are 30, they find themselves usurped by the 20 year olds, and no amount bullying can save them. Then, at last, they learn a bit of humility.