Girls are Mean-Teenage Drama!
Read Time:3 Minute, 12 Second
Kids are Mean but Girls are Meaner
Who Needs Soap Operas When there are Teen Girls?
Teenage Drama….. Who needs One Life to Live and All My Children??? (Ok, I do… please don’t cancel these shows)!!!
I am shifting gears from little ones’ insight to lack thereof in teens. I know this does not surprise anyone, but I really want to share this week’s worth of counseling of teen girls to one simple phrase, “Suck it up, and I SWEAR you won’t care about this in two years.” Where were these counselors when I was in school??? Kids are mean. Girls are meaner (more mean?). No offense women. I am one of you, and I come in peace – and I bring with me two girls (and they can be mean).
ANYWAY, this is the last week of school in my part of Texas. Oddly enough, this week, and the week before the next school year starts, is my busiest time for teens. I attribute this to ‘Thank God this year is over!’, and ‘Oh crap, I’ll never make it through this next one.’ – See how much thinking goes into this job? And for each and every teen I see, I generally sum up our meeting with the above mentioned phrase (unless, of course their mental state can’t take something so blunt, then I respond with a much tamer version. ‘It’s ok… life is hard sometimes… in two years you won’t think this was so tough.’ – Huh?? 😉
Now for the point of this article, and for some questioning how the Texas State Board even approved my licensure, (did I mention 8 years of schooling)?? I just received emails reminding me that my own high school reunion would be this year. Twenty years! Are you kidding me?? It seems like yesterday, and not in a good, reminiscent kind of way… more like a ‘Wow, I wish online high schooling would’ve been available back then’, kind of way.
With all my ‘psychological knowledge’ (and perhaps psychotic knowledge), I am still unable to separate my unpleasant high school experience with what I know now – which, as stated for the third time is… ‘Suck it up, and you won’t care in two years from now.’ – It’s been twenty years and I still care. Wow, what a hypocrite. But, finally, I want to provide a disclaimer… had someone promised me that this was just a short bump in the road of my life, and that it was absolutely okay that I was not the prettiest, most popular, or Homecoming queen, then I might would’ve been a different girl today. The girl/woman I am today is going to fight like heck to avoid all mention and propaganda of the reunion. I really don’t need that reminder of my own worst enemy attending the function – which, by the way, is me.
In my practice, I see affluent girls, poor girls, chubby, thin, popular, and ‘odd’ – Are you getting the common denominator here? They all see ME… and I’m not the modeling agent remember. I am for the ‘troubled’ – Too bad that we don’t let our kids know that as is college, your first through third jobs, boyfriends, and apartments…. This too shall pass. Maybe not fast enough, but when we look at all the stressors that these young girls put up with in four short years, I always worry that we are missing our golden opportunity to teach. Mean teens grow into mean adults… Yuk.
P.S. – Boys are messy, dirty, and stinky…. They have their own issues to deal with…. That’s another article.
We would love to hear about your high school experience. So, and especially if you are mean girls, please tell us about it in the comments.
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I definitely have to agree with the theme that girls can be really nasty, whether it’s just in general or in something like sports. I had an experience with this kind of girl when I played volleyball a few years ago.
At some point or another, we have all experienced what it feels like to be unaccepted. Whether it was in school, sports, or common interest, finding an environment where we are guaranteed total peer acceptance is impossible. Joining a group does not always insure that the people around you will respect you, appreciate you, or even want to get to know you before they make their judgments. Factors such as race, religion, and culture can sometimes impact this as well, causing for another person to immediately assume you possess certain qualities that they like.
However, what most of us do not realize is the benefit of being alienated. When someone chooses to disregard you for whatever reason, they have given you the power to decide whether or not this person is worth keeping in your life. You have the choice to either continue trying to impress them or realize that those qualities that make you ‘weird’ or ‘different’ are actually what make you invaluable. Being unique enables you to formulate ideas and opinions unlike those of the people around you. Your means of expression, attitude, and voice are characteristics that are exclusive to you and are not things to be ashamed of. Being unaccepted by your peers can ultimately be beneficial and show you what kind of people you prefer to have around you and what makes you unique.
-Katlin Sweeney is the eighteen year old author of ‘The Bench Sitter.’
Link to the Novel on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Bench-Sitter-ebook/dp/B005ISAS06/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314145953&sr=1-1
Very good post Tamra. I covered part of this in one of my posts but I was one of those who was never part of any crowd. In the 1o 1/2 years I was in school I only went to one school more than one year in a row and that was high school and I dropped out in the 11th grade. This was a very long time ago but the kids were pretty much the same. I was always so new that everyone just ignored me. Working with juveniles as a police officer some years later I did notice that girls were meaner but it seemed to be out of a sense of self protection rather pure dominance. The girls are either the predator or the prey.
Good insight Lazersedge. I, however, must deal soley with the ‘prey’!
Great stuff, Tamra…keep it coming.
I have to say that my ten year reunion was crap. It was more of the same: the cliques, one up-manship, the same people that ignored me ten years earlier were ignoring me again. The twenty year reunion was a lot different. In the intervening years between tenth and twentieth an equalizing factor had set in. Everyone seemed oddly human and fun to hang out with.
‘Oddly human’ is scary enough for me to not test the waters Collin! Haha – I enjoy the feedback. I think I will live vicariously though my clients in twenty years – after preventive counseling. I’ll update the results 🙂
I don’t know if bad behavior is anymore “tacitly” accepted in the U.S. as it is, or not, in the UK. Good point about the Deneke case though.
If you look at film or tv fictions, then take an overview of times wherein a child takes their own life, sometimes alone, sometimes in a blaze of destruction, you see an overt licence for ‘popular’ kids.
It’s a lot less prevalent here, although it’s becoming more so.
I think this maybe more an American institutional problem, wherein the behaviour is tacitly accepted even by adults.
Puts me in mind of the Brian Deneke murder in Amarillo, where Dustin Kamp had his coach, half his teachers, and a pastor all saying that a 17 year old who would run down a person in a caddy was a ‘good kid’. ‘Good’? He couldn’t even keep to his probation (yes, probation – for murder) He wasn’t ‘good’ merely mainstream.
On exit, a few of the jurors pointed out that if it had been Deneke as the accused, he’d have got the needle. Since he wasn’t a member of the football team and the church, and dared to dress as a punk.