Honor the Girl

Think of a teen girl. Perhaps she’s your daughter. Imagine you are her, for just a day.

You get out of bed, put your Ipod on shuffle and listen to degrading lyrics that encourage you to act like a lobotomized sex kitten for a guy.

 On the way to school, you pass billboards showing beautiful, thin girls  being the object of a man’s sexual attention to sell a product. You wonder if you need to lose a few pounds and be sexier.

 At school, your girlfriends gossip in graphic details about their sexual encounters over the weekend and you worry that you haven’t had sex with enough guys.

 Back home, you turn on the TV and watch guys paw scantily clad girls in music videos. You worry that maybe you are not pretty enough for a guy to want you like that.

 You log onto MySpace and read comments from girls at school telling you that you are “ugly and should die.” An instant message pops up from a Facebook friend. He writes ”will you give me head? You write back “Hahahaha” but feel offended. You hardly even know the guy!

 Another friend sends you a link to a free porn site he is watching. Curious, you click on it. You watch two men slap, spank, spit on, and insert themselves into every orifice of the girl who sounds like she is enjoying it, but you aren’t quite sure. Should you be letting your boyfriend do those things to you? Is that what he wants? You are a bit aroused but feel dirty at the same time.

 You click over to another site, and read the latest gossip about your favorite teen celebrity, and wish with all your heart you could be just as pretty, cool and famous as her.

 At dinner, you push your food around on the plate, barely eating, terrified you’ll gain weight.

 Before you go to sleep, you thumb through the latest magazine and read about the ten top things guys wish you knew how to do in bed and wonder how you measure up. You worry your guy will leave you if you can’t do them all.  You decide the next time you are alone with him you’ll get drunk and try to make him happy.

 In the middle of the night, your best friend wakes you up with a text message. She wants to kill herself. Her guy dumped her after she slept with him. You’re scared she’ll really commit suicide. You text your boyfriend for help, but he sides with your girlfriend’s guy. Now you are in a text fight with your boyfriend. He calls you a bitch.

 Your boyfriend says he will forgive the fight if you send him a picture of your breasts. You don’t want to lose him so you raise your pajama top, snap the picture and hit send.

 The next day, your best friend is back with her guy, crisis diverted but your nude picture is now being passed around to everyone at school. Your friends are rating your breasts on their Facebook profiles. A few girls have status updates labeling you a whore. You wonder if you can transfer schools midyear and worry how you can keep your parents from finding out about the picture…

How are you feeling right now? Maybe you are incredulous. This can’t be reality, can it? Unfortunately, it is the reality many of our girls face, day in day out. Imagine how confused, overwhelmed, disrespected and unsure of themselves the world makes them feel.

How did our world get this crazy for our daughters? Garbage. Not the kind in our landfills, rather the kind that fills our hearts and minds. We have come to use the garbage of sex, violence, and celebrity worship to get people to buy things or to “buy into” things. How do we clean up the mess? It just takes three words: Honor the Girl.

Helping teen girls respect themselves will not only help them, it will help heal our world’s woes. The balance of estrogen and progesterone in girls’ brains hard-wires them to be nurturers. Women bring peace and solace when you honor and respect them for being the amazing, powerful people they are meant to be.  Let us respect the feminine energy for what it is, life bearing, as opposed to reducing it to mere sexual gratification.

Teach girls to respect themselves and you teach them how to help the next generation respect themselves and others. And so it will go. When people respect themselves, they are less prone to behavior that is destructive to others or self. That creates calm communities that have more resources for solving big issues like economic woes, or finding solutions to helping the planet thrive.

Think how many of our world’s ills could be cured if the world’s future mothers  had less wounds from growing up in a culture that disrespects and dishonors them.

The wonderful possibilities of where we go as human beings and the future of our planet depends on whether or not we learn to Honor the Girl. It’s that simple.

I hope you will join me in Honoring The Girl. My new website, www.honorthegirl.me goes live August 14th. My late grandmother’s birthday! Moms,you’ll find everything you need to learn how to honor (parent) your teen daughter, as well as ways to honor you own inner little girl! Moms are their daughters first line of defense in this anything goes world. I know to help teen girls, I must first help their mothers. It’s all there for you on the site.

Better TV filmed me hosting the roll out of Honor The Girl at Veronica Romano’s house in New York. (A shout out to her and her amazing family and friends!) I’ll post the segment as soon as the show airs.

Any questions on raising your daughter, or how to take better care of yourself as a mom, email me: Jennifer@parentingteengirls.com

I am here for you.

All best

Dr. Jenn

Ease Back Into School Routines

The languid days of summer are fast drawing to a close. School is just around the corner, and that means back to earlier bedtimes and routines. It is hard for a teen to suddenly put on the brakes and change from summer to school mode.

Remember when your daughter was a toddler? You warned her a few minutes before transitions so she could handle the change with less stress. I remember telling my four little ones (I had four children in less than four years with twins to boot! Loved it!) they had ten minutes before the toys had to go away and we would leave the house. Not that they understood time, but they understood that soon Mommy was going to ask them to pry themselves away from fun. That’s what you can do to help your daughter get school ready. Give her a few weeks to start reeling back her bedtime to one that is better for getting up for classes. Give her a back to school budget and the list of supplies she needs and head out to the store and get everything before the last minute rush.

Now is a good time to start asking questions. No, you aren’t going to be interrogating your daughter, but rather help her unlock her own internal self-knowledge so she can master the new year ahead. Here are some topics to become curious about and start a conversation:

1. How do you feel about bullying? Are you worried about it happening at school? Have you ever wanted to or actually bullied anyone?

2. How do you feel about sex, drugs and rock and roll? OK, you can break that question down. It’s a good time to start talking about those big topics now, before classes start. Of course with the freedom of summer you may have already been dealing with those issues, but it’s good to get them out in the open and everyone  to be honest about things. (This means you HAVE to learn how to listen without judging, being angry, giving unwanted advice etc. Read chapter two in Laid or Loved? for more info.)

3. Sit down and discuss expectations for the school year. What does your daughter want or need from you? Or what does she expect from herself?

4. Any new rules you want to make for her, start the conversation NOW. Don’t drop a bomb on her after classes are underway.

5. Start working on building a strong, trusting relationship with her, one that will last a lifetime. If you don’t know how, go to www.honorthegirl.me next week (August 10) for ALL you need to know.

6. Think about other topics you want to deal with before summer comes to a close. Make a list and begin talking. But remember don’t talk AT her, listen to her instead. I know it sounds weird but ASKING her about topics you want to discuss will get her attention and involve her.  Talking at her will just turn her off and she’ll tune out.

Remember above all to think about the BIG BRAIN QUESTION your daughter’s brain is asking you everyday! You’ll need to find new ways to answer YES over the school year. Don’t know the Big Brain Question that grows your daughter’s brain, heart and ability to create a successful life?  Call 650 513-1808 and ask me. Really. I’ll get back to everyone who calls this month. The question is SO VITAL to your relationship and your daughters success, I’m dedicating August to it. I can’t talk too long to every one as my days are packed, but I WILL get back to you. Or, drop me an email, but it’s better to hear about it than to read about it.

Any questions? You know where to reach me: jennifer@parentingteengirls.com

All best!

Dr. Jenn

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