Reviving Ophelia - Mary Bray Pipher [156]
Parents can educate themselves about the complicated world of junior high. It’s good to know the teachers and to visit the classes, especially math and science classes. I recommend reading teen magazines and books, listening to the music, going to the movies, supervising activities and talking to other parents. It’s important to discuss alcohol, drugs, violence, social pressure and appearance. If these topics aren’t coming up, parents are missing out on what’s important to their children.
When girls talk about their drug and alcohol use, it’s important to listen for how often, how much and when and where chemical use is occurring. Is it experimental, the result of peer pressure or boredom, curiosity or a need to escape reality? Parents can discuss what need chemicals are meeting in their daughter’s life. How else could she meet that deep-structure need?
There are many issues to discuss involving sexuality: romance, birth control, values, feelings, sexual decision-making, other teens’ behavior, the media treatment of sexuality, gender differences, the double standard, abortion, teen mothers and STDs. Parents can communicate their values about sexuality to their daughters. Often parents are shy about this, but I tell them, “You must speak. Guess jeans, Madonna and 2 Live Crew are not shy about communicating their sexual values. You must present her with your message.”
Parents can encourage their daughters to have friends of both sexes and to resist sexualizing relationships in junior high. I encourage parents to view boy-girl relationships in junior high as friendships. It’s generally not a good idea to tease girls about boyfriends. Treating male-female relationships in a matter-of-fact way promotes relaxed, open behavior between the sexes. When parents ask if they should allow their junior-high daughters to date, I recommend they say, “We want you to have friends of both sexes. Invite your friends over anytime for games or movies with our family.” This desexualizes things and brings boys into the realm of the everyday.
Ralph Nader said, “The main things that kids learn from television are addictions, violence and low-grade sexuality.” They also learn to be lookist and sexist. The average teen watches four and a half hours of television a day. Parents can help their daughters interpret the media. It’s a good idea to share viewing experiences and to read aloud from newspapers and magazines. The media offers parents many opportunities for consciousness raising.
As a critical human dimension, appearance should be downplayed. It’s healthy for daughters to have other things to feel proud of besides their looks. Parents can fight their daughters’ focus on appearance and weight. It’s not a good idea to have a scale in the home or to allow girls to diet—better to have healthful meals and family exercise. While it’s fine to empathize with how important looks are to students, it’s also important to stand firm that in any decent value system they are not all that important.
It’s good to encourage positive peer relations. This cannot be overemphasized. One of the best things that can happen to a girl is that she have well-adjusted friends. Parents have some power to influence this by who they invite on trips, where they live and what activities they encourage. Girls are more likely to make healthy friends on a swim team than at a pinball arcade parlor. Money spent on pizzas and lemonade for a daughter’s friends is money well spent.
Often girls do well if they are allowed to travel during their adolescent years. Camps, foreign exchange student programs and long summers with faraway relatives are great opportunities for growth. It gives girls a break from family. It helps them have some perspective on their lives, something