Parenting
RAISING GIRLS TO BE INCLUDERS INSTEAD OF
mean girls
Raising girls can be a minefield of emotions and is challenging when navigating relationships. Whether girls are kind and inclusive and how they deal with conflict and negativity is complicated. We investigate… Female friendships – important and intense
Female friendship can feel as intense and passionate as the most tumultuous of romances. Friendships, although valued by both genders, appear more intimate and significant for females. Perhaps best described by Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables, as “bosom friends or kindred spirits”, girls seek intense and intimate friendships, as a safe place where their innermost secrets can be shared. Far from simply gossiping and hair braiding, friendships between girls serve an array of emotional and developmental needs. During times of stress, females are more inclined to turn to each other and seek out social support. While navigating their developing identity during adolescence, girls use their friendships to discover who they are, independent from their family. We all have a need to belong, yet girls in particular seem to crave being accepted and understood
6
Your Local Families Magazine April/May 2016
by others. For it is often only following a friend’s understanding of her, that a girl can then begin to understand herself. Despite the joy of female friendships, or perhaps because of it, girls are not always found to be made of ‘sugar and spice and all things nice’. Paradoxically, it is her superior skills in navigating social encounters and her drive for connection which enables her to hurt others in sophisticated and subtle ways, barely detectable to those observing from the outside. When at war in the social world, girls fight their battles in very different ways from boys. While boys typically use physical aggression, girls have been observed from as young as three years of age to engage in relational aggression. Relational aggression involves exclusion, rumours, gossiping and turning others against the victim. As relational aggression is subtle to outside observers, usually adults, it allows girls to maintain the impression of niceness and femininity. Girls are able to express their anger, which typically they
have been raised to suppress, while still appearing cooperative and nice to others.
Why some girls are ‘mean girls’ Girls can be just as competitive as boys and experience the same types of normal human emotions including anger, fear, frustration, envy and jealousy. However, as a society we do not seem to be comfortable with female anger or conflict. When males disagree it can often be viewed as masculine, assertive, or powerful and packaged by the media as an intellectual debate. However, when the conflict is between females it is typically characterised in a less complimentary light and described as bitchy, cat fighting or butch. Parents too, can feel uncomfortable with their daughter’s anger and often discourage conflict among girls. When parents tell their daughters to “play nice”, or “be nice” they can unintentionally send the message that it is wrong to disagree or argue. This