Understanding the key

WE SHOULD UNDERSTAND TEENAGE GIRLS AND THEIR CHALLENGES IN OUR FAST-PACED WORLD BEFORE LABELLING THEM, WRITES MERCEDES MAGUIRE

They get a bad rap — drama queens and princesses are just some of the labels they cop. For parents who have experienced the door-slamming, name-calling, tear-jerking behaviour at the heart of the stereotype associated with this group, it can be frustrating. But experts claim if we understand the pressures these young women are under and the physiological changes their minds and bodies are going through, we can help them.

THEY get a pretty bad rap in the community — drama queens, princesses and overly emotional are just some of the labels they cop.

The truth, though, is it has never been harder to be a teenager, with experts claiming young girls are feeling increasingly anxious and overwhelmed in our fast-paced modern society.

For parents who have experienced the door-slamming, name-calling, tear-jerking behaviour at the heart of the stereotype associated with this group, it can be frustrating.

But experts claim if we understand the pressures these young women are under, and the physiological changes their minds and bodies are going through, we can help them navigate the often confusing teen years a little easier.

“There’s a lot of real strength with teenage girls that is often ignored in society,” author and clinical psychologist Dr Sarah Hughes says.

“Some of the things over which parents end up butting heads with teenage girls are the kind of characteristics that end up making them really strong women.

“Teenage girls really start to have their own opinions and want to think for themselves, which is such a great thing, but if you’re used to not dealing with that, and then all of a sudden you are, it can be the cause of a lot of conflict.”

In her new book Skip The Drama, Hughes outlines many of the more common behaviour traits associated with young women, such as being selfish, procrastinating, being a drama queen and moody, and offers practical tips and advice to deal with the behaviour.

She also tackles the more serious issues parents face such as young girls who want to diet and have issues with body image, wanting to have a boyfriend and cutting, or selfharm.

Marina Passalaris, the CEO and founder of Beautiful Minds which provides self-esteem and confidence education to pre-teens and teens, says the main issues concerning teenage girls are anxiety, friendship issues and body image.

These topics on their own are not new and may well have been around for generations, but Passalaris says the fast pace of modern society, where everyone is connected 24/7, has overwhelmed a generation of young girls.

“Particularly in young girls engaging in social media, they are feeling overwhelming pressure to live up to unreal expectations, there are a lot of comparisons going on,” she says. “Also, young girls are a lot more aware of world events and often feel unsafe in their own world.

“As adults we can see bombings, for example, on the news, take a step back and put it into perspective, we can disconnect. But young girls cannot.

“Because of their access to smartphones and devices they are consuming media that is not necessarily correct and all this leads to anxiety.”

Hughes says she has felt the need to ditch the social media herself because she has found it overwhelming in the past.

“I joined Instagram for about five minutes once because I was pregnant and looking up different products,” Hughes says.

“I had the worst morning sickness, was throwing up about 10 times a day for seven months and I kept seeing all these posts of pregnant women loving life and enjoying pregnancy. And it made me feel like crap.

“We’re wired to compare ourselves to others and I had to disengage from it all. It brought home to me that I was an adult with pretty good coping skills and it still impacted me and I got sucked into it.

“So imagine teenage girls, without any of those skills.”

In her book, Hughes explains how the teenage brain develops and why it can sometimes be difficult for teenage girls to act in a mature, responsible manner.

“One of the last regions of the brain to mature is the prefrontal cortex,” the book claims.

“(This region) is involved in everything from planning,

SOME OF THE THINGS OVER WHICH PARENTS END UP BUTTING HEADS WITH TEENAGE GIRLS ARE THE KIND OF CHARACTERISTICS THAT END UP MAKING THEM REALLY STRONG WOMEN DR SARAH HUGHES

emotional and behavioural control, to problem solving and decision making.”

This immature brain is forced to cope with so many new strains, experts claim, and combined with modern pressures such as connectivity through technology, a greater number of households where both parents work full time, and an over-scheduling of activities, modern teens are under a whole new level of stress. And nowhere is this more obvious than in their friendship groups.

“It seems to be getting a lot worse for adolescents,” Passalaris says.

“Finding a place among the social network has never been