Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Author speaks about communicating with middle school kids
Rosalind Wiseman wrote ‘Queen Bees & Wannabes’ and ‘Masterminds & Wingmen’
Rosalind Wiseman has been taking what young adolescents say seriously for more than 20 years.
The bestselling author, speaker and the parent of two boys, ages 13 and 16, spoke to a large group of parents and educators Jan. 11 at The Agnes Irwin School about communicating with kids and the problems they face in today’s fastpaced, social media-infused society.
While “it takes a village” is an “overused phrase,” the concept of living in a village is something to focus on, but it’s “complicated,” she said.
“There’s some crazy people in that village that I don’t want to hang out with my kid,” she said. “And there’s some people that you really, really want to hang out with your kid. And one of the goals is to think of who (are) the villagers you want to be around your children.”
Also, other adults should be able to correct your kids when they are out of line, something we have gotten away from, she said.
“I want you to think about, who are your really sane, awesome villagers?” Wiseman said. “Everyone is your kid,” she said. If she hears her sons’ friends in her house or car using derogatory words to put down others, she intervenes. “We need to be able to claim our space,” she said. “No gossiping or labeling.”
Wiseman pivoted to the issue of 7th and 8th-grade girls who take inappropriate pictures of themselves and send them to boys.
While those girls are “very nice, get good grades, are going to go to good colleges,” and come from good families, sometimes those images go public.
“If you come across parents who are gossiping on Facebook or in the grocery store about a girl, change the dynamic,” said Wiseman. “Say, ‘I feel terrible for that girl and her family. What can we do to help?’ We cannot talk about 13-year-old girls like sluts.
“We have to take responsibility for the things that we do and that other people do,” said Wiseman. “And it starts with us being able to say, ‘We can’t do this to our kids.’”
She warned that labels should be avoided, although they are sometimes used to understand behavior. And she told the group to remember that kids and adults change.
“People change,” said Wiseman. “They really do.
“You do not have to be best friends with your villagers (but) you do have to be able to communicate,” she added.
Wiseman has found that people tend to judge themselves by what their friends are posting to Facebook, “like we all have the most perfect life. But nobody has a perfect life.” She told the group to go back and look at what they’ve posted for the last few months.
“Facebook and Instagram have become the way we brand ourselves,” said Wiseman. She suggested that the adults also stop talking about their children socially and do something themselves that’s interesting.
These days there is a lot of focus on self-esteem for girls and many organizations to help girls, but boys are up against difficult expectations in our society, too, she said. Wiseman showed a picture of what the character Batman used to look like, and a new, extremely muscular and menacing Batman that is the current image. Boys can have body image issues just like girls, she said.
“It’s so common for people to say that girls are hard (to raise) but boys are easy,” said Wiseman. “Boys have their own challenges.”
While girls may learn that they can’t trust other girls but boys “also have complex relationships with each other,” she said.
“Boys’ friendships are deep,”
said Wiseman. They may be sitting around on a couch playing video games, eating junk food and wrestling with each other but they “care deeply about each other,” she said. They also can betray each other just as girls can.
Boys tell her they have to be “chill” although it’s socially acceptable for them to be passionate about sports. They also believe that they need a good social media ratio of followers to those they’re following, have the right attire to fit in and also be ready with a clever riposte. And they want to know which rules to follow and which to break.
As for parents, boys tend to think if they don’t ask the right question, “That’s on you,” she said. Boys don’t see omitting information as lying.
Meanwhile, the rules for younger adolescent girls include never being alone, being loyal to each other and responding immediately to their friends’ social media posts. They also must have the right hair style, clothes and shoes. And they must say they agree with their friends even if they don’t. Also, appearing “clingy or desperate” is verboten, she said.
She asked men to “teach boys that everything doesn’t have to be funny,” that “mockery is not bonding” and “bragging is not a show of strength.”
Other tips to impart to boys are that being unsure is not a sign of intellectual weakness and that apologizing is courageous, she said.
Girls, meanwhile, should learn how to accept apologies “authentically” and not apologize for everything. They should also “be able to express anger constructively,” said Wiseman.
“We do need to say to girls, ‘You have the right to be angry,’” she said.
When your kids get home from school do not immediately “interrogate” them, she said. It can be better to offer to listen to them right before bedtime.
Tell kids (in your own words), “If you want to talk, I’ll listen,” said Wiseman.
“If you want advice or help, we can do that,” she said. Kids, like adults, tend to tune out unsolicited advice, she said.
Another phrase to remember is: “We can’t make the problem go away magically but we can get to a place that you can control it.”
A parent in the audience said that what Wiseman was describing “is not the world order.”
Wiseman said that her advice is “not about coddling or kindness. It’s about managing yourself and not letting other people control you.”
“What is the cost?” she asked. The Radnor community is comprised of high achievers and focusing only on kids’ achievements is “killing our children’s souls,” Wiseman said.
“Allow children to be authentic and passionate,” she said. “We have to take ownership.” People do have choices, she said.
“The stakes are really high,” she said. “They’ve always been high.”
Another woman asked about talking to children about privacy and not taking unattractive pictures of themselves and sending them out to others. Wiseman said that kids are growing up with visual medium and sometimes girls’ pictures of themselves in unattractive poses means “I’m OK with how I look.”
She suggested having “open-ended conversations with kids.”
“Let’s be the adults our children need and deserve,” she said.
Meanwhile, four things make people happy: having meaning beyond oneself, hope for success, meaningful social connections, and satisfying work, she said. Those qualities should be part of school for students and staff. At school, academic competency and social competency both matter, she said, giving an example of where a student is on the way to take a Spanish test but finds out on their phone in the hallway beforehand that “somebody is totally trashing” them. Even though they studied, their ability to remember the material for the test is diminished, she said.
There’s also the problem of group work where one kid will do all the work and others free-ride. Schools need to help kids understand the connection between their social skills and academic projects, she said.
“Young people have to navigate how to be in groups,” she said.
And teachers need training in how to handle advisory sessions so that all voices can be heard, rather than just one or two people “dominating the conversation,” Wiseman said.
Young people learn about democracy in school, “for better or for worse,” Wiseman said. Are people going to be able to “speak their mind without being put down?” she asked. “It is about inclusivity but also about people’s ability to actually learn.”
This is the fourth consecutive year that The Agnes Irwin School and the Radnor Township School District Parent-Teacher Organizations and Parent-Teacher-Student Association have brought speakers to the community. Wiseman also spoke to middle school students at Agnes Irwin and Radnor Middle School on Jan 12.
An expert in adolescent social hierarchy and bullying, Wiseman, 47, lives with her husband and children in Boulder, Colorado. Her family has roots in Philadelphia and she was raised in Washington, D.C. Several of Wiseman’s family members attended her evening talk.
Before the event, her mother, Kathy Klaus, said her daughter has been passionate about human rights since college and, through karate, about women’s self-defense. The author of “Queen Bees & Wannabes,” which was made into the movie “Mean Girls,” and “Masterminds & Wingmen,” among other books, Rosalind Wiseman is also the founder of Cultures of Dignity, an organization to address issues faced by adolescents.