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Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends & Other Realities of Adolescence
by Rosalind WisemanEnlivened with the voices of dozens of girls and parents, Queen Bees and Wannabes (The basis for the movie Mean Girls), is compelling reading for parents and daughters alike. A conversation piece and a reference guide, it offers the tools you need to help your daughter feel empowered and make smarter choices.
Parents Can Make A Difference In Girl World
Do you feel as though your adolescent daughter exists in a different world, speaking a different language and living by different laws? She does.
This groundbreaking book takes you inside the secret world of girls' friendships, translating and decoding them, so parents can better understand and help their daughters navigate through these crucial years. Rosalind Wiseman has spent more than a decade listening to thousands of girls talk about the powerful role cliques play in shaping what they wear and say, how they feel about school, how they respond to boys, and how they feel about themselves. In this candid and insightful book, Wiseman discusses:
Enlivened with the voices of dozens of girls and parents and a welcome sense of humor, Queen Bees and Wannabes is compelling reading for parents and daughters alike. A conversation piece and a reference guide, it offers the tools you need to help your daughter feel empowered and make smarter choices.
Introduction
Welcome to the wonderful world of your daughter's adolescence. Ten seconds ago she was a sweet, confident, world-beating little girl who looked up to you. Now she's changing before your very eyes—she's confused, insecure, often surly, lashing out. On a good day, she's teary and threatening to run away. On a bad day, you're ready to help her pack her suitcase. She's facing the toughest pressures of adolescent life—test-driving her new body, figuring out the social whirl, toughing it out in school—and intuitively you know that even though she's sometimes totally obnoxious, she needs you more than ever. Yet it's the very time when she's pulling away from you.
Why do teenage and preteen girls so often reject their parents and turn to their girlfriends instead—even when those friends often treat them so cruelly?
Every girl I know has been hurt by her girlfriends. One day your daughter comes to school and her ...
Edes P. Gilbert, acting president, Independent Educational Services
Rosalind Wiseman invites us into the 'Girl World' with insight, honesty, and humor. Based on the most thorough, helpful research I know of, this book should be required reading for parents, teachers, and health professionals. Joe Kelly, author, Dads and Daughters How to Inspire, Understand and Support Your Daughter When She's Growing Up So Fast, executive director, Dads and Daughters
Wiseman cuts through wishful parental thinking with a wonderful mixture of humor, facts, girls' voices, and a healthy dollop of reality. No, the harm cliques cause is not a natural fact of life. Wiseman gives us both hope and strategies to help our girls (and boys) build a more healthy, nurturing world for themselves. Nina Shandler, author of Ophelia's Mom and Sara Shandler, author of the bestselling Ophelia Speaks
Who's in? Who's out? Who's cool? Who's not? Why is one girl elevated to royal status and another shunned? Queen Bees and Wannabes answers these unfathomable questions and so many more. Wiseman gives parents the insight, compassion, and skill needed to guide girls through the rocky terrain of the adolescent social world. This is such an honest and helpful book; we recommend it highly. Patricia Hersch, author of A Tribe Apart A Journey into the Heart of American Adolescence
Wise, humorous, life-affirming advice for parents that is utterly respectful of girls. I recommend parents mark it up, turn the corners of pages, and heed Wiseman's creative and practical strategies for guiding girls along the sometimes treacherous pathways of growing up today. Queen Bees and Wannabes is Mapquest for parents of girls, from fifth grade all the way to young adulthood. Whitney Ransome and Meg Miln Moulton, executive directors, National Coalition of Girls' Schools
Laced with humor, insight, and practical suggestions, Queen Bees and Wannabes is the one volume that's been missing from the growing shelf of girl-centered publications. Wiseman explains the inner workings of teen culture and teaches parents, educators, and peers how to respond.
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