Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and the New Realities of Girl World Author: Rosalind Wiseman | Language: English | ISBN:
B002RLBKMM | Format: PDF
Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and the New Realities of Girl World Description
“My daughter used to be so wonderful. Now I can barely stand her and she won’t tell me anything. How can I find out what’s going on?”
“There’s a clique in my daughter’s grade that’s making her life miserable. She doesn’t want to go to school anymore. Her own supposed friends are turning on her, and she’s too afraid to do anything. What can I do?”
Welcome to the wonderful world of your daughter’s adolescence. A world in which she comes to school one day to find that her friends have suddenly decided that she no longer belongs. Or she’s teased mercilessly for wearing the wrong outfit or having the wrong friend. Or branded with a reputation she can’t shake. Or pressured into conforming so she won’t be kicked out of the group. For better or worse, your daughter’s friendships are the key to enduring adolescence—as well as the biggest threat to her well-being.
In her groundbreaking book,
Queen Bees and Wannabes, Empower cofounder Rosalind Wiseman takes you inside the secret world of girls’ friendships. 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 respond to boys, and how they feel about themselves. In this candid, insightful book, she dissects each role in the clique: Queen Bees, Wannabes, Messengers, Bankers, Targets, Torn Bystanders, and more. She discusses girls’ power plays, from birthday invitations to cafeteria seating arrangements and illicit parties. She takes readers into “Girl World” to analyze teasing, gossip, and reputations; beauty and fashion; alcohol and drugs; boys and sex; and more, and how cliques play a role in every situation.
Each chapter includes “Check Your Baggage” sections to help you identify how your own background and biases affect how you see your daughter. “What You Can Do to Help” sections offer extensive sample scripts, bulleted lists, and other easy-to-use advice to get you inside your daughter’s world and help you
help her.
It’s not just about helping your daughter make it alive out of junior high. This book will help you understand how your daughter’s relationship with friends and cliques sets the stage for other intimate relationships as she grows and guides her when she has tougher choices to make about intimacy, drinking and drugs, and other hazards. With its revealing look into the secret world of teenage girls and cliques, enlivened with the voices of dozens of girls and a much-needed sense of humor,
Queen Bees and Wannabes will equip you with all the tools you need to build the right foundation to help your daughter make smarter choices and empower her during this baffling, tumultuous time of life.
From the Hardcover edition.- File Size: 1093 KB
- Print Length: 450 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0307454444
- Publisher: Harmony; 2 Original edition (October 13, 2009)
- Sold by: Random House LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B002RLBKMM
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #12,309 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Parenting & Relationships > Parenting > Teenagers - #13
in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Parenting > Parenting Girls - #35
in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Parenting > Teenagers
- #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Parenting & Relationships > Parenting > Teenagers - #13
in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Parenting > Parenting Girls - #35
in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Parenting > Teenagers
Two paragraphs of disclosure will make my review more meaningful. I was a happy, well-adjusted 5th and 6th grader. New to my elementary school in the 5th grade, I quickly and easily found a best friend + nice group of friends. Then the following year in junior high, two "queen bees" came along and decided they wanted the same group of friends, best friend and all--without me in it. They invited the other girls to a sleepover party right in front of me, and suddenly I was friendless. Devastated, I came home that day sobbing, to parents who had no idea what to do except to send me to a psychiatrist, which did no good at all.
My "lunch tray moments" consisted of going from table to table, trying to sit down, and kids telling me I wasn't welcome to sit with them, and then eating by myself in the detention room, the only place that would have me. My "gym class moments" consisted of being the girl left over when the last team captain chose the second-to-last girl, and then the other team captain declaring she never picked me and that I was not on her team. I adapted first making friends with the neighborhood dogs who all accepted me with love and dignity, and then by getting involved with out-of-school activities and making lots of friends outside of school. By 10th grade, I had friends at school again.
It is with this background that I read "Queen Bees and Wanna Bees"--the book I wish had been around in the 1970s when I suffered the trauma of being a target. I am appalled that these dynamics continue to this day, and that targets have it WORSE than I did. When I got home, the bullying stopped, and I was free to do my homework, not to be bullied until bright and early the next day. Now the bullying of targets is CONSTANT, via Facebook, email, text message, etc.
The roles within the clique were interesting, and somewhat accurate, but the book assumes that every girl fits neatly into one of them, when this is often not the case. Some girls are not in the clique, but not a target, either. Others may be friends with multiple groups and play different roles in each one. The teenage social scene is just not as clearcut as the book makes it out to be.
The first issue that I had with this book was with the "quotes" from teenaged girls. I'll just come out and say that I don't buy that they're authentic. Teenage girls don't talk this way. I got the impression that a lot of the quotes were either heavily edited to fit the points Wiseman wanted to make or fabricated altogether.
The next problem I had was with the shockingly bad advice given. Wiseman advises that girls being shut out or bullied should handle the teasing like mature adults by directly addressing it, telling the mean girl it hurts their feelings and they want it to stop, and then "affirming" the teaser and their relationship. Like someone else said, the mean girls would have a field day with this. They'd think it was hilarious and it would just lead to more humiliation for the target. For example, she encourages the target to approach the mean girl and say, "Hi, there's something I really need to talk to you about. Can you meet me during study hall in the library at 11:00?" In her scenario, the mean girl actually agrees, and the target proceeds to have a private meeting where she tells the girl she wants her to stop teasing her, saying things like, "[Teasing] really hurts me. I wanted it stopped. I don't know why you don't like me. I would like us to be civil to each other and respect each other.
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