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Category: Parents

Skinny Kids

Published by Danni Miller on November 11, 2009

The following YouTube clip was brought to my attention by the divine Noelle Graham (a long term Enlighten supporter and a passionate advocate for young women suffering from eating disorders).

Unfortunately, I did not find it shocking for it reflects what I see in schools right across the country. I did, however, find it deeply sad. It left me more passionate than ever about offering both girls and women a different view of self – a more healing, whole view that recognises we are all far more than just our bodies. We are somebodies. We are large, we contain multitudes.

Love to hear your thoughts.

Raising Teenage Girls

Published by Danni Miller on October 26, 2009

The article below originally appeared in Notebook Magazine, November 2009. It has has been reproduced here with their permission. Visit Notebook magazine – www.notebookmagazine.com

A PDF version of this feature article is also available to download / share here: dani

In the minds of many parents, a daughter’s teenage years loom like a trial by fire. Cracking the code to adolescent girlhood might seem unachievable, but as Donna Reeves discovers, it all starts with facing up to who you are.

No-one has ever said raising children is easy. While there is a general understanding the early years are tough – sleepless nights, tears, the dreariness of endless laundry – there is a certain terror that fills the hearts of many parents when they come to the realisation their beautiful baby daughters will one day develop into those slightly alien and scary creatures: teenage girls.

All legs and arms and attitude, there is something about teenage girls that induces fear into the most confident of parents. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Behind the prickly, and pimply, surface of adolescent girls lies a genuine psychological and emotional need to remain connected to their parents as they face the challenges of becoming young women. Being afraid of stepping on teenage toes, or believing that adolescence is akin to the lost years, isn’t doing your kids any favours. Instead of setting yourself up to fail, parents, particularly mothers, can grow with their daughters because when it comes down to it, both are facing similar issues.

“There has been this idea that teenage girls are somehow unruly and bitches and divas and difficult; that it’s this awful tumultuous time and the best we can do is bunker down and try and get through it,” says Dannielle Miller, a former high school teacher who has worked with thousands of teenage girls in both Australia and New Zealand. “This is such a ridiculous notion because it sets up this defeatist attitude towards connecting with your daughter and it also sets up conflict because you start to see the conflict as inevitable. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“The greatest gift a mum can give to her daughter is to grow with her and to be honest about that journey of growth. If we pretend we all just emerge as this completely whole woman, we’re doing them a disservice by not helping them understand that making mistakes is just part of that journey.”

Dannielle’s book The Butterfly Effect – A Positive New Approach to Raising Happy, Confident Teen Girls (Random House, $34.95) has just been published. It is well researched and documents with clarity and gritty honesty the issues facing today’s teenage girls, such as drinking, body issues, friendship and sex.

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“Sometimes I think other parenting books make the world in which teenage girls live seem so foreign to our world that as an adult, you feel a little bit out of your element in knowing how to step in and help,” Dannielle says. “Yet, the issues really are the same. They might be drinking Breezers while we’re drinking chardies, and they might be watching ‘Gossip Girl’ while we’re watching ‘Desperate Housewives’, but the messages and the reasons why we’re engaging in those things are very similar. If you can start to see the similarities, rather than just the differences, I think it’s a great opportunity to connect with your daughter rather than disconnect from her.”

The Butterfly Effect offers practical advice to parents – in particular mothers – on how to stay connected, or rebuild relationships with their daughters during adolescence. Unlike some other parenting books, where the emphasis is on the child, this book forces parents to examine their own lives and behaviours. It’s an approach Dannielle says she has been using successfully for many years.

“Parents honestly think they’re going to come along to one of my seminars and I am going to sort out their daughter for them, as if she’s the one who needs fixing,” Dannielle says. “Then, within about five minutes of me speaking, I’ll see these little tears rolling down their faces as they realise they need to have a look at what they’re doing in their life. Maybe they’re always on a diet, or lamenting the ageing process, or caught up in a destructive relationship and drinking themselves into a stupor every night. Their daughters see this and that’s the truth of it. Many mothers find it quite confronting, and it is.”

Dannielle says what initially struck her when talking to mothers about their daughters was that they were both facing similar issues. “I was quite surprised that in many ways, despite all the rhetoric about there being this huge generation gap, so many issues that impact on our daughters’ lives really impact on us as women too, and we are really more alike than we are different.

“I noticed in the mothers’ faces that I was really speaking to them as well: they were caught up in the same vortex when it came to things like body image, beauty and drinking. Even when I would talk about things such as managing healthy friendships, the mothers would say, ‘It sounds like you’re describing my friendships with my girlfriends now.’”

One of Dannielle’s key messages in her book and seminars is that mothers have to set a good example and be a positive role model for their daughters. “Girls can’t be what they can’t see,” she says. “If we’re serious about saying to our daughters, ‘I want you to be really sure of yourself, to be really strong, to know how to set boundaries with people, to make healthy choices around alcohol,’ then we have to make those choices and decisions ourselves.”

If there’s one area in recent years that teenage girls have been drastically misunderstood, and perhaps as a result, let down, it’s in the assumption they are more mature than adolescent boys and therefore more independent. Dannielle says that while it is true teen girls do have more maturity than adolescent boys of the same age, they are still emotionally needy.

“The latest research is showing that adolescent girls have the emotional needs for affection and for love as they had when they were seven,” she says. “The first time I heard this, my daughter was seven and I thought about the number of times she might be touched, cuddled, told she’s beautiful. Sadly, by the time girls hit adolescence, and because they’re gangly and look a little bit grown up, we almost leave them to fend for themselves. That’s why they hunt in packs and why their peer groups are so important to them. It’s often the only place where they get that love and affection. It explains why you will always see teenage girls touching each others’ hair, tickling each other, laying all over each other. It’s because they yearn to be touched and to be loved.”

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At my official Book Launch with mentor and valued colleague Clinical Professor David Bennett AO FRACP FSAM

Wanting to be loved doesn’t necessarily mean wanting to be best friends. It’s important to set realistic expectations around your relationships. As Dannielle says, you have to understand that for teen girls, pulling away and coming back and then pulling away again is a really important part of them growing into individuals and becoming independent. This seesawing behaviour can’t be taken personally, or else every mother would spend a lot of her teenage daughters’ years feeling offended or hurt.

“In an effort to connect with your daughter, I don’t think it works for mums to say ‘Alright, we’re going to have these big outings every month,’” says Dannielle. “You can’t force it. Sometimes, the best moments can be when you gently brush past each other in the house, or when you write your daughter a note for her lunch box which she doesn’t even bother acknowledging.

“We need to realise these moments we have with them, even if we think they’re not important, can be hugely important. Often we make the mistake of thinking it has to be a big gesture. It is very true that teenage girls don’t want to hang with Mum all the time, but they do really want a connection.”

One of the simplest pieces of advice Dannielle gives in her book – and interestingly, one of the most powerful – is for mothers to let themselves fall in love with their daughters again. Sure, motherhood isn’t easy, but neither is growing up. Think back to how you were as a teenager and the grief you caused your mother.

“As mothers, if we can get back to the core values of ‘I do love this girl’ and realise our daughters have remarkable qualities and focus on those, rather than try to control them, then that can be a good way of finding mutual ground,” says Dannielle.

“If you can get the parenting bits right and focus on being a good role model, there’s nothing more fun than having a teenage girl around. It is their flaws and their little idiosyncrasies, and the fact they are so brutally honest that makes them incredibly endearing. They’re like big labrador puppies – they’re delightful.”

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I will be presenting a public seminar for parents on raising girls at Monte Sant’ Angelo Mercy College – November 11th 2009: this is being hosted by the organisation Young Love. All enquiries should be made directly to them.

Flyer with details may be downloaded here.

Busting the myths of teen drinking

Published by Danni Miller on September 29, 2009

This week we learned some hard facts about teen drug and alcohol consumption when Western Australia released its figures for the Australian School Students Alcohol and Drug Survey. Teens, especially girls, are drinking alcohol at damaging levels.

More than a quarter of students aged 12-17 had drunk alcohol in the past week. More than a quarter of the boys aged 14-17 who had drunk in the past week had done so at dangerous levels: 7 or more drinks in a day.

The figure was even worse for the girls. Nearly a third of those aged 14-17 who had drunk in the last week had reached dangerous levels: 5 or more drinks in a day (the limit is lower because of physical differences).

The greatest binge drinkers? 17-year-old girls.

These figures are heartbreaking. To me, they tell a story of the pain teen girls are seeking an escape from, and the pressures they face to be sexy, grown-up, uninhibited. They have a false belief that drinking alcohol is empowering, when in fact it’s a train crash waiting to happen. Alcohol companies continue to push “alcopops”, and hotels offer mixed drinks aimed at young women, such as champagne and Red Bull.

But retailers may not be the greatest problem: almost half of the students who drank in the past week got the alcohol from their mother or father.

From my work in schools, I believe that these WA figures are a good picture of what is going on all around the country. Lucy, a 16-year-old student in NSW, told me how obsessed the girls in her year at school were about the alcohol they were going to drink at a party one weekend.

They all made bets on who was going to out-drink who, and who was going to get drunk enough to hook up with random people.

One girl was asking for advice on what drinks she could mix together to get herself “smashed” quicker, and another was bragging about her mum buying her alcohol to take to the party.

No doubt some of the parents who supply their children with alcohol are just plain negligent, but I’m betting many are parents who show great care and concern about other aspects of their children’s lives. They probably taught them to always buckle their seat belt, never talk to strangers and always wear their bike helmet. They probably worry about their kids’ safety getting to and from school, their marks and finding the right career. It just so happens that they also believe old (and dangerous) myths about teenagers and drinking. Some of the arguments I’ve heard:

They’re going to drink alcohol anyway. It’s safer if they do it at home where I can keep an eye on them.

Kids need to learn now how to handle their alcohol so they don’t get in trouble with it later on.

Alcohol isn’t as harmful as other drugs.

If I don’t let them drink, they might do something worse.

It is my great hope that if all parents understand the truth about under-age drinking, we will finally be free of these myths.

There is no such thing as safe teen drinking. It is never okay to supply under-age kids with alcohol or tolerate under-age drinking. And this is why:

Grow a brain. The brain keeps maturing until around 20 years of age. Less alcohol is needed to cause damage to a teenager’s brain than an adult’s, and the damage takes place much faster. The damage can permanently alter the brain. A teenage drinker is more likely to suffer falling marks at school. As an adult, she may be stuck with memory problems, learning difficulties, poor verbal skills, depression and a tendency to addiction.

Have no regrets. A teenager’s brain is also not yet fully developed for reasoning or thinking about consequences; it is far more finely tuned to respond to situations emotionally. Combine this with alcohol and you truly have a worrying cocktail. Many girls regret decisions they have made and embarrassing things they have done while under the influence.

Stay safe. Drinking makes teen girls feel invincible, but they are actually far more at risk when they are intoxicated. Their judgment is compromised; their reflexes are slowed; they are physically awkward. They are at greater risk of violent and sexual assaults. I am not blaming the victim: it is never her fault. But being drunk does make girls easier targets, as predators look for vulnerability.

Stay healthy. Drugs such as amphetamines and heroin are not the only threat to the health of our kids. Each year, more than 260 young Australians die from risky drinking behaviour. Binge drinking can lead to acute toxicity that at the best requires hospitalisation and at worse leads to death. Alcohol increases the risk of injuries from falls and road accidents, and in the long term increases the risk of stroke, breast cancer and liver disease.

Delay now, or pay the price later. There is no benefit in “teaching” kids how to handle their alcohol. In fact, research shows that when parents allow their children to drink at home, it normalises drinking and lowers the children’s inhibitions to drink. Studies also show that delaying a person’s introduction to alcohol lowers their risk of developing long-term problems with drinking.

As parents, we need to take responsibility for our kids’ drinking. A study conducted by St Peter’s Collegiate Girl’s School, in Adelaide, showed that girls actually want enforced curfews and they do not want parents to turn a blind eye to teen drinking. Teenagers crave boundaries and limits, because the pressure is then taken off them to make all the decisions.

So let’s set boundaries. Let’s set good examples.  Let’s talk with our teenage kids openly and honestly about alcohol. And offer them things to do on the weekend that are way more fun than getting wasted.

Learning like a girl

Published by Danni Miller on September 13, 2009

In my book, The Butterfly Effect, I include a chapter on girls and learning. I believe that once girls reach high school, parents can feel ill equipped to help their daughters learn, hence I was keen to pass on the words of wisdom I had gathered during my years of teaching – and learning – in schools.   

The ‘really big school’ can seem impersonal and overwhelming. The curriculum is more complex. There are new school subjects today that we couldn’t have even imagined when we were at school. Some of the information our teens are learning is outside our realm of experience. Yet teenagers spend only 15 per cent of their time at school, which means our support at home is still essential.

A simple starting point: get to know your daughter’s studying habits and ask yourself: how does she like to learn? When, how and with whom does she do her best learning? If you are unsure, ask her and ask her teachers. Find out what works and how you can make her learning environment at home even better. For more specific guidance on how to do this, I think Elizabeth Hartley-Brewer, a respected parenting author, has a helpful way of looking at the role of a parent in a child’s education. She likens it to the role a good sports coach has in an athlete’s training:

From sports psychology, we know the best coaches focus on improving technique and skill . . . They make rewards reflect achievements; teach individuals to manage their own mistakes, learning and progress; and reduce anxiety by finding out what is causing it and addressing that directly.”

Rather than being overwhelmed by how to help your daughter learn school subjects you don’t entirely understand, you can use the idea of becoming her coach to break down your role into doable tasks: helping your daughter improve her techniques and skills; rewarding her achievements; allowing her to learn from her mistakes; giving her the freedom to manage her own learning; and offering her your loving support, so that she is not left feeling anxious.

One of the areas that seems to cause the most angst with parents is IT. Particularly if Mum and Dad are not confident users of technology.

I was interviewed for two interesting Sydney Morning Herald articles on this topic last week ( both were published today and were picked up nationally).

Too boring: girls miss the IT boat. Read full article at the link provided.

An extract: 

As new media technologies continue to intertwine into our everyday lives and careers, there are fears girls are being left behind, with many finding computer subjects boring or irrelevant.

A study of attitudes to technology and career skills conducted by the Victorian Government in 2001 showed that 36 per cent of girls, compared with 16 per cent of boys, found information and communication technologies boring.

Almost 10 years later, little has changed, believes the educator Dannielle Miller. She says she has picked up on an alarming trend during her work with girls in primary and high schools across Australia and New Zealand, dealing with things like self-esteem and body confidence.

Miller, the chief executive of Enlighten Education, a company she helped found to foster education and self-esteem among young girls, says a big proportion of future job opportunities will be involved in the IT field.

”Increasingly jobs will require high-order IT skills,” she says.

”If we have a generation of young women who have been excluded from that knowledge then there is going to be a stark gender divide which will be quite problematic.”

So Much Homework, so many distractions. Read full article at the link provided.

An extract:

PARENTS who peer over their teen’s shoulders during homework time may be alarmed by all the distractions that are taking place.

How can they concentrate amid the lure of MSN, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, the internet, music and a nearby mobile? Can this seemingly distracting environment actually be positive to their child’s learning? Can it offer them life skills to navigate today’s increasingly digital world?

”When I’m doing my homework I will have Facebook, MySpace and MSN open and I will flick through all the screens constantly,” says Caitlyn Wilcher, 17.

Wilcher is studying for the HSC at Blaxland High School, yet no matter how pressing her homework is, these screens are constantly open, she says.

”When the pressure is on I still leave everything up but don’t check it as frequently and stop talking so much on MSN. I tend to talk about the homework when it’s crunch time.”

Increasingly, homework done on the computer is becoming a social event. Dannielle Miller says parents need not be too concerned about these apparent distractions but rather should try to help young people navigate this environment.”

Love to hear more about how the girls you care for learn.

Media highlights thus far – “The Butterfly Effect”

Published by Danni Miller on September 4, 2009

This week has been filled with powerful conversations around teen girls and my book, The Butterfly Effect.  I thought I would share three of the more interesting  interviews with you.

Sunrise – Raising Teen Girls – 4/9/09: click on the image below to view the segment or go directly to the URL: http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/index.php?cl=15377569

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Podcast – Breakfast radio with Tony, Bec and Mikey – Vega: 2/9/09 (listen about 10 minutes in as they talk about birds for the first segement!)

http://podcast.vega953.com.au/brekky_atbm/atbm_bestof/090902_tbm_bestof.mp3

 

Podcast – The Conversation Hour with Jon Faine, ABC Radio Melbourne – 31/8/09

“Jon Faine and his co-host, Dr Gael Jennings, took your calls today as they discussed the problems faced by girls in our society, and the problems faced by those trying to raise happy and healthy young women. Their guests were authors Melinda Tankard-Reist, who’s book is called ‘Getting real – Challenging the sexualisation of girls’, and is published by Spinifex Press, and Dannielle Miller, who’s book “The Butterfly Effect’, is published by Random House.”

http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2009/08/31/2672012.htm?site=melbourne

Love for you to join in and comment on any of the points raised in the above!

Getting Real – Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls

Published by Danni Miller on August 21, 2009

With the globalisation of sexual imagery, girls are growing up in the shadow cast by a pornographic vision of sexuality. This important new book has been edited by Melinda Tankard Reist and features contributions by Clive Hamilton, Julie Gale, Noni Hazelhurst, Maggie Hamilton, Steve Biddulph and other leading Australian experts.

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Advance reviews for this important new collection of essays on the pornification of culture include:

Young women and girls today face extraordinary pressures to meet body image expectations that are unhealthy, unhelpful and unrealistic. The contributors to this book make a valuable contribution to an important national debate on how we can help young women to grow up with a healthy self-image and with the freedom and strength to be their real selves.”
The Hon. Kate Ellis, Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare and Youth, Parliament of Australia.

Getting Real is an important contribution to the discussion of the sexualisation of girls. This profoundly disturbing issue is a public health problem of international concern. This book is essential reading for parents, educators and everyone who wishes to make the world a safer and healthier place for all children.”
Jean Kilbourne, Author of  So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualised Childhood And What Parents Can Do To Protect Their Kids

My Melbourne readers may wish to go along to the book’s launch, 2nd September in Hawthorn. The invitation is attached as a PDF here:
GR Melb launch

Getting Real will be available in all good book stores from September 1st. Also available in book stores from September 1st will be my book, The Butterfly Effect. I am very excited about this and will share more in my blog post next week.

Adios Supergirl

Published by Danni Miller on June 11, 2009

Many girls I work with tell me they are stressed — really stressed. They feel exhausted and overwhelmed. They have headaches, trouble sleeping, chronically tight muscles, fatigue and lack of appetite or weight gain, which are recognised signs of stress.

Why do our young women feel such debilitating pressure?

I believe many teen girls are suffering from the Supergirl epidemic. They feel they must be smart, popular, thin and attractive, all while displaying a Paris Hiltonesque worldliness. American writer Courtney Martin in her book Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters sums up the modern girl’s dilemma this way:

We have the ultimate goal of effortless perfectionism.

The reality is that striving for perfection is actually unachievable, let alone exhausting.

Many girls desperately fear making mistakes, believing they cannot let down their guard for even one moment. For my upcoming book, The Butterfly Effect, my interviews with girls gave me valuable insight:

I worry so much about getting things wrong in class. What will people think of me if I do? If I don’t know something, I pretend I do so the teacher won’t think less of me. Everyone thinks I am such a great student and that learning comes easily to me — and I do get good marks, but I feel sick sometimes thinking about how long I will need to keep up this effort for.  — Joanne, 14

The worst thing about being a teen girl is people condemning you when you fall when, in fact, you only just tripped and learned something. — Yan, 16

If I make a mistake I want to cry. I hate that I am a big failure. But you can’t let anyone know you feel like that so you just shrug it off and go, ‘whatever’. But I replay my mistakes over and over in my head later. — Lucy, 15

The message we need to send our girls is that while they can do anything, they do not have to do it all at once, nor do they have to get it right every time.

We can serve as positive role models by refusing to buy into the hype that we need to be “Yummy Mummys” who can do it all. This may mean letting our own guard down and setting aside our perfectionist tendencies. Amelia Toffoli, the Principal at St Brigid’s College Lesmurdie, one of Enlighten’s Western Australian client schools, offers this great advice:

A mother should share personal failures as well as successes and explain to her daughter what she may have learnt from mistakes. It gives daughters hope that they too can move on from a poor choice.

Another angle is to create opportunities for girls to engage in exploration and self-discovery, and pursue activities that make them feel good — even if they won’t result immediately in a concrete reward such as good marks or acclaim.  In a May 2009 article on teen girls and perfectionism, a teacher in the United States, Jamie Donohoe, shared his favorite assignment that he gives his English students: to fulfil a small secret dream, something the student always wanted to do but never dared to for fear of failure or embarrassment. I love this!

Perhaps it’s a sign of the times that Enlighten Education’s Chill Out workshops are increasingly popular with schools. We involve girls in practical, fun techniques that can help alleviate the physical symptoms of stress. For instance, positive visualisation helps girls develop new, more positive self-talk so they can respond calmly and optimistically to life’s inevitable challenges and setbacks. This is something we perhaps all could benefit from. We cannot always control the events that we experience, but we can control how we respond.

Do you know of any other good ideas for helping girls move beyond perfectionism?

Time to Talk

Published by Danni Miller on May 12, 2009

Recently I took my 10-year-old daughter, Teyah, on a trip to a shopping centre. Mother’s Day was coming up, and I needed to buy a gift for my mother and a new outfit for Teyah to wear out for our family lunch.

Rather than enjoying this experience, I found myself increasingly frustrated, and in fact furious, because of some of the ridiculous and simply toxic messages my daughter and I were presented with.

First stop: the girls-wear department at Myer, which caters to children aged 8 to 14. Recently renovated, it now has an instore Weight Watchers shopfront smack bang in the middle. Why, Teyah asked, do they need to promote dieting in the girls’ section?  Girls are still growing, so they are constantly moving up to bigger clothes. With Weight Watchers located right in this part of the store, she wondered, is there a risk that girls will think their ever-changing dress size is a sign they are getting fat? Wouldn’t the adults’ section of the store be a more appropriate place for a dieting program?

And it is not just our young daughters who are being told they need to shape up. I am usually a fan of Peter Alexander, the designer of leisure and sleep wear, yet on this shopping trip I was so deeply offended by his store’s window display I couldn’t bring myself to even enter. Their Mother’s Day slogan? “Spoil your Mum (after all . . . you spoilt her figure!)”

And finally, to ALDO, a shoe shop. I don’t know the name of the song they had blaring; its lyrics were so vile it must be banned from radio, so I hadn’t heard it before. The lyrics included the word f*ck and the singer was telling a b*tch to get on all fours and take it like a whore, get on the pole and spin . . .

You get the idea.

Teyah and I retreated into a cafe, and our shared experiences became a catalyst for a really interesting conversation about gender, the media and marketing messages. This impromptu “retail therapy” session got me thinking about powerful questions we can all ask our daughters, to get the discussion going. The following may provide inspiration:

Which brands do you think portray women in a positive light?

Describe an advertisement you thought objectified women. How did it make you feel?

What are the things others do that make you feel precious and special?

What are the things you do for yourself that make you feel precious and special?

What are you most proud of in your life so far?

What are five things that you love about yourself?

Describe a time when you compared yourself to someone whose looks you admired. How did that comparison make you feel?

Who is a woman you admire for reasons other than her looks? What do you like about her?

Describe a time when you felt truly beautiful.

How do you think society defines the words “beautiful” and “ugly”? How do you define them?

I would love to hear what other topics you think are in urgent need of being addressed with our girls and the conversation starters that you have found helpful.

What price perfection?

Published by Danni Miller on April 26, 2009

This month, alarming research was published showing that eating disorders now plague very young children. The study’s findings included a child only 5 years of age who was hospitalised with Early Onset Eating Disorder (EOED).

It was Dr Sloane Madden from The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, New South Wales, who raised the alarm: “What we are seeing clinically, and what is being reported anecdotally around the world is that kids are presenting in greater numbers at a younger age,” he said in a recent interview. “They certainly will tell you that they believe that they are fat, that they want to be thinner, and they have no insight into the fact that they are malnourished and they are literally starving themselves to death.”

Dr Madden went on to say that the number of EOED cases is expected to rise unless there is a change in the media’s obsession with fat and weight. “I think that there needs to be a move away from this focus on weight and numbers and body fat, and a focus on healthy eating and exercise,” he said in a Sydney Morning Herald interview. “You can see that in current (television) programs like The Biggest Loser, where it is all about numbers and weight, it’s not helpful for those people and it’s certainly not helpful for this group of kids.”

Not helpful either is Australia’s Next Top Model. Early reports about this season’s show indicate it will, once again, feature bullying and an unhealthy preoccupation with weight. In the first episode, to air on April 28, Perry tells his fellow judges – the model agent Priscilla Leighton-Clark and former model Charlotte Dawson – that some contestants look like “Frankenstein”, “a wild pig”, “fat”, “a moose” and that one has “something spaz [spastic] with her teeth”. All this from a show hosted and produced by Sarah Murdoch, a member of the Federal Government’s newly formed advisory group on body image.

Richard Eckersley in his excellent book Well and Good – Morality, Meaning and Happiness voices the concerns of many:

No sensible person would argue that there is a simple, direct relationship between media content and people’s behaviour. But nor should any sensible person accept the proposition, implied by some cultural commentators, that what we see, hear and read in the media has no effect on us. Maybe children today are savvy, sophisticated consumers of media – as we are often told – but this does not mean that we can be complacent about media influences.”

It is more important than ever that we give our young people the skills they need to deconstruct the many media images they are bombarded with every day. With this in mind, the following books and web sites provide ways to begin this essential dialogue with the young people you care for:

Web sites

Enlighten Education – http://enlighteneducation.com: My company’s web site. We deliver in-school workshops for girls on self-esteem, body image, managing friendships, personal safety and career pathways for girls.

The Butterfly Effect – https://enlighteneducation.edublogs.org: My blog, featuring weekly posts targeted to educators and parents of teen girls. Check out “Danielle Miller’s videos”, “My Book Collections” and the “Articles of interest” page for suggestions.

Girlpower Retouch – http://demo.fb.se/e/girlpower/retouch: A site that shows how easy it is to distort the images we see in magazines to change someone’s appearance.

Jean Kilbourne – http://jeankilbourne.com: Writer and documentary maker who explores the way women and girls are portrayed in advertising.

The Beautiful Women Project – http://www.beautifulwomenproject.org: American art project celebrating diversity and real everyday beauty.

Girl Guiding UK – http://www.girlguiding.org.uk: The section “Girls Shout Out” has some particularly interesting reports on teenage mental health, active citizenship and the pressures girls feel growing up.

Kids Free 2B Kids – http://kf2bk.com: Australian site that raises awareness about the damage caused by the sexualisation of children and acts to combat this.

Young Media Australia – http://youngmedia.org.au: Australian organisation with a particular interest in developing media literacy in young people.

American sites that help young people develop media literacy skills to combat unhelpful media messages about beauty and body image:

American sites offering resources and professional development for teachers who want to nurture media literacy in the classroom:

Books and magazines

For girls

New Moon Girls – American magazine aimed at 8- to 12-year-old girls, with accompanying web-based activities: http://www.newmoon.com

Indigo 4 Girls – Australian Magazine aimed at 10- to 14-year-olds that describes itself as a “positive, body friendly, age appropriate magazine for girls”.  http://indigo4girls.com

Girl Stuff: Your full-on guide to the teen years – Book by Kaz Cooke, Penguin Group Australia, 2007

Body Talk: A Power Guide For Girls, Elizabeth Reid Boyd and Abigail Bray, Hodder Headline

The Girlosophy series by Anthea Paul, Allen and Unwin

The Girlforce series by Nikki Goldstein, ABC Books

For Parents and Teachers

Faking It – A special publication that deconstructs the female image in magazines, available through Women’s Forum Australia: www.womensforumaustralia.org

Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel – Book by Jean Kilbourne, Free Press

The Beauty Myth – Book by Naomi Wolf, Vintage

Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body – Book by Courtney E. Martin, Free Press

Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture – Book by Ariel Levy, Schwartz Publishing

Well and Good – Book by Richard Eckersley, Text Publishing

It is also more important than ever that we all take stock and ask ourselves whether we too are getting caught up in playing the compare and despair game. Many of us tell our children they do not need to change in order to be beautiful, while we rush for Botox. We tell them inner beauty counts, while we devour magazines that tell us beauty is really only about air-brushed perfection after all. If even the grown-ups are struggling, is it any wonder that our daughters are? Our children cannot be what they cannot see.

It is up to us to show them what the state of “I am me, I am okay” looks like.

Teens and P*rn: dealing with difficult truths

Published by Danni Miller on April 16, 2009

Please note: the blogging platform I use, Edublogs, filters out words like p*rn, hence the need to use asterisks. If you wish to comment, please use symbols to avoid your text being automatically deleted.

Warning: the sites hyperlinked in this blog post include sexually explicit personal accounts of sex and p*rn*graphy.

P*rn is nothing new, but it has never been more accessible than it is today. In the excellent 2009 UK television series The Sex Education Show, three out of ten high school students interviewed said they learned about sex predominantly through viewing p*rn*graphy on the internet and mobile phones, or in magazines. According to the show, the average teenager claims to watch 90 minutes of p*rn a week.

What messages will this generation receive about desirability if their emerging sexuality is largely shaped by p*rn? In episode one of The Sex Education Show, viewers saw the reactions of teens of both sexes when they were shown images of real breasts; they were unimpressed because these breasts didn’t sit up like silicone-enhanced ones. When shown images of women with pubic hair, they gasped in what seemed to be shock or disgust. Presenter Anna Richardson surmised: “What’s sad is they are putting pressure on themselves and each other, convinced by the sexual imagery they see that porn-star plastic is perfection.”

Equally as sad is the very real risk that young people will get caught up in sharing things on line in a way that they may later deeply regret. Recently, a Sydney schoolgirl was investigated by police for sending a naked image of herself to her boyfriend via her mobile, an example of the growing phenomena known as sexting.

More research into the short- and long-term impact exposure to p*rn is having on our young people is vitally important. The Australian Government’s recent report Adolescence, P*rn*graphy and Harm is an essential starting point, and it addresses some very real challenges in its conclusion:

Though restricting exposure will remain a priority, an over-reliance on this approach to protect against the perceived harms of p*rn*graphy is problematic as it fails to recognise the realities of ready availability and the high acceptance of pornography among young people. Moreover, it fails to examine the holistic way in which adolescents’ sexual expectations, attitudes and behaviours are shaped in our society and the complexity of factors that give rise to the cited harms. Protecting young people necessarily requires equipping them, and their caregivers, with adequate knowledge, skills and resources (e.g. media literacy; sex education; education about pornography and rights and responsibilities of sexual relationships; safe engagement with technologies) to enable successful navigation toward a sexually healthy adulthood, as well as tackling factors predisposing to sexual violence.

This is not an issue we can afford to ignore. At my company, Enlighten Education, where we discuss a wide range of topics with young women in schools, including cyber safety and responsible use of technology, we have deliberately chosen not to run workshops on sexuality because families have their own values they wish to instill, and girls need to hear messages about sexuality at different ages, depending on their cognitive, emotional and physical development. We do believe, however, that by helping girls develop a strong sense of self, we are equipping them to be better able to make their own choices and to view themselves holistically – not just as a body but a heart, soul and mind, too.

How will you give the young women – and men – in your life the knowledge, skills and resources they need to move beyond X-rated visions of sexuality? I would love to hear how you’re all tackling some of these difficult truths.

PS Talk about timely: in today’s news there are reports that American comedian, actor and singer Jamie Foxx has been forced to apologise for urging 16-year-old tween idol Miley Cyrus to “make a sex tape and grow up”. A joke based on pressuring teen girls to make sex tapes is really no joke at all.

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