Rooted, Resilient, and Ready has been written to nurture and support those raising teenage girls. Its aim is to provide the necessary and relevant research, information, experiences, and ideas and, at the same time, be as inclusive, expansive, and collaborative as possible.
With this goal comes the consideration of a diversity of teenage girls with respect to size, shape, and body type; ages and abilities; family, cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds; levels of education, social economic status, and external influencing factors; psychological dispositions, personality types, and maturity levels. Some content will be more relevant for your thirteen-year-old; other content will be more suitable for your seventeen-year-old.
That said, Rooted, Resilient, and Ready has its limitations. First, there is the limit of the author’s worldview. How we make sense of the world is shaped by personal life experiences, cognitive capacity, and perceptions and interpretations. Even with an open mind and good intentions, one can not consider all possibilities or all perspectives. This is also true when considering different beliefs and value systems. Different parents will have different “hard lines” when it comes to various topics, especially with relationships, substance use, and sex.
Second, Rooted, Resilient, and Ready seeks to proffer advice and guidance to readers. But a book can never replace professional medical attention. Those with serious concerns need customized advice from the most appropriate experts. If you feel that a young person is in danger or is endangering someone else, please take immediate action and seek professional assistance.
Third, this book is bound to the societal constructs of gender and non-traditional gender identities. For constancy, the pronouns “she” and “her” are used throughout, even when individuals have identified as non-binary. However, it is the hope that as societal changes are further embraced and accepted, the language will become more inclusive and new language will emerge.
Finally, the true stories and experiences of girls and their supporters are presented. To protect the privacy of individuals and their families, names and identifying details have been changed and thus individual stories have become compilation stories. This is with the exception of the photos throughout the book, where the girls have permitted the use of their real names.
Girls who are rooted have two feet firmly planted on the ground. They are certain and secure; fierce and fearless; unapologetic about who they are.
A rooted girl believes she is valuable and worthy. She accepts her strengths and areas of growth, knows her values. Society may pressure her to look a certain way, but she sets her own identity. She sees through the illusions of social media and chooses not to measure her self-worth through likes and followers. She knows her time is better invested in knowing herself.
Rooted girls use their voices to ask for what they need and to speak up for what matters most to them. They can clarify who they are and what they are becoming, their dreams and goals.
Rootedness is the solid foundation on which teen girls can stand. The deeper their roots, the stronger they will be. That is why we must help girls to be grounded and strong. When we see her as she is and “get” her by actively listening to her, she becomes more rooted, more confident, and more likely to grow into a strong and powerful woman.
WHO SHE IS BECOMING
SELFIES. NETFLIX. MUSIC. Spotify. YouTube. Hanging out with friends. Ripped jeans and sneakers. Scrolling through her social media feeds: this is your teen girl’s world. Pleasing, performing, and perfecting: these are her challenges.
Undoubtedly, by the time she turns thirteen and is officially entering adolescence, she has already been doing more on her own, wanting to spend her time with friends, and showing early signs of “teenager rebellion,” such as boundary pushing, especially when it comes to household rules around curfew, clothing, and screen time. Yes, she is likely doing some eye rolling and offering up a little sass, telling you that you “just don’t get her” while her strategically positioned hand rests on her hip.
And yet, “getting” a young, impressionable teenage girl is no easy task. It’s difficult to determine who she is becoming because she is in a state of constant flux amid chaotic societal influences. Some girls seem to be clear on who they are and are confident enough to tell me what makes them unique, like fourteen-year-old Ayisha: “I think my voice makes me unique,” she said. “Many people say that I’m too loud, but I think they are too quiet.” Other girls showed more doubt—like Morgan, who shyly responded with typical teen upspeak, “I think I am nice and caring?” When I interviewed eighteen-year-old Laurel, a girl with an incredibly calm demeanour and a light sprinkle of freckles dusted across her face, she quietly reflected, “It’s funny when you look at pictures of your younger self, thinking that you knew it all.” Girls often feel more grown up than they are and feeling that way is part of growing up.
Psychologists tell us that the two most fundamental milestones of adolescent development include understanding identity and gaining social acceptance—knowing who she is and feeling she belongs. As girls are figuring out what roles they play, such as daughter, sister, friend, student, and teammate, they are also figuring out themselves: their interests, hobbies, qualities, likes, dislikes, and beliefs. During this dynamic time, teenage girls are perpetually changing, developing, and learning, and are deeply engaged in the maturation process. According to David G. Myers and C. Nathan DeWall, “adolescence is a time of vitality without the cares of adulthood, a time of rewarding friendships, heightened idealism, and a growing sense of life’s exciting possibilities.”1 Adolescents don’t know everything, but they are beginning to know something, especially that their lives are filled with a combination of exhilaration and angst.
A growing teen girl’s identity is shaped by many factors and is the culmination of her values, interests, beliefs, personality, and “place in life.” She is becoming herself through the interactions she has with others and the feedback she receives. Keep in mind that her brain is developing. Teen girls experience the most dramatic brain growth in adolescence, during which there is an increase in brain matter and the brain is becoming more interconnected and gaining processing power. In her early teen years, her brain relies more heavily on the limbic system (the emotional centre) than the prefrontal cortex (the rational centre). As your teen girl grows, other parts of her brain are able to process emotion and she is more able to be calm, rational, and reasonable.2 Eventually, the sometimes-exaggerated emotions of middle adolescence will become less intense and more balanced as she considers who she is and absorbs the broader perspective of who she is becoming.
Parents have the privileged position of watching as their teen girls grow into increasingly independent and mature young women. Many a parent has shared with me their wonder over this transition. (“I felt so proud watching her positive energy with her friends on their way to the concert,” for example.) But parents also tell me how, at times, watching the growth process can be difficult. So many changes are happening all at once, and there are changes they didn’t anticipate. The toughest part for parents seems to be dealing with disappointment around who their teen daughter is becoming. You may have hoped she would be an athlete, but she would rather draw and work on her art. You may have wanted her to be social, like you, and enjoy a large and eclectic circle of friends, yet all she wants is alone time in her room, where she can be absorbed with her imagination or her smartphone. You may have imagined her wearing skirts and dresses, but her style is pants and her older brother’s hoodies.
When parents feel that their expectations are not being met or that their daughter is not living up to her potential, they typically try to help. Unfortunately, that “help” often comes via limiting language, which can cause frustration. A discussion about career choices could include a statement such as “You really don’t want to pursue hair and makeup; there’s no money in that.” Or a chat about an extracurricular passion might