How to Help Girls Understand How Social Norms Can Affect Their Self Esteem

The problems faced by middle school girls struggling to look good and fit in are, in many ways, timeless. But the digital playground that our girls are navigating is brand new. To discuss the problems that parents and their pre-teen daughters are facing in this age of social media, I invited Dr. Tara Cousineau onto my radio show.

Dr. Cousineau is a clinical psychologist, self-esteem coach, and social entrepreneur who has many years of experience working with adolescent girls and women. She founded Moxie Moms coaching, which helps mothers of tween and teen girls build skills that strengthen their relationships with their daughters. She also received grants through the National Institute of Health to found BodiMojo Inc., which develops evidence-based and innovative solutions to help youth take control of their health by leveraging the digital playgrounds they reside in.

Adolescents are at a stage of development where they are naturally preoccupied with social comparison. But as Dr. Cousineau explained, social media has greatly heightened the time our kids spend comparing themselves to one another. Kids today are ranking, rating, and “liking” each other constantly. They have access to immediate and constant feedback as to where they fit in on the social ladder—and not just in an abstract sense. They’ve got numbers. How many followers do they have? How many likes they’ve received? How do we as parents—who are, in the words of Dr. Cousineau, “digital immigrants”– guide our children through this landscape that is so unfamiliar to us, and which they so fluidly and constantly navigate?

Dr. Cousineau very much emphasized that parents need to take responsibility for their children’s social media usage right from the start. Family phone plans make it so easy to just tack on that extra smartphone that your youngest child has been begging for, but we parents need to think carefully before we hand a smartphone to a ten-year-old. An online presence is a public persona that follows you for the rest of your life, and most ten-year-olds do not have the capacity to consider the implications of what they say; they react impulsively and emotionally. So think it all the way through before you give your child unlimited access to the Internet. Dr. Cousineau also advised that you create rules right from the start. How many hours a week is your child allowed on her device? Where is his phone kept? (The answer should probably not be his bedroom). Before you get your child a device, work together to set out a list of guidelines that you both feel good about. Make sure the rules and the consequences are clear. If you establish this right off the bat, it is much easier to maintain a conversation about your child’s media consumption as time goes on.

But what about parents for whom this is not an option? What if you have an adolescent girl who has had a phone for years, and with whom you don’t have a strong relationship? How can you instruct her about social media when she knows more than you do, and doesn’t want to hear anything you have to say anyway? Dr. Cousineau brought up an excellent strategy for dealing with this– a strategy we can all use, because most adolescent girls don’t want to hear from Mom. With her own daughter, Dr. Cousineau watched a ted talk by Dr. Caroline Helman, called The Sexy Lie. (http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/The-Sexy-Lie-Caroline-Heldman-a). Without opening her mouth, she was able to give her daughter great information about the internalized sexual objectification of women. And her daughter thought it was pretty cool! Moral of the story? We can use media to our advantage.

But what about the many moms for whom sitting down to share a video is out of the question? Expand your network. Reach out to other family members, friends, or people in your community that could be good role models to your daughter. An aunt, a neighbor, or perhaps a girl only a few years older can help. Whatever you do, don’t give up! The rapidly evolving digital landscape is like the Wild West, and our daughters need guidance, whether they know it or not.

For more tips on responsible media consumption, visit: commonsensemedia.org

For more information on Dr. Tara Cousineau’s work, visit her website: http://www.taracousineau.com/