Articles About Rosalind
What happens to mean girls when they grow up? Judging by some recent examples, they become CEOs, politicians, or reality-TV-show stars.
Bullying is back in the headlines, as it is all too often, with the suicide of a teenager who was victimized by her schoolmates. Nine of them were charged last week with felonies. More can be read about it in this Sisterhood post. The Sisterhood spoke with author Rosalind Wiseman, whose 2002 book “Queen Bees and Wannabees: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence and the movie based on it, “Mean Girls,” crystallized in popular culture the notion of girls who bully and are bullied. Wiseman, the mother of two sons, ages 7 and 9, lives in the Washington, D.C. area.
Rosalind Wiseman’s bestseller Queen Bees and Wannabes struck a raw nerve with parents around the country when it first came out seven years ago. Wiseman’s frank discussion of Girl World opened up what had been a hidden topic-how girls use social status as a kind of weapon as they build friendships throughout adolescence. The book also inspired the 2004 movie, which had a happy ending when all the previously mean girls turned almost nice.
If you don’t live in Indiana, chances are good that you missed Rosalind’s interview last week with the Indiana Youth Institute’s Kids Count Radio Show. Rosalind was a guest along with Sarah Ketterer, the program coordinator at the Clarian Bullying Prevention Program.
Digital puberty: It might not be in the dictionary yet, but its effects are being discussed by teachers, social psychologists and cultural anthropologists plotting out the pitfalls, mapping the maneuvering, of this bold new world where teens grow up — and strive and stumble. It’s all being played out on a digital stage these days. It’s this cyber-hangout — always on, ever-connected, texting and instant messaging, plugged into one social network or another — where teens and preteens now gossip and flirt. It’s where they break up and make up. Post pictures of where they all hung out the night before.