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Loading...Teen Talks of Becoming a “Real Girl”
Care2 Editor’s Note: This past week Care2′s Robin Marty wrote about the Girls Leadership Institute, or GLI. GLI is a summer camp in Massachusetts with a twist. It’s run by Rachel Simmons, author of Odd Girl Out and rather than sports and arts and crafts, GLI focuses on building girls’ self-esteem. We are asking some girls what they think about the issues Rachel raises including self-esteem, bullying, and just plain old coping with being a tween or teen girl. Here’s our first guest post, by 14-year-old Molly Kaissar, a 9th grader from New York City who attended GLI this summer.
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When I walked into the Girls Leadership Institute, I didn’t know what to expect. I was nervous that it would be somewhat similar to a group therapy session, because who’s heard of a camp devoted to “getting along” skills? Once I met Rachel Simmons, I learned that it wasn’t about sharing my feelings with other girls “just like me”, rather, to learn how to share my feelings with others in all sorts of situations.
A few days into the program, I found myself sitting in a room with about 20 girls learning about how to deal with wannabees, frenemies, and bullies. Now, I know that almost every girl has had a talk about how to cope and even evade these “mean girls,” who would do anything to be on top of the Middle and High School food chains.
But at GLI, I was able to look past avoiding the age-old social pyramid and go straight to building my own. We discussed the qualities we found in the media’s stereotype of the “good girl” and the “bad girl,” taking the best qualities from both to make the “real girl.” Then, we committed to trying to live our own lives as “real girls” from now on.
The biggest skill building exercise that we worked on dealt with conflict resolution. As practice, we took our newly found skills and used examples from our day-to-day lives to see how they would help if the same situation were to arise again.
By the time I left GLI, I transformed into a real girl with confidence and resolving life skills for the future.
Read more: bullying, girls leadership institute, gli, odd girl out, rachel simmons, self esteem, womens rights
Photo courtesy of the Kaissar family
by Molly Kaissar, age 14
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.
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68 comments
+ add your ownnot only do we need more programs like this we need ones tailored to boths and lgbt children as well imho
It is great to hear this is back in my home state. This is exactly what I am going to school to do. I want the programs to be more mainstream all yr but this is a great start.
Teens have a hard time!
Period!
This applies equally to boys and girls.
Anything that is being done to better their self-esteem is absolutely wonderful.
Go for it, boys and girls!
You go girl
GREAT idea!
Good stuff
Cool! Great job on making a positive difference!
I could have used one of these groups back in 1972! I went thru teen years all by myself, sigh... Glad to know there are FINALLY people out there who get that being a teen girl is rough and help is needed! Way to go Molly, you are very articulate and I forsee you becoming a very formidable woman!
There's a lot of LGBT orgs. out there that working with schools to stop all bullying. Don't want to work with one of them, Then find another Org. and help out there. The bullying of all kinds in school needs to stop and you can help.
I agree, this should be a manditory centerpiece of NCLB.
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