What NOT to Say to a Teen Girl on Thanksgiving
What NOT to Say to a Teen Girl on Thanksgiving
As the mother of two teenage daughters, I’ve struggled through a few holiday dinners that began as fun and festive and quickly turned awkward and painful. I’ve watched older family members start off with what they thought was good-natured teasing and seen one teenager or another grow more sullen and unresponsive as the meal went on. It is possible to see them literally shrink in their chairs as other family members pile on because, let’s face it, teens are an easy target. They get defensive, feel misunderstood most of the time, and have relatively little power in the family hierarchy.
Unfortunately, one such meal can set the tone for an entire holiday weekend and virtually ensure that you’ll be met with a cold shoulder or distant politeness or, worse, eye rolls and open hostility. If you want to make a real connection with the teenage girl in your life this holiday, here are a few tips from a mother who has soothed her daughters’ hurt feelings more times than she cares to count.
1. Don’t assume that just because your niece/granddaughter/friend is a teenage girl, she is interested in watching your children for hours on end while you go drink wine with the rest of the family and get a break. She may well enjoy spending time with your toddlers playing games, coloring and watching Frozen for the 437th time, but she also enjoys being part of the adult conversations going on. That’s how she learns to interact with adults—and her opinions are important for the adults in the group to hear as well.
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3. Please don’t ask her if she has a boyfriend, especially if you do it with a certain tone of voice or a wink and a smile. Again, if she wants to talk about her love life, she will bring it up on her own. Intimating that you are truly interested in this aspect of her life will either feel incredibly personal and a little too familiar (even creepy), or it will put her on the defensive and lead her to wonder whether you’ll follow up by telling her she’s too young to be in a serious relationship.
4. Don’t comment on her wardrobe or physical appearance before you ask her how she is or tell her it’s good to see her again. In fact, unless she has a new haircut (or hair color) or a pair of boots you want to try on because they are so awesome, it might be wise to abstain from talking about her physical appearance at all. Girls get plenty of reinforcement from the world at large about the importance of their looks. If you want to connect with her on a personal level, it would be really great to talk about who she is and what her interests are, instead.
5. Don’t comment on her plate. Don’t point out that she is eating mostly carbs or five desserts or avoiding the greens like the plague. Again, teenage girls are so conditioned to think about food that spending a holiday with people who love them ought to be devoid of any of that nonsense. Trust me, anything you say will only make her feel bad about herself.
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http://msmagazine.com/blog/2015/11/25/what-not-to-say-to-a-teen-girl-on-thanksgiving/
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