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Nasty Girls
Nipping Gossip in the Bud
By Laura Paul
If your daughter is over the age of a fetus, she has probably gossiped. When your daughter says she was humiliated by gossip at school, don't blow it off by saying it's no big deal and people will forget about it by tomorrow. Experts say teenagers live as though there is no tomorrow and need your empathy when they are hurting.
Kelly Kent* of Lutz, Fla., says gossiping is something girls do without realizing the damage they cause by hurting another's reputation. Her daughter, Amy*, has been a hardworking student focused on academics and an after-school job. However, even the most outstanding teenagers gossip on occasion.
"One time by accident, she left the computer on, and I saw they were gossiping," Kent says. "I was disappointed to see she participated."
Kent wishes, as a parent, she knew what to do to discourage her daughter from gossiping. "I've seen her have really good friends one year and then the next year they aren't even talking to each other," she says. "I have a feeling things were said, and they don't even know what kind of gossip was passed around."
What can you do if your teenager is the ringleader of a clique of chicks who gossip? Rosalind Wiseman of Washington, D.C., the author of the New York Times bestseller Quee n Bees and Wannabees: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends and Other Realities of Adolescence (Three Rivers Press, March 2003), says parents first need to admit that 99.9 percent of people gossip. She says it is not a reflection of poor parenting to admit your daughter's misbehavior.
Wiseman has appeared twice on The Oprah Show to talk about teens and cliques. She says parents need to face reality even if they don't want to believe their child could be mean. "Their denial is for two reasons," Wiseman says. "No one wants to think badly of someone they love. In fact, you always want to put a positive spin on their behavior. And two, your child is a reflection of you, and as such, it is humiliating when your child acts horribly."
