Nothing to poop about!!!

I have been awfully quiet, I know, but that is a good thing, believe me. I have started the blog to rant and rave about teenage cliques etc., but for the past 9 months, those problems has been blissfully absent from my life!

My dearest eldest daughter, who has turned 15 in the mean time, has moved out of the clique last year and what a change. She is now part of a less 'popular' group and so happy.

My youngest, nearly 13, has started high school and is still very happily part of her old friendship group that was formed in primary school. A group of mainly 3 very quiet girls, who tend to gather other girls around them.

I guess I need to find something else to complain about!

Queen Bees & Wannabes

What an excellent book!!! I can advise anyone with a teenage or pre-teenage girl to read this. Thank you so much Rosalind Wiseman, you are indeed a wise woman!

You probably know by now that I have been going through a fair bit of ups and downs with my 14 year old. I was down more than her :-) I always thought that she must be on the right track, but doubted myself every now and again. Now I can stop worrying about her always being on the fringes of some or other group. It is actually good to be like that - hooray :-).

Rosalind sums it up like this: "Group cohesion is based on unquestioned loyalty to the leaders and an us-versus-the world mentality". You see, that is the one simple reason why my girl is never part of the clique - she doesn't have unquestioned loyalty to the leaders and will not defend them against the world when they are in the wrong.

Rosalind's description of the different roles of girls in a clique is so spot-on , it is amasing. This is how she describes the different roles and I will quote the ones applicable to my daughter's group:

1. Queen Bee - The girl whose popularity is based on fear and control. She reigns supreme over the other girls and weakens their friendships with others, thereby strenghtening her own power and influence. She carries on describing traits of such a girl with dot points and every single dot point is applicable to the Queen Bee in my daughter's group.
2. Sidekick - The girls who is closest to the Queen Bee and follows her in everything. The difference between the two is that if you seperate the two, the Sidekick can alter her behaviour for the better, while the Queen Bee would find another Sidekick and begin again. The Sidekick in my daughter's group is the sweetest girl. She has even been with us on a family outing, but me daughter was asked to keep this quiet, because she doesn't want the Queen Bee to hear about it - she will be in trouble for doing something without the Queen Bee.
3. Torn Bystander - She's constantly conflicted between doing the right thing and her allegiance to the clique. She's honest enough with herself to know that she doesn't like what the Queen Bee does, but feels powerless to stop it. This is absolutely the description of my daughter closest friend in the group. This girl has another problem which contributes to her being the Torn Bystander. Their family is very close friends with the Queen Bee's family.
4. Pleaser/Wannabe/Messenger - When there is a fight between two girls or two groups of girls, she often serves as go-between. Her status immediately rises when she's in active duty as a Messenger. This girl in my daughter's group went through a whole list (made up by Queen Bee) of things my daughter are doing wrong. The items on the list were all things to do with my daughter not having "unquestioned loyalty to the leaders ". Hilarious in hindsight.
5. Floater - She has friends in different groups. She usually has protective characteristics that shield her from other girls' cruelty - for example, she's beautiful but not too beautiful, nice, not terribly sophisticated and avoids conflict. She's more likely to have higher self-esteem because she doesn't base her self-worth on how well she's accepted by one group. She'll be less likely to sacrifice herself to gain and keep social status. A perfect description of my daughter.

The knowledge I have gained through this book will give me the power to handle all these situations a little bit better, I hope. I know now that I was overly worried because I thought that she was the only girl in the world who doesn't seem to always belong. I have always told her that the Queen Bee was the one with the problem, but I have also always wrongly encouraged her to make a little more effort to stay with the group. She always seems to be happy to drift between groups and I thought that it was abnormal, but it's not! That is just who she is! I didn't like her attitude of "I can't be bothered to get involved in their fights - it's not worth it". Now I know she's right :-)

I am also using the book to show her why her friends are doing what they are doing. For example why her closest friend (the Torn Bystander) is not defending her in front of the others. She can now understand why some girls in the group trust only her with things like the codes to the combination locks on their lockers - when one is sick she will be the one asked to get books out and bring them home to the sick one - but yet again don't defend her when she is 'in trouble' with the Queen Bee.

I also realise now that I have to encourage her to do whatever feels right to her - her judgement is obviously better than mine in this scenario. Hallelujah!

Teenage girls...AGAIN!!!!

Yeah, well, this is probably what my life will be about for the next... hmmm.... 8 years :-( . Had our 'parent-teacher' interviews last night............. Now see, again, I don't have the standard problems that most mum's of teenage girls struggle with..... NO, I have a child (let's call her C) whom the teachers adore and who is easygoing, but who is disliked by the Queen Bee in class. How do you explain to a teacher that no intervention from them will make it better, it will probably only worsen the situation. Up to now, the teachers haven't been informed of the situation, but they have picked up on it over the past couple of months.

Now this little miss Queen Bee's mum is absolutely over the moon because her high maintenance daughter is suddenly friends with the 'good girls' in class, which is causing me, mum of one of the 'good girls' , sleepless nights. She has joined the group about 4 months ago.

So "what exactly is happening?", you may ask. Well, little miss Queen Bee wants to rule the world, so she has given C a set of rules to adhere to and certain things she needs to change about herself..... or else, sorry you're not good enough for me and the group you've been in for 3 years. It is soooooo stupid and trivial that my 14 year old (and her 12 year old sister) is laughing about it. It is all about C not 'serving' and 'worshipping' the Queen Bee - not that she called it that, but that is exactly what it is.

What are the other 'good girls' doing? They are too scared to be left out of the group, so they ignore it most of the times, instead of speaking up and defending her.

Two of the teachers have started to realize that something is going on which is making C uncomfortable in class. So, last night they wanted to know from me why C has stopped contributing to class discussions. I had to tell them that she is being ostracized by the Queen Bee and that she is feeling very vulnerable in class. If she does speak up in class, Queen Bee's eyes roll heavenwards and C has to explain yet again after class why she is 'up herself'. So C has decided to take the easy way out - she keeps her mouth shut, but the teachers don't like it AT ALL.

So there I was last night, trying to explain to them that there is no easy solution to the problem, but they want to solve this, because it is influencing C's contribution to class. Little miss Queen Bee is obviously well known throughout the school, for all the wrong reasons! Their Maths and Science teacher even told me that she has told the Queen Bee's mum that even though Queen Bee is now friends with the 'good girls' , it hasn't rubbed off on her yet :-) There is obviously huge problems in Queen Bee's life and I am just glad that I am not her mum!

They are going to talk to C today to see if they can teach her to use 'one liners' in situations concerning Queen Bee. I just don't know if my daughter will do it, because she sticks to the fact that she feels that it is not worth it to get involved in a confrontation that is leading nowhere. Even though C is very, very strong and not influenced by the situation other than keeping her mouth shut in class, teachers feel that they can still teach her how to put Queen Bee back between the worker bees.

Oh, my goodness, they are going to stick their hands in a beehive today.....

I'm back!

Phew, that was a looong break! It's not because my life is just perfect and me not having anything to complain about! It's that I don't know where to start!

It is suppose to be spring here in my little corner of the world, but I am not so sure about that. In Africa, where I grew up, we have about 3 days of spring and then it is SUMMER. Not here, oh no, we have to go through the full 3 months of spring, which to me still feels like winter :-( It takes forever to have beach weather. On the other hand, I still want to go to the mountains for a bit of tobogganing before summer is here. But being from Africa, we keep on waiting for the perfect day to go to the snow. We don't want rain, hail, snow or wind when we go - no way, it's too cold and wet then. The only sunny days we had so far this winter, was in the middle of the week. So, here we are, still waiting for a sunny Sunday.

So now for our relatively quiet weekend schedule (this is REALLY a very relaxed weekend compared to most of our others). It makes me realize what a wonderful social life the girls have and what a crappy one I have!

Friday 5 September
3:30pm	Pick both girls up from two different schools
7:00pm	Drop both girls off at Youth Group activities - an all nighter this time
10:00pm	Pick girl no.2 up from Youth Group activities - she doesn't want to stay the night

Saturday 6 September
8:10am	Take girl no.1 to basketball game
8:30am	Pick girl no.1 up from Youth Group activities (after the all nighter)
11:00am	Take girl no.2 to the basketball game of the team she's coaching
1:00pm	Pick a friend of girl no.1 up from tennis, because she's staying the night - parents away
??pm	Take girl no.1 to her basketball game
??pm	Take girl no.1 and her stay-over friend bikini shopping - another depressing thing, because I can't wear one!
11:30pm	Anticipating:Yelling at the girls because they don't want to quiet down.

Now, Sunday is still a mystery to me. If it is not raining, snowing or windy, we'll go for a visit to the snow. Otherwise it is church in the morning. Whatever we do on Sunday we HAVE TO BE BACK AT 5pm, because girl no.1 and her stay-over friend has a small group get together at church... which finishes at 8:15pm... another pickup to do.

Well, that's it for the weekend. Tonight we're off to an information night at school to help with the subject choices for year 10, but more about that later in the week.

Stuck up people

Now I have had it!!!!!! What is it with my fellow "country of birth" migrants? There is absolutely no other group of immigrants who are as stuck up as you lot are!!!

Goodness me! This is the normal conversation pattern whenever you meet one of THEM for the first time... They start off with a series of standard questions:

1. In which suburb do you live?...... that is to determine the possible price range of your house
2. Do you rent or have you bought?....ok , so you live in the right suburb, but did you actually buy the house?
   
3. Which school does your child attend?.... can you afford a private school or do you go public?
   
4. What does your husband do?... ok, so where do you fit on the social ladder of society?
   

And then, if your car is not visible, they will eventually steer the conversation to try and find out what type of car you drive and boy oh boy if it's not a 4x4, you fall right off the ladder!

Because, you see, Australia is not a country where people care a lot about the cars their neighbours' drive, the size of their neighbours' houses, or their job titles which then means that the only other people these poor idiots can compete with, are their fellow country of birth migrants.

So if you were wondering why I mostly avoid you, this is the reason why!

Birthday Blues

So here we go again, time for my yearly "3 days of depression", because the birthday is here. NOT because I am getting older - can't be bothered about that - because I MISS MY FAMILY!!!!!

Every year I go through the same thing. My little one is turning 12 today and her birthday signals the start of my big sulk. Then in 2 days time it is the birth date of my dad , my sister (7 years younger than me) and me. How's that for good planning on mum and dad's side?

They couldn't have guessed at the time that I would be living half a world apart from them in 36 years time. So, for the first 36 years of my life, I was with them on every single one of my birthdays. Even though I have been without them for the last 5 birthdays, it still gets to me. There is no other time or place in my life where I miss them more, than on these few days every year. No matter what I do, or were I am, I feel this big hole in my life and I sulk about all the other things I have to do without.

One of the biggest issues we are facing, is having no extended family near us. The quickest we can get to them is on a 15 hour flight! The kids are growing up without grandparents, without cousins, without aunties and uncles. Even though we see them about once every two years, the bonds have been broken. The kids don't know what they're missing, so they don't even think about it, but I DO!

I love life in our new country and we are safe, the kids have a bright future ahead of them and they will create a new extended family for us in years to come, but I am soooo sad about the things we all miss out on.

Every year I get this angry feeling about the fact that I feel almost driven out of my country of birth. I know we made the choice, and it was the right one for us, but still, if things were different we wouldn't have had to make that choice in the first place! Well, I guess I'll get over this one too.

Teenage girls

How awfully hard it is to sometimes be the mother of a teenage girl.... We've put the boyfriend crisis behind is, just to stumble into another one. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

I have never even considered going on a parenting course, but I am starting to have serious thoughts about that one. I really, really don't need to get tips on how to handle my own 14 year old, but ....

I NEED TO HAVE A QUICK COURSE ON HOW TO HANDLE OTHER MUMS' TEENAGE GIRLS BEFORE I DO SOMETHING IRRESPONSIBLE

This is my easy-going 14 year old girl in a nutshell:

• No slamming of door's ever, and I mean EVER.
  
• No sulking, EVER
• Very happy-go-lucky and easy to get along with
  
• One day PMS every month, which results in her being less chatty and that is ALL
  
• Loves people and makes friends wherever she goes
  

But she has apparently one big flaw...... she doesn't want to get involved in bitchy cat fights between friends. Obviously got some of my genes.... the ones causing me to avoid confrontation.... well that's her... she walks away.

So, while the bitchiness and gossiping is going on, she leaves the group and walks away. Now everyone is fine with that while the fight is on, but as soon as the fight is over, they need something to occupy themselves with, so what do some of them do... turn on her ... because she didn't take sides in the fight.... Oh my goodness... Now it's all about her not contributing to the group.

And all she keeps on saying to me is: "Mum, why are girls so complicated? Boys are so much easier to get along with!" Well, you see, that is exactly why we had the boyfriend issue. Madam realized that it was much easier with a boy as a best friend, but didn't realize how hard it was going to be to keep it from growing into something other than friendship

What advice do I need to give her? I can't tell her to get involved, because, she is actually acting mature by not getting involved, because it is usually about some or other trivial issue not worth getting involved in in the first place. I can't tell her to leave the group, because there are some very nice girls in the group with whom she really are good friends.

It is as if my girl and I are both living in a world we sometimes don't understand.... A lot of the times, I avoid friendship with certain ladies, because of all the emotional stuff I just don't get. And I don't mean straight forward issues and hang ups, I mean the extreme sensitivity of some women. I do things wrong, without even noticing. But, it is easy for me, I don't need to be part of a group, and I can choose who I want to be friends with, but not her. The whole social scene at school is group orientated, and even if she doesn't need a group (which she doesn't), she has to be part of one to survive high school. Don't get me wrong, she operates well within a group, as long as she is allowed to not always get involved, which se isn't :-(

I just hope that things will get easier as all the girls mature and grow up. This mum is just not equipped to handle these situations, because quite frankly, this mum doesn't GET IT.