There's no question that aggression can be learned through modeling. When a child sees her parent behave in a particular way, she may be tempted or even rewarded for being that way.
When I was 24, I won a Rhodes Scholarship.
My experience is that aggression is a universal trait in human beings - girls feel it in any sort of environment, same-sex or co-ed.
I've spent years in therapy excavating my endless, often fruitless drive to overachieve. I have learned that being successful hasn't made me happy. It's just made me successful. I even call myself a recovering overachiever.
The Internet foments outrageous behavior in part because it is a 'gray area' for social interactions.
If you want to stand with me as a single mom - and I know so many of my friends and colleagues do - please don't appropriate my burden as a way to validate your own. To suggest that you are single-parenting when you are simply solo for the weekend devalues what real single mothers do.
Isn't prom just a fun dance that hardworking students deserve? Sure, but it's also an event where girls internalize damaging cultural messages.
Somebody once told me I treated my smart phone like Wilson, the volleyball Tom Hanks turns into a friend when he's stranded on a desert island in that movie 'Castaway.' It's an apt comparison: parenting a toddler occasionally feels like being marooned, and your phone is your only connection to the rest of the world.
Small changes lead to big ones. But big changes - trying to become a different person overnight - usually lead to defeat.
As parents, we must be mindful that our actions are matching our words.
You might be thinking that some people are just naturally good at speaking up, and others just aren't - game over. Not true. Speaking up is a skill that you have to learn like any other, whether it's speaking Spanish or doing calculus or changing a tire.
Failing well is a skill. Letting girls do it gives them critical practice coping with a negative experience. It also gives them the opportunity to develop a kind of confidence and resilience that can only be forged in times of challenge.
I realized that I wanted a Rhodes Scholarship, not because I wanted to go to graduate school but because I wanted to win a famous award. Quitting forced me to realize I was on the wrong track and that I had lost touch with who I was and what I cared about.
If parents shield their children from real feelings, kids falsely imagine their parents are in constant control of themselves - and may try to emulate them.
Most parents would not hesitate to assume responsibility for their child's behavior on a playground, at school, or in someone else's home. What happens online should be no different. Parents should talk with their children about computer ethics, stipulate rules of conduct, and - most importantly - establish consequences.
Reacting to every slight or letdown is neither realistic nor fair; it sends the message that we expect the other person to be flawless in relationship. But no one is perfect, and no one relationship can ever meet all our needs.
Secrecy is hardly new on Planet Girl: as many an eye-rolling boy will tell you, girls excel at eluding the prying questions of grown ups. And who can blame them? From an early age, young women learn that to be a 'good girl,' they must be nice, avoid conflict, and make friends with everyone.
Silence is deeply woven into the fabric of female experience.
A girl's social networking profile is a persona she constructs, a photoshopped billboard on the information superhighway. It also offers a salve for the anxiety so many girls feel about relationships, providing the answers to burning social questions like, What do other people think of me? Do people like me? Am I normal? Am I popular? Am I cool?
Girls may love movies about fairytale princes, but their most captivating romance is with their friends.
