When is it OK for girls to be mean? When standards are on the line

Raising three teenage daughters is no picnic, but has, on occasion, been a feast of opportunities to grow, stretch and parent much differently than we planned.

When our girls were young, school was a breeze and they had few academic challenges. So my husband and I often spent parent-teacher conferences asking about their social skills.

“Is she nice to other kids in your class?”

“Are there opportunities for her to help other students?”

“Is there a child we can encourage our daughter to befriend?”

One day, a first-grade teacher answered much differently than we expected. She described our daughter as a bully, and we were shocked. Apparently because she and another little girl both owned an identical shirt, they started planning which days to match and formed a rudimentary clique.

On the days they dressed the same, they wanted to stand in line together, eat lunch together and not play with anyone else. The teacher said their behavior was having an adverse effect on her classroom and so we took the opportunity to teach on the topic.

However, it wasn’t the last time we were told our daughters were mean girls. Sometimes it was hard to curb, like the day a neighbor complained that our daughter reprimanded her daughter for wearing a tank top and being immodest. Or another mom who sent me a scathing email because our daughters chastised her daughter for missing church to go skiing.

Again, more opportunities to teach about kindness, charity and sharing gospel principles with love.

But as teenagers, now the stakes are much higher and it’s important for them to be strong without degrading others, firm in their standards without judging too harshly and, on occasion, to be mean in order to halt rumors and gossip.

Unfortunately, opportunities for teen confrontation have risen exponentially because cat fights don’t end once the school bell rings. They are carried home through personal phones, texts and Facebook dialogue. Even innocent comments can be construed to be mean when they are posted rather than spoken. Sarcasm, dry humor and teasing don’t translate through the screen and sometimes teens learn that lesson the hard way.