Michael Carr-Gregg - Princess Bitchface Syndrome

THE PRINCESS BITCHFACE SYNDROME, sURVIVING ADOLESCENT GIRLS

MICHAEL CARR-GREGG

Planet Girl is in crisis.

In this hard-hitting book, Michael Carr-Gregg focuses on the special trials of raising adolescent girls today: what to do when your previously quiet, loving daughter becomes a restless, rebellious stranger who behaves like a responsible adult one day and a vampish brat the next.

Part of the problem is that girls are becoming sexualised earlier, and their physical development is shooting ahead of their cognitive capacities. By the time they turn 13 they look like theyre ready for anything - but theyre not. Yet, argues Carr-Gregg, many parents are surrendering their authority and allowing their daughters to be fast-tracked into pseudo-adulthood. We appear to be losing it when it comes to parenting our girls and its time to grab back the reins.

This book is a must-read for every parent with an adolescent daughter.

ISBN 978-0-14-300466-0

Parenting/Self-help

Penguin Books

Princess Bitchface

Dr Michael Carr-Gregg is one of Australias leading authorities on teenage behaviour, and as a practising psychologist specialises in the area of parenting adolescents and adolescent mental health. He was founder of the worlds first national support group for teenage cancer patients, CanTeen (The Australian Organisation for Young People Living with Cancer). He is the consultant psychologist to many schools and national organisations, an official ambassador for the federal governments youth suicide prevention programs beyondblue and MindMatters, and has been the resident parenting expert on Channel 7s Sunrise program since 2005. He has written several books on parenting adolescents, including the popular book Surviving Adolescents, and is a columnist for Girlfriend and Explode magazines. He has won many awards for his work.

THE Princess Bitchface SYNDROME

Surviving adolescent girls

Michael Carr-Gregg Illustrations by Ron Tandberg

Penguin Books

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (Australia) 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Ply Ltd) Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada) 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Canada ON M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL England Penguin Ireland 25 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ) 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books South Africa) (Pty) Ltd 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, England First published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2006

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Text copyright Michael Carr-Gregg 2006 Illustrations copyright Ron Tandberg 2006

The moral right of the author has been asserted

AH rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Design by Karen Trump Penguin Group (Australia) Illustrations by Ron Tandberg Typeset in Simoncini Garamond by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane, Queensland Printed and bound in Australia by McPhersons Printing Group, Maryborough, Victoria

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Carr-Gregg, Michael. The princess bitchface syndrome: surviving adolescent girls. Includes index. ISBN 978 0 14 300466 0. 1. Teenage girls. 2. Parent and teenager. 3. Adolescent psychology. I. Title.

305.235

penguin.com.au

To Therese

Mother Nature is providential. She gives us twelve years to develop a love for our children before turning them into teenagers. William Galvin

The two worst years of a womans life are the year she is 13 and the year her daughter is. Nell Minow

Contents

A mothers story viii

Chapter 1: A crash course in developmental psychology Chapter 2: Times have changed 31 Chapter 3: Enter Princess Bitchface 45 Chapter 4: Some parenting principles 75 Chapter 5: Tried-and-true strategies 93 Chapter 6: Keeping her safe 111

Conclusion: The fairytale ending 131 Alcohol and drugs: How much do you know? 133 Resources 145 Index 161

A mothers story viii

I think I would call her the stranger who arrived to replace the other person we knew - we now have the both of them living with us in one person happily. Her key characteristics were an absolute will of iron, able to undertake secret missions, able to self-destruct at a moments notice, moods like Melbournes weather, able to home in on my own concerns about my parenting, use my own words and display any number of my own characteristics. I was her main target and she would hurt me terribly, mostly deliberately, and sometimes inadvertently. Her aim was to be her own person in any way she wanted, regardless. The air was fraught with enormous emotional storms. She was thoughtless about the effort people put in, and her own worst enemy in terms of not doing what would seem to be a good idea. Opposition was at all costs until we were all exhausted, but 1 had no idea what she would do next - just the opposite of anything we came up with. This daughter was delineating herself almost desperately and I think she was also confused. She would remain

ix

loving when the storm blew through, and meant well. I think she was frightened by the world and her own power. She was confounded by and resented her sisters time of strife later which incidentally was nowhere near as difficult for me - it was more of a passive resistance and the argument was between the sisters. I had given up resisting and suggesting, something I had learnt from the earlier experience. I also sympathised with both, but did not comment on either party. It was eight years of hell and even writing about it now I find that we remember events differently - it is as if they were different incidents or times for both of us. I think moving house, spending too much time at work and having my elderly parents (who were ill at times) in the house made it harder for all the family. However, she fought with Grandma too on one occasion and I remember being between the two of them while they were arguing, and hearing myself from two eras thinking in support of one, Good point; and then supporting the other - thinking, Yes, thats true, too. It was like two parts of me, or two voices I could relate to.

ITS NOT EASY TRYING TO RUN A HOUSE

Many people picking up this book for the first time might find its title distasteful. So I feel the need to explain where it came from - an experience recounted to me by a 30-something friend of mine called Nikki, who was enjoying a fairly robust relationship with her teenage daughter. Nikki was particularly envious of a friend who insisted on waxing lyrical about how quiet, helpful and studious her own adolescent was. Then one day Nikki attended a school morning tea and, with a slightly heavy heart expecting the usual rant, ambled over to the mother of this paragon of virtues and asked politely how her daughter was. Nikki was more than a little surprised at the response: You mean Princess Bitchface? Clearly, the puberty fairy had arrived and left a very special type of teenager under this parents pillow Of course, there are plenty of teenage girls who rise early, shower and get ready for the day without being disagreeable. But listen to parents and teachers, as I do on a regular basis, and you would have to agree that there are indisputably some girls whose behaviour