Table of Contents
PRAISE FORGIRLS ON THE EDGE
Dr. Sax once again combines years of experience with compelling research and common sense to intelligently challenge the status quo of what it means to raise a healthy daughter. Girls on the Edge offers skills parents can incorporate to feel more competent with our girls and young women.
Florence Hilliard, Director of the Gender Studies Project,
University of WisconsinMadison
The best book about the current state of girls and young women in America.
Caitlin Flanagan, The Atlantic
Fortunately, [Leonard] Sax is up to more here than pronouncing young women irrevocably doomed.... Girls on the Edge doesnt dramatize the self-destructive behavior it describes.... [and it] speaks exclusively to parents and offers concrete ways to help their daughters cultivate stronger personal identities.
Slate.com/DoubleX
The world is way different from what it was a couple of years ago; this is essential reading for parents and teachers, and one of the most thought-provoking books on teen development available.
Library Journal
In clear, accessible language, Sax deftly blends anecdotes, clinical research, and even lines of poetry in persuasive, often fascinating chapters that speak straight to parents.... Warning that a 1980s solution wont help solve twenty-first-century problems, Sax offers a holistic, sobering call to help the current generation of young women develop the support and sense of self that will allow them to grow into resilient adults.
Booklist
Turn off your cell phones and computers, and read this book! You will connect with your daughter in new ways, and she will thank you.
Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, author of
Gods Paintbrush and In Gods Name
Written through real stories and supported by strong evidence in the fields of education, psychology, and the sciencesa MUST read.
Margaret M. Ferrara, PhD, editor of Advances
in Gender and Education (AGE),
Associate Professor, University of Nevada-Reno
Leonard Sax brings together a rare combination of psychoanalytic training with a deep empathy for girls and their stories in this important book. His argument that girls are struggling to find their centers will resonate and his recommendations for how to locate them will inspire.
Courtney E. Martin, author of
Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters
Dr. Saxs deep commitment to girls developing a positive sense of self is woven into the fabric of this book. Girls on the Edge is a must read for every parent of a girl as well as for every adult who teaches girls.
Dr. Mary Seppala, Head of School,
The Agnes Irwin School, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
I made Girls on the Edge required reading for all administrators at Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart, and I strongly recommend the book to all of our parents. Leonard Sax explains to parents and educators of girls just what is going on in the cyberbubble of instant messaging, texting, and social networking sites. There is a way to help girls navigate this world and find their centerscenters of genuine humanness and authenticity and, yes, spirituality. Readers will find out much they dont know, and that is more than they might guess. A must read.
Gerald J. Grossman, Head of School, Woodlands Academy
of the Sacred Heart, Lake Forest, Illinois
Leonard Sax sounds a crucial warning to parents of teenage girls. No matter how attentive and savvy you are, the lives of girls today are like nothing you ever knew. The obsessions are worse, nastiness is rampant (especially on the Web), drinking is up, and sexuality keeps creeping down the age ladder. Girls need girl-specific interventions, Sax insists, and Girls on the Edge explains whyand also how to do it.
Mark Bauerlein, PhD, Professor, Emory University
Also by Leonard Sax
Boys Adrift
Why Gender Matters
For my wife, Katie, and my daughter, Sarah
Dig into yourself...
Go into yourself and find out how deep is the place from which your life springs;
at its source you will find the answer to your question...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
INTRODUCTION
three girls
emily
When Emily was 5 years old, she brought two lifelike miniature gorilla dolls, one big and one small, to kindergarten for show and tell. She used the dolls to explain dominance hierarchies to the other children using terms like alpha male and dominant. Each succeeding year, she was always anxious the first few weeks of school. I have to make sure the teacher knows Im smart. Its hard to change first impressions if you say something dumb the first week, she told her Mom when she was in fifth grade. She need not have worried. Emily seldom said anything dumb. The teachers were quick to recognize that Emily was, indeed, the smart one.
Her dream was to be accepted at an Ivy League school, preferably Princeton. Everybody talks about Harvard, but Princeton is actually more selective, she told her Momin ninth grade. Three years later, she was crushed when she was rejected by both Harvard and Princeton. Thats when her sense of self began to crumble.
She was accepted at the University of Pennsylvania. She expected that she would be the smartest kid there. But she wasnt, not even close. She found herself struggling just to pass her courses. And thats when the bottom fell out.
melissa
Melissa and Jessica were best friends from way back in kindergarten. We were like clones, Melissa told me. The two girls liked to wear the same clothes; they read the same books and went wild over the same movies. We could read each others minds.
For eight yearsfrom the spring of their kindergarten year right through eighth gradethe girls shared a unique bond. Then in ninth grade, everything changed. Jessica suddenly turned on Melissa. Jessica invited everyone to a partybut not Melissa. Jessica told all her friends not to sit with Melissa at lunch, and to ignore Melissa if she approached. Jessica managed to get the other girls to deploy the full silent treatment. All of a sudden, I was invisible, Melissa told me.
It really became nasty when Jessica and her co-conspirators began using instant messaging, texting, and social networking sites to harass Melissa 24/7. It was awful, Melissa said. I didnt want to turn on my computer or my cell phone. I didnt want to see what they were saying about me. I seriously wished I could just die.
madison
Madisons dream was to be Americas Next Top Model. From her ninth birthday until around 13 years of age, Madison was the prettiest girl, and she knew it.
Then something happened with her hormones and the acne came out. Madisons parents told her to be patient and the acne would go away, but it didnt. It got worse. At Madisons request, they went to their family doctor, who prescribed minocycline, but that didnt help. They went to the dermatologist, who wanted to prescribe Accutane. Madisons parents read about the risks of Accutane causing suicidal depression and birth defects. They told Madison absolutely not. A major battle ensued.
Thats also when her weight became a problem. At 53 tall, she went from 97 pounds to 124 pounds between her 13th and 14th birthdays. She was no longer the cute slender girl with perfect skin. Who was she? She no longer knew. She struggled with clinical depression. So her parents brought her to see me. I prescribed Lexapro, which helped, but caused even more weight gain, so I switched her to Adderall.
