Things You Learn in Therapy
Things You Learn in Therapy
Ep62: Empowering Teen Girls: Navigating Body Image, Emotional Health, and Fashion Trends
Have you ever caught yourself wondering how societal beauty standards affect your daughter's perception of herself? How can we foster open conversations about self-esteem and body image? This episode features teen life coach and advocate Barb, who has been helping girls navigate these challenges since her early adult years. We delve into these questions, discussing the societal pressures women and girls face and how they influence our sense of self.
We then turn our attention to the complex relationship between food and emotions. Barb provides insight into the adolescent brain and how it factors into emotional coping mechanisms. We share strategies on how to support your girls through the emotional rollercoaster of adolescence, and in particular how to encourage healthier emotional coping strategies. We also discuss how to navigate those tricky conversations about body image, with Barb offering some invaluable advice on communication strategies.
We wrap up our enlightening conversation by focusing on the ins and outs of teen fashion trends and their impact on body image. Barb shares her thoughts on how to approach this tricky subject and how to celebrate our girls' bodies, regardless of size. We also explore the role of social media and its potential impact on self-esteem. Plus, Barb gives us a peek into her YouTube channel, a wonderful resource providing a safe space for girls. This is one conversation you won't want to miss.
This podcast is meant to be a resource for the general public, as well as fellow therapists/psychologists. It is NOT meant to replace the meaningful work of individual or family therapy. Please seek professional help in your area if you are struggling. #breakthestigma #makewordsmatter #thingsyoulearnintherapy #thingsyoulearnintherapypodcast
Feel free to share your thoughts at www.makewordsmatterforgood.com or email me at Beth@makewordsmatterforgood.com
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www.bethtrammell.com
Welcome back, listener. Thank you for joining today. I'm your host, dr Beth Trumont. I'm a licensed psychologist and an associate professor of psychology at Indiana University East, where I'm also the director of the Masters in Mental Health Counseling program, and I am really excited to introduce you to our guest today. And I'll tell you, one of the listeners out there recommended our guest today because they love her and they said you got to have her on the show. She does so many things. She, you know, has so many great resources, and so I reached out and, barb, you said yes to being here, and so I'm so thankful you said yes to being here. Can you introduce yourself to our listeners and then tell us one fun thing about you?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, thank you for having me A little bit about me. I am a social worker by education, used to be a therapist. Then I found the world of coaching. I've been working with teenagers since I was a teenager, in my internship at age 19 as a little social worker, and I obviously, as I was a teen girl, I love teen girls, everything about them, so I decided to dedicate my career to them as a teen life coach, and then also love being a parent coach to all the parents of these teen girls too, and I do a lot of speaking on teen girl issues as well. So that's kind of me in a nutshell.
Speaker 2:And then one fun thing about me. Well, I guess the first thing that comes to my head I don't know how fun this vote's fun for me. We just got back from Croatia. We spent two weeks in Croatia, and the reason why I found out or even decided to go to Croatia was because and please don't judge me listeners out there but instead of like I'm imagining like the 50s housewife that would have like two martinis at the end of the day to, like you know, calm down and relax after raising her rambunctious children, well, instead of having martinis, I'm a big fan of all things, reality TV, specifically Bravo. There's a show called Below Deck and that's where I discovered Croatia and that's how my family landed there and it was the best vacation ever.
Speaker 1:That is so fun. I've never been to Croatia. Yeah, it's stunning.
Speaker 2:It's gorgeous. The people are amazing, it's great when you picture Croatia.
Speaker 1:I don't even have like a picture of Croatia. Can you just like give us a mental image?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't either, until this reality TV show showed me. It's over a thousand islands, it's on the coast, it's on the Adriatic Sea, so it's directly across from Italy. It's just north of Greece, used to be part of Yugoslavia, and it's these beautiful pebble beaches and this like palaces and old stone walls, walled cities. It's this kind of weird history meets the beautiful ocean. It's gorgeous.
Speaker 1:That sounds amazing and I love that you were able to spend a little bit of extended time. Like anytime I go across the ocean, it's like you just have to have at least 10 or 12 days. It's just too much if you don't have a little bit of time there. It's true.
Speaker 2:We kind of re-soaked it in. We saw as much as we could see in two weeks.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. That is fun. I love that and I love everything. Travel and I love everything. Come back home and settle back into routine as well. So, yeah, I'm glad you're back home and are settled back in, so that's great. You are all things teen girl, parenting, teen and tween Right, so we're talking like 11. Where do you start tween?
Speaker 2:I say like 12 to 25. I coach girls ages 15 to 25, but I have two fabulous coaches on my team that coach girls 13 to 25. But really I feel like so much of the information that I'm sharing, you know, through social media and so on, really can pertain to probably girls 11 and up.
Speaker 1:You know, anytime I hear the word tween, I'm thinking of those like 11, 12ers, and then you know, teens obviously are 13 to early adulthood. But so I know you have a ton of resources. I, you know I look through your YouTube channel. You know some of your social stuff and we're going to talk about that. At the very end. We'll give people all of your handles and how they can find you.
Speaker 1:But one of the topics that I know you talk about and I think is just important that maybe we don't talk about it enough is all things body image, self-esteem, food with our young girls. So let's just talk about why it's important for us to have this conversation about food, body image, self-esteem, not just with girls, young girls but also, I mean, I think, about the number of issues I've had in my own life. Right, I'm 42 years old and I still feel like I'm looking at pictures of myself just from this past weekend and I'm like look at my arms. I mean it just feels like my whole life, barb, and I feel like I've talked about it, I've heard about it. What is happening in the world, barb?
Speaker 2:Yeah, listen, you are not alone. You are not alone, it is. I think it can be eye-opening to realize how many decades we have spent as grown women with similar thoughts that we had when we were 12, 15, 18, you know. So it is so prevalent, I would venture to say it always has done, and now it seems to be a bit more heightened, maybe more than a bit. We as women, as females, as girls, we have a lot of information coming out of us about what is considered pretty or beautiful or attractive or worthy or valuable. It can feel like a very narrow description of what is considered good enough in terms of how we look, and it's tricky because, only a certain percentage of people girls can look that way.
Speaker 2:They happen to have genes that can look like that and the rest of us do not. Yeah, there's so much to say. I guess I'll start, you know, since you've mentioned your own personal experience. When I was a teen girl I was I had two parents that were pretty naturally thin and they expected and wanted their children to be thin and attractive, and I had a different body than them and very curvy. I had, like at 12, I had a body that looked like a 35 year old, probably. So it was.
Speaker 2:I got a lot of messaging that that was not okay and a lot of messaging around food and what you should eat and you shouldn't eat, and how much you should eat, and that's. You know, put that down and Tony that and suck in your stomach when I'm taking your picture, and on and on and on, so that those messages were loud and clear. So I think, because it was so damaging to me when I was a teen, it is a hot topic for me in terms of teen girls today and wanting them not only them, but the adults in the world to be a gentler with who they are in this moment. So, for example and I even have some friends, I know I felt like this too I have a teenager. He's 18, he's a boy, though, and in middle school he went through a bit of like the chunky periods. So it's, you know, versus growing taller, he was growing a little wider, yeah. So that was triggering to me.
Speaker 2:I work with a lot of parents. That's triggering to them. They get worried, Yep, and it comes from that place of fear, right? Oh my gosh, what does this mean? Is she going to become overweight or is she going to be obese? Are people going to make fun of her? Are she going to be bullied? What does it mean? How does it reflect on me as a parent? Do people think I'm not feeding her well and we're not healthy in our family? So there's big feelings about it. And, you know, I like to suggest that in middle school and I learned the hard way can we just take a breath? Yeah, Can we just wait it out? Because they are in most cases. They are going to grow taller, things are going to change, the body's going to change, they're going to look different. So can we take a breath and just slow our roll for a minute? Let growth take care of itself.
Speaker 2:And then we talk a lot about what we say out loud to our teen girls, the comments that we make. I always think about, you know, teen girls as they're starting puberty and things are beginning to change and their body is truly out of their control. They're growing breasts, the hips are getting wider, you know, stomach is protruding more than it used to, let's say. It can be scary and nerving, uncomfortable, confusing. They don't know what's happening and they don't feel like they have any control over it. And then the adults around them begin to make comments and sometimes the adults feel like, well, my comments were really kind, they were nice, I was giving her compliments. And it doesn't feel that way to the teen girl. All these eyes on her body, it can feel like you're exposed. It can feel pretty uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:Even a positive comment, even if you're balancing a positive comment with an, you know, a critical comment, any comment about our body becomes part of that messaging. Yes, that? Oh well, if you said this was good, this was positive, based on this comment that you made, that must mean everything else is not good. Right? I'm just thinking about the way the teenage brain works. You know, they do have the cognitive ability to kind of understand that more than one thing might be true, but it's really hard to see that when you're in the moment it's really hard to understand that. So I'm just picturing all these young people who are like any comment toward my body could be part of a whole string of narratives that I've got going on in my brain.
Speaker 2:For sure they can take that one comment and run with it and really create a whole story around it that the adult did not at all intend. You know, I can think of one girl that her mom was letting her know. It was like, you know, summertime, new school year, preparing, getting new clothes, and the mom was noticing that the clothes from last year were not quite fitting, and so she said that You're you know, we need to get you some new clothes. Your clothes are too small. Now what her daughter heard was I'm fat, I've gained too much weight. You don't like how I look. I shouldn't look like that. You know, it was nothing that mom intended.
Speaker 2:So not only do we need to be so careful with our words, but we might, knowing that teen girls have this kind of consistent, insistent, loud, critical voice, yeah, yeah, we need to take extra steps to say so. I just, using that same example, I want you to. Really, I want you to hear me the only reason why your clothes are just a little bit smaller is because you've grown. You've grown taller, you're getting older. It's going to happen every year. It's an amazing thing. It's awesome You're growing and how fun we get to go buy new clothes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for some girls. Yeah, that's good, I mean, I think it's good to just be aware that something as benign as like oh, we have to go shopping, none of your clothes fit anymore. You have to explain the reason behind that, almost especially for our teens that aren't done growing and we know, as a parent, you're not done growing and so we need to start with that. That's kind of what you're saying. Right, we need to start with. This is a normal part of development. This is a normal part of what you should be doing is growing and needing new clothes every summer, probably, sis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I think we need to like take a moment and go okay, how could this possibly be construed as negative? Yeah, and how can I kind of head that off with the past?
Speaker 1:You said so many great things before and I want to kind of come back to a. You know at least one of them. So let's say I am a parent of, you know, a middle schooler who has kind of entered that little bit of a chunky stage. Right when they're, they've gained just a little bit of weight. Or you know, my child is, you know, just a little bit on the overweight side and I am nervous about it. Let's say I'm a parent and I am nervous about it, and I also know okay. So there's part one right.
Speaker 1:Part one is I'm noticing, or maybe my, my teen has said you know they're squeezing their belly, it's hanging over there short. You know they're doing all the things, right, barb. So that's part one. But the other part is, let's say we also notice that they don't eat super well. So they like junk food, like we all do, they like fast food, like we all do. But those things, you know, those foods are not necessarily helping their body right now. How do we navigate those conversations in the day to day? Here they are, they're going for the goldfish crackers again and I know they've had, you know, this or that or this already today. How can we have this conversation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really tricky, you know, as we said, each comment can be taken as a blow, and that's what we're trying to avoid, because the word that keeps coming up, you know, around this topic when I was listening to you, is shame. We so so want to be so careful to not shame our girls how they eat, what they wear, what their size is, how much they weigh. I really feel like that is a tough emotion to shake. You know, even in adulthood, I'm a big believer in the word balance. I use it a lot and I believe that balance is super healthy. So, can you know, I we talk about, I come from a school of a non-diet approach.
Speaker 2:So there's not good food and bad food. There's a live food and there's less alive food. So there's, okay, the kind of on a shelf for 20 years and look, the same Twinkies, and then there's, you know, a live food that comes from a tree or earth, and so, using language that has a little less judgment attached to it. So can we balance? If you look at your day, how about balancing it out? Or if you look at your meal, can you balance it? Okay, I want to have four Oreos. Okay, so in this meal where there's four Oreos. What else? Is there any alive food going on that you can balance it and gently sharing that, versus If it's every meal, every day and you're constantly, you know, shining a light on you.
Speaker 2:Sure you want to eat that? You sure you want that many Oreos? I don't think that's really going to help your waistline. You know summer's coming up. Whatever it is, I understand the fear and the comments that come out of our mouth is because of our own fear. So for us to project the fear onto our daughters and say you need to eat less Oreos so I can feel more comfortable, that's not a great message, right? So can we, as the adults, say how can I get more comfortable and accepting this girl as she is today, knowing that she's going to change? Maybe right now she loves Oreos and maybe when she's 30, she'll be like I don't want so many Oreos. We'll see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm learning how to balance the Oreos on my own. Yeah, you know, like we all have to learn how to balance Oreos on our own.
Speaker 2:And I think we all know. If I said to you McDonald's is horrible, it is bad and I will never let you eat it, I will never feed it to you. It's a huge no-no, don't ever go there. The minute I get my license I'm going to be like where are the golden arches? You know what's the big deal about these McDonald's. Apparently I need to try it. So you know, the more we dig in our heels and we restrict and restrict, then we could develop. You know the behavior of hiding food and gorging on food and overeating because I don't know when I'm going to get it again. So if there's freedom and education a freedom with food, education about balancing alive and less alive foods, then there's less of that need to hoard or to overeat or eat emotionally, which is another huge piece of this. Yeah, I mean, why don't?
Speaker 1:we just go there. Next, thinking about those teens who are going through puberty. They've started their period. They feel miserable for, you know, six days a month. Everybody tells them they're horrible. During those six days of that month we could have a whole episode on menstruation. I mean, in all of the messages around, yeah, anyway, okay. But I'm just picturing how, all of these emotions that just are a natural part of teen girl development, how do we help them not use food as a way to cope with all of these changes in their body, these changes in their friendships and all of the things that happen in teen girl life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, such an important, big question. The first place I'd like to start with parents is I think it's really important for us as the adults in their lives to understand how the brain works in adolescence. So we understand like, oh, the amygdala is fully developed, that's where emotion lives. That explains why they have such big emotions about everything. But the frontal lobe, that's the calm reasoning part of the brain, under develop, not quite there. So if we know that and we see them exploding with emotion, we're like, oh right, well, that's their brain. It's kind of like the little toddler that throws himself on the ground because he didn't get the reds, that pick up, he got the blue. Well, that's part of development, right. So we can take it less personally, we can understand it more. These emotions make sense and for some girls they might be really interested in that information too and we can educate them on what their brain is doing right now so they can understand themselves and feel a little less crazy, so to speak, and understand those big emotional mood swings.
Speaker 2:So two things if we don't have the support in our adults, in our life, to welcome, allow, feel comfortable with our feelings, and we don't have the tools to process our own emotions and feelings. We're kind of stuck right. We've got these, we've got trapped emotions inside of us. We don't know what to do with them, but we do know we want to feel better. Well, when I reach for Doritos or, you know, soda or McDonald's or whatever, it can feel soothing, it can calm me, it can numb me. I can eat so much of it that now I feel full, so I feel overly full. So now I feel something different than the emotion that I was feeling, so that it serves its purpose, it works. Knowing that, as the adults in these girls' lives, we need to do our own work to get comfortable with our own feelings, that we allow them, that we talk about them, that we share them, we express them, we demonstrate that and role model that to our teens so they see like, oh, when you're sad, it's okay to cry. You know, it's okay to talk about being confused or betrayed or whatever it is. So that's one piece. We, as the adults, need to really be able to feel our own feelings, process them, demonstrate that and then allow for the space for our teens to have their feelings, even if we don't like the emotion. They're angry at us, they don't like us. We allow for it. There's space, there's room. I can handle it. Tell me more, what else? Keep going. I'm listening. So that's one piece.
Speaker 2:If I get to feel my feelings, then I have less of a need to eat. Emotionally. Then, if you teach me tools, you give me tools like, oh you know, the adult in her life says you know, I am so mad at my boss today. He's an idiot, I can't take it. I'm going for a run. Okay, now, I've just shown my daughter this is one thing you can do when you're angry. I'm going to go to a boxing class. I'm going to go jump on the trampoline. I'm going to throw on some music and have a dance party. I'm going to call my best friend and dump it all out. I'm going to have a good crime and ask for a hug. I'm going to walk the dog. I'm going to pet the cat, whatever it is. We want to teach them and show them all the different tools you can use to feel your feelings and to feel better, knowing that emotions are temporary. Then you'll have less of a need to use food in a way that's not fuel but trying to kind of mask an emotion.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, you said so many things. I just love everything you just said. That was just so good. You know, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1:I tend to talk with parents, especially that our kids are always watching, and unfortunately we don't spend a lot of time explicitly teaching them our inner workings. You manage your own emotion as an adult in maybe a brilliant way. Maybe not. All of us are great at it. You and I, we're therapists, we're psychologists, we're people who are supposed to be experts in this. I still will sometimes just avoid the whole world for a couple of hours and then I'm like, oh snap, this is not really what I should do, but I love that. You're sort of saying and teaching folks who are listening look, you've got to be able to say those things out loud. First, you have to have the awareness of how do you manage your emotion. And I'll tell you, barb, I had this kind of epiphany a couple of years ago during COVID that people would sort of talk about, you know, emotional eating, and I sort of am like that's just not really.
Speaker 1:It's not really who I tend to be. I don't tend to, you know, get emotional about things. What I realized is that I had this one oversized sweatshirt that I would come home from work and I couldn't describe it, but I just always went for that sweatshirt and I would change into my after work clothes and I would always put that sweatshirt on. But it wouldn't be every day, it would only be certain days. And so I realized that I used that as sort of my comfort or my de-stressor, or like that was just what felt good to my body, that I know it was an emotional thing.
Speaker 1:And I realized also that I'm a middle child, so I'm the yeah, I'm the third of four. And it wasn't that I'm not an emotional eater, it's that I tend not to get super emotional. My role in my family has been to just sort of be pretty level right. So I have, I'm always kind of the wallflower, I'm always kind of the peacemaker, I just kind of live in that middle zone and so when I was having really stressful moments, I'm like I need bread. You know, I come home and be like now I can't just put on the cozy sweatshirt, but I also need bread. What I love about what you're saying is that we as the adults in this whole relationship, have to one realize how is it that we experience emotion and our relationship with emotion and food, and then we have to share some of those tools with our kids out loud. We've got to tell them because they don't know and they're looking for us to the answers.
Speaker 2:We're so good at parents, you know, looking at their homework online. Did they fill out all their missing assignments? What are their grades? You know we're so good at that piece. And then there's this whole piece about we also need to guide and raise them in their emotional health, and that is very connected to body image and food and eating.
Speaker 2:You know, as a little one. They're little infants. They're crying. What do we do? We feed them, yeah, and they too in us, and it is so important for us to say out loud what is going on with us, appropriately, so right. We don't want to dump on them and have them feel like they need to take care of us, but we, we need to let them know like, oh, here's a feeling I'm having, here's what it's about and here's how I'm going to take care of myself. And even you saying like I need to go take a break from the world, like that's another great tool. I need to go into my room and be alone for 30 minutes. I'll be back when I'm, when I'm ready. I just need to chill. You know that's a great message it's so good.
Speaker 1:We've kind of started talking about, kind of mentioned a couple of times, like we have to be really careful about what we say, and I clearly am on board with this. I, you know, my whole philosophy is to make where's matter for good. So, as I think about this idea of shame, well, I find that sometimes parents need to hear exactly what shame comes out, as I mean. So I think most folks are like, yeah, I don't want to shame my kid, and then they say something shaming, you know. So it's like, um, I think sometimes people need tangible examples of what a shame message might be.
Speaker 1:And I'm kind of putting you on the spot and maybe together we can come up with a list of a few things that would be like common phrases that we think we're we're saying because we think we're being helpful as parents or other grown-ups in these kids lives. But are there common messages that parents give that you're like well, that's not actually helpful. So let's shift that message, let's say these words differently, let's share what you're trying to say in a different way. Can you give some kind of really tangible examples?
Speaker 2:see if I can come up with some. I feel like, honestly, that's the majority of my parent coaching work, where parents will say I said this, I don't think it was right, yeah, but I don't know what to say instead, and so we rework the wording. Yep, it's so much about our intention, our tone, yeah, language and our words right, because they can feel it if we're if it's disingenuous or incongruent.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to think of an example or just common things that you tend to switch around because you had mentioned earlier, like are you sure you want to eat that? Are you sure you?
Speaker 2:should right. I don't think that that's gonna get you what you want. You know, that's probably not really good for your skin. You've been fighting acne lately and they think they're being helpful. I know, of course, because they love their children. Yes, but sometimes it really is better to bite your tongue until your child can come to you and say you know what I don't? I'm not really happy with my skin, I wish it were different. Or I'm not really happy with the size I am. Right now I've put on more weight than I'm comfortable with, and then what we can do is we can elicit some support, sometimes outside of ourselves, so that we can continue to wear the hat of parent. If you can afford this, you know, hire, bring in a nutritionist. Or, you know, bring in a esthetician to help with your skin or whatever it is, but so much of it is. Do I really need to say this right now? Is it necessary for me to tell my kid to stop eating that brownie because it's impacting their skin?
Speaker 2:do I really need to say that, because some of it again goes back to our discomfort. I don't like that. My child has acne. I think all these things bad, bad things are going to happen because she has acne, so I'm going to try to prevent it and so I'm going to say all these things that end up shaming her. So what is the product of shame? If I'm feeling shamed about what I'm eating, for example, nine times at a time, I don't think that's going to result in me eating better as a teen right, right, I'm going to go eat more of the junk food.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to now hide it from you. I'm going to have this secret, which is going to cause me to feel more shame.
Speaker 1:I love this and I was trying to think of scenarios. Do I need to say it? I just think so often we as parents, we're just word vomit. You know, I actually talk about word vomit when I do workshops or I talk with parents.
Speaker 1:Think about what is the goal. Think about your communication. What is the goal of your communication? Yeah, and then, before you say anything, pause and like, think about how you want to say that. So, if your goal is for them to not gain any more weight, is harping on every single thing they put in their mouth going to achieve that goal? Or, to your point, what you're saying is perhaps harping on them for everything they put in their mouth is going to achieve a different goal, like they're going to want to eat more, they're going to hide it, they're going to feel bad. I'm trying to think of you know any other thoughts you might have for grownups on how do I recognize, how do I pause myself to say what is my real goal here? Like, how can we help parents have that moment, that literal moment of like? Let me hold this, figure out what I want to say yeah.
Speaker 2:So a couple of things popped in my head, you know. One is what I say this to another adult, I mean again, nine times out of ten probably not. And why not? Why wouldn't I say it to another adult? Well, they would be offended. Well, they would think I was trying to control them, okay. Well, a 15 year old would feel very similarly. And another phrase I use a lot that I really like using in my own parenting with my child. A lot is do I want to be right or do I want a relationship? So if I'm about to say you know what, I don't think you should eat, that you know what is it like? A minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips or whatever that saying is, yeah, that needs to give away forever that means that just needs to be nothing.
Speaker 2:Anyone ever says I should have never said that out loud again. Um, but if we take just a second right before we're about to say you know, I don't think you should really eat. That here's why do we think that that comment is going to connect you to your daughter. Is it going to bring you closer together? Is she going to feel more seen and understood and accepted and loved by you? If the if any version is not a hell yes, then it's probably a comment you want to either refrain from or be really careful about how you say it.
Speaker 1:So how do we have that conversation with our daughter who, let's say, our daughter is overweight. Let's say, our daughter has said things about their weight and they want to be healthier, they want to be skinnier or they want to be prettier or whatever? How do we have that conversation so that in those moments I don't have to have the fear-based comment? Because I think what you and I both kind of realize is that a lot of those comments are about our own fear. Right, we're saying things to our kids because we're afraid, we're uncomfortable. We kind of already talked about that. So then how do I have that comment? Or how do I have that conversation with our daughter who has already said they want to be healthier or better or whatever, and then they're still going toward the snacks they're. Their behavior isn't necessarily matching with what they're saying. Their goal is.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the key part of what you said is that the teen girl is feeling uncomfortable in her body and wants it to be different. So she's coming to you saying here's a situation I want some help with, essentially, or I want, if she's saying I want this to be different, the next question is would you like some help with that? It's good, so then, would you? So? Then you get to decide as a parent, do I want to put myself in that role? Of course, you're going to ask your daughter's permission first, but you're also thinking do I want to put myself in that position of being food police, diet police, exercise police? It's probably not going to go well. So when you're asking, would you like some help with that? Again, you know, if you can, you can maybe, if you can afford a private coach of some sort to come in a nutritionist, a dietitian, a trainer, whatever. Or, of course, there's YouTube with a million experts sharing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So that's step one is would you like some help with that? If she says yes, then you want to join her in the effort of finding the right resources for her, rather than you taking it on, Bringing the people to her and saying here you go, here's your team. You want her to be part of the process. So there's, buy in. Now you also mentioned you know.
Speaker 2:She says I'm not really happy with the way I look, but then she's, you know, going for the cookies and cake and Doritos, whatever. So what does that tell me? Well, a part of it tells me that she might not be quite ready yet, she might not really understand what's underneath when she reaches for the Doritos and the cake, which is most likely emotional eating. So then I would say well, that is a mental and emotional health issue. So can we get her a teen life coach or a therapist or a counselor? I think that's a great place to start, so that she can then kind of figure out what is this really about for me, Because there are so many different facets.
Speaker 1:I mean I'm picturing, you know, parents or grownups and teen girls. The teen says, yeah, I want to do this. I, you know, and they're good for two or three days.
Speaker 1:And then day four, just like all of us who have tried to lose weight, be on a diet, work out, you know, have a New Year's resolution, whatever. Day four, five, six, seven, it ain't fun anymore, you know. And you've stopped eating cupcakes for a week and you gained two pounds. Yeah, you know, we could have a whole gripe session about that scenario. But working with somebody and you know a therapist, a coach, even like maybe there's a family member who can sit down and almost like, create a whole plan, because you know it's going to happen, and so that's what I love about your saying is get some support to create some sort of plan that hey, look, it seems like at around eight or eight, thirty, or it seems like anytime you're on your period, you're going to want to eat more chips and Oreos and you're saying you want some help.
Speaker 1:When that scenario happens, how can we work together? What would you like to hear from me? What would you like me to say? Or do You're going to be with your daughter in doing this, not just I'm telling you you're going to not eat that, or are you sure you were doing so good and now you're just going to fall off the wagon and eat chips all day. Oh, I can't believe you would do that, yeah that's just all shame.
Speaker 1:Shame, shame, shame, shame.
Speaker 2:If she's coming to you, then a part of her is saying I'm kind of ready Don't know if it's 100 percent, we'll see but we need her to be in charge of this. This is her experience, it's her body, and if she says, yes, I'd like some help. Awesome, yeah, she's still in charge.
Speaker 1:The other thing is her behavior is saying she is struggling, she can't do it on her own and that's OK. It doesn't mean she's a failure. It doesn't mean she's not good at this. It means, like all of us, we've got to figure out how to support her. And that might mean us, but it's probably not likely, especially if we're a person like, for example, in my own life I would be. You know, I was overweight. As a child, I struggled with my body. I had other siblings who had a much different body size, similar to what you had shared about your story earlier. You know, it would probably be really hard for me to not be triggered in certain moments. We have to have a hard look in the mirror, even as parents, to say, if my kid needs some extra support around this, it doesn't make me a failure. It doesn't make me, you know, a bad parent a bad mom.
Speaker 2:It's just another area of their growth, you know. So maybe they're a really sensitive girl and they have big, big feelings, yeah, and they need extra support because they are sensitive. You know, there are just so many facets to it and it's the opposite of failure, I think it's. You know, she's having an opportunity at a young age to really learn about herself and discover how she ticks and oh, I've been reaching for food because I've got these feelings that feel uncomfortable. How nice to learn that at 15 versus 45.
Speaker 1:It's so true, I loved so many things you said. I want to come back to all of them and hash them and dig deeper, but I know we're running short on time. So is there anything that we kind of didn't say or you're like? I definitely want to make sure that listeners hear this before we hear more about you, where we can find you and kind of say goodbye.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think I would just reiterate you know that, as parents, obviously we love our kids, we want the best for them and I think sometimes we believe that what we're saying and doing is really to help them and support them, when really we're trying to protect ourselves from our own fear and discomfort and we're also having a hard time accepting them where they are in this moment, knowing that they're going to change. You know that what they're experiencing, what you're experiencing with them right now, in this moment, it won't be the same next year, five years from now. So, all that to say, make sure, as parents, that you have places where you can process your feelings, so that you don't need to project them on to your kids.
Speaker 1:I think that's so good. I'm just thinking it's like bringing up something really big at the end you know that's what clients do.
Speaker 1:Anyway, ok, here we go. Fashion trends and the crop top and the short shorts, yeah, and that's what teen girls, that's what is available to them to purchase, that is what is trendy, that is what's on social media I'm thinking about, not even those teens who are just a little overweight, it's all teens, all girls who are bearing that much skin, even if they're really thin. They probably are still looking at themselves in the mirror saying my question comes we're a parent. Our daughter is wearing crop top, little shorts. What do we say about their body at all? Or their shirt, or their shorts? What do we do about those things? Well, I told you this was a big one. We're just ending here, but it's summertime here. You know, I'm just looking around, I'm scrolling on social media. My own daughter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know if my answer is going to be a very popular one, but I love those kind of answers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the way that I look at it is. You know, I've been working with teen girls for decades now and I'm just so in love with them, every part of them I just really think they're really magnificent, and the word that's coming to my mind is celebrate. So if there is a teen girl, no matter what her body size is, and she feels good about herself and her little crop top and her little Lou lemon shorts or whatever it is she's wearing and she feels like she's rocking it and she's feeling good, and that is a beautiful thing, I think. For a teen girl to feel good in her skin, whatever it is that she's wearing, yeah, I love that. I celebrate that.
Speaker 2:Now there's another piece to it. I'm thinking about specific social media posts and certain poses. It looks clear from the image or from the clothing and the pose or whatever, that the goal is to be very sexy and very sexual and very desired in that way, and that's a conversation to have. Yeah, you know, tell me about your picture, tell me what you're hoping people will think when they look at it. What are you hoping people will say in the comments? Because we want her to connect with. Every human being wants to be desired and wanted and chosen and included, and there are different ways to go about that. This is one way, and are you getting what you want? Is it really getting you what you want?
Speaker 1:You know, I love that. I love, even though, like conversation around like what do you hope people will see? What do you hope people will say? What is your goal in wearing this? Is it like I want to celebrate my body or is it I want to attract in some sort of sexual way?
Speaker 2:Right, important distinction and a little, a little explanation point on this. I also think there's a time and a place. So you know, do you want to go to an like? In Texas, we've got Six Flags Great Adventure, an amusement park. So do you want to wear your crop top and your little short shorts to Great Adventure? Or, sorry, six Flags Great Adventures in New Jersey? Where are you used to work as a teenager? Do you want to wear that? Great, you can. It's appropriate. Are we going to go to I don't know visit your grandparents? Are we going to go to brunch? Are we going to go to church in that outfit? Probably not. Let's pick something else that you love. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, I have so many more things. I'm just so grateful for your wisdom today and I know you have a YouTube channel, you have mini courses, you have social media. Tell folks how they can learn more about all the work you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my website is barbstyenbergcom. As you mentioned, we've got a lot of online workshops or e-courses for parents with loads of information there. I have Instagrams, just barbstyenbergparentinggirls. And then there's my YouTube channel with over 200 videos. It's also my name, barbstyenberg, for you to peruse and get lots of answers to your questions.
Speaker 1:I love that, and I'll make sure that I link to all those things too in the episode, and so I'm just grateful for the work you do. There's probably not everybody in the world who loves teen girls as much as you do, and so I'm glad you do. It sounds like the work you're doing is amazing, and so I'm grateful that you came to share and I'm grateful for the work you're doing, so I'm grateful to you too. Thank you for having me All right listener, thank you for being here and be sure you check out some of Barb's work and all of the things that she mentioned, and until next time, stay safe and stay well everyone.
