{"id":8404,"date":"2024-08-10T05:02:19","date_gmt":"2024-08-10T09:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/chelsey-goodan-on-the-wisdom-power-of-teenage-girls\/"},"modified":"2024-08-10T05:02:19","modified_gmt":"2024-08-10T09:02:19","slug":"chelsey-goodan-on-the-wisdom-power-of-teenage-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/chelsey-goodan-on-the-wisdom-power-of-teenage-girls\/","title":{"rendered":"Chelsey Goodan On the Wisdom & Power of Teenage Girls"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Profit<\/a>
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\u201cYou just don\u2019t understand<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the response I often get from my teenage stepdaughter. And it\u2019s often followed by an \u201cugh<\/em>,\u201d an eye roll, or a curt turn and stomp off to her room.<\/p>\n

Every mother figure knows this scene all too well. The dynamics with their teenage daughter can go every which way\u2014loving to exasperating to affectionate, and then back to infuriating.<\/p>\n

Chances are, the behavior is chalked up to being dramatic. Or mean. Or\u2014my personal favorite\u2014hormotional.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people think of teenage girls as, you know, they have icy walls and boundaries up and, you know, they shut you out<\/em>,\u201d Chelsey Goodan<\/strong>, an academic tutor and mentor, tells Kristina M\u00e4nd-Lakhiani, co-founder of Mindvalley, in a sit-down on the Mindvalley Book Club.<\/p>\n

The reality, as she points out in her book, Underestimated: The Wisdom and Power of Teenage Girls<\/em><\/a>, is that teenage girls are so much more than what we, as a society, give them credit for. Their \u201cdrama,\u201d \u201cmeanness,\u201d and \u201ccrazy outbursts\u201d are the culmination of being quieted for far too long.<\/p>\n

So if you, too, have a daughter whom you wish you could better connect with, Chelsey might just have the solution.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a reason teenage girls are so angsty\u2026<\/h2>\n

Eye rolls, high-pitched squeals, \u201cwhatevs<\/em>,\u201d giggly, sassy, posting selfies\u2014that\u2019s what teenage girls are made up of.<\/p>\n

Or so we all seem to think.<\/p>\n

In writing the book, Chelsey found one common theme the gaggle of adolescent girls wished that adults understood about them. And that\u2019s this: \u201cWe\u2019re a lot smarter than you think we are<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Parents feel like it\u2019s their duty to keep girls grounded because NO ONE likes a bossy girl. They\u2019re worried we\u2019ll get an ego. We\u2019re supposed to be humble, giving, and polite all the time.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Juliette, 14, Underestimated: The Wisdom and Power of Teenage Girls<\/em><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Look at any teen movie\u2014Mean Girls<\/em>, Easy A<\/em>, Clueless<\/em>, To All the Boys I\u2019ve Loved Before<\/em>, Never Have I Ever<\/em>, and endless more\u2014and they\u2019re typically portrayed as the helpless, ditzy character with some sort of mother wound<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The moral of these stories is that they\u2019re always<\/em> underestimated by their parents, by their peers, by their community\u2026 And in the end, they always come out on top.<\/p>\n

Things we\u2019re doing that underestimate teenage girls<\/h3>\n

If this is the case, then why, oh, why are teenage girls mean? Why are they always so \u201cWoe is me!<\/em>\u201d? Why do they have so much angst?<\/p>\n

Chelsey has a simple explanation: The world fears teenage girls. And she draws from these examples:<\/p>\n