Troubled Teens Resources

The sexualization of young girls is a growing cause of concern among parents. There is no need to examine what that looks like - we see it everyday when a 10 year old sashays by in a mini skirt and lipstick.

“There are now lingerie clothing lines for preteen girls, and bras for girls under 10, T-shirts with sexual slogans, and even a pole dancing kit complete with a DVD that features “sexy dance tracks” for 6-year-old.”

What needs to be understood is the relationship of out-of-control teenage sexuality to drug addiction. Vulnerability leads to pain and pain leads to a callous heart which goes a long way towards indifference to your fellow man and contempt for yourself. That’s an amateur armchair therapist’s view of it. Emotional pain is very common for the unprepared teenage girl, pretending to own a sexual maturity that is easily shattered. Also common is the easy availability of drugs to stop the pain.

“Young girls are not emotionally equipped to process the sexual messages being targeted at them. It is difficult for them, when abandoned to their autonomy, to resist outside pressure. We are seeing the effects of this premature sexualizing on the bodies of our young women in self-destructive behaviors such as excessive dieting and eating disorders, drug taking and binge drinking, self harm, anxiety, depression, lower academic performance and ill health.

Prescriptions for drugs to treat depression in young girls increase every year. Eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia are at epidemic proportions — and manifesting in children as young as 8..”

These excerpts are from a very thought provoking interview with Melinda Tankard Reist, author and founding director of Women’s Forum Australia.
A suggested method of intervention might be to bring back the concept of dignity and the value of respect.

“We need a new strategy for women and girl advocacy.

We need to empower young women especially to be resilient and to defend their dignity and self-respect.

The decision not to submit to hypersexualized messages and to live above the dictates of the culture, needs to be seen for what it is — a radical and defiant alternative lifestyle.

Young women deserve better than to be treated as merely the sum of their sexual parts. They need to be given encouragement to develop their minds, their intellects, their deeper inner lives, rather than wasting hours in trying to get their bodies to conform to an idealized oversexualized type.
from Dealing Girls a Raw and Racy Deal