Teenagers, Monsters or your children?

After reading the article “Empty Lives of Teenage Girls” by Dr. Leonard Sax in the popular Canadian news magazine MacLean’s did it make you think, hey I have two teenage girls at home do they fallow the main themes of Dr. Sax’s article? Do they sell there body as a commodity to get what they want, do they use alcohol or mutilate them self’s to deal with stress, should I try to control them more as a solution?

Now in the article Dr. Sax states “Today, so many teenage girls [he’s] spoken to across Canada and the U.S. regard sex as a commodity…” and that “[so] many girls are using their sexuality in an instrumental way [.]” Now The good Doctor may say this but does he have any proof and where does he get his information from? It’s highly unlikely Dr. Sax actually left city areas to more rural towns to get information from there? Just because he says this is happening doesn’t make it true, it’s highly doubtful that girls are “cornering the boys, and giving them blow jobs.” So don’t worry parents this one should be read as fiction.

“36% said they had in the past year cut themselves with razors or burned themselves with matches.” That is another reference in Dr. Sax’s article that is hazed in where he got this statistic. He doesn’t state where he got this information and he has no reference to support himself so disregard that statement. How ever it is believable that “ [today], a girl is at least likely as her brother to abuse alcohol,” but the reasons aren’t that they use it to relive stress , its because girls one have more rights and aren’t frowned upon for using alcohol and two “females metabolize alcohol differently than males, and as a result, a girl having four drinks is the same as a boy having five drinks” and actually that is an understatement going by weight ratio.

Now for the Coup de grace the parenting style. Sax suggests a tighter control and handle on your teen. Being more strict isn’t always the answer. Limiting a teenagers computer time means they get agitated and they find another way on, controlling pictures guess what, they will find another way to post pictures and if they are really vengeful they will find away to post even more carnal pictures as a way of getting back. Let them learn on their own. They will like you more and be better in the long run, no one likes waking up the next morning with a killer head ache and their friends telling them about all the crazy activities they participated in.

Now hopefully you don’t feel like a failure of a parent because of Dr. Sax’s article “Empty Lives of Teenage Girls.” Hopefully this article helped disprove Dr. Sax’s three main ideas, girls are using their body as a commodity, girls are mutilating themselves and abusing alcohol to deal with stress, and his new parenting style.
Treat your teenager as a human being, surprisingly enough they are one.