Helping Girls to Negotiate the Gray by Rana diOrio

Award-winning author Rana DiOrio recently wrote and published this article in the LPP Insider, the e-newsletter of Little Pickle Press. We found it so wonderful, we wanted to share it with our reader. 

Three years ago, I read Girls Will Be Girls: Raising Confident and Courageous Daughters written by JoAnn Deak, Ph.D. (ww.deakgroup.com) with Teresa Barker.

It remains highly relevant today, and I strongly recommend it to parents, grandparents, educators, and coaches of girls. I guarantee that you will glean from it “pearls of wisdom” for which you will be grateful. As an enticement to read the book, I’d like to share with you some of the take-away messages of its first chapter titled, The Search for Perspective.

“Negotiating the Gray.”

Dr. Deak suggests that parenting is helping a girl to navigate through the chaos of life or “negotiating the gray.” The reality is that the world is mostly gray, not black and white. Dr. Deak cautions parents from approaching issues in “fix it” mode and instead to understand that it is a process.

She points out that what makes negotiating the gray so challenging is that often times parents and teachers are doing the same thing in their own lives—struggling with identities, priorities, and values.

Moreover, society no longer provides clarity about what is OK and what isn’t. Dr. Deak advises that the first order of business is to think about what you value most and let that serve as the foundation for your reasoning as you and your daughter negotiate the gray, individually and together.

The Process to Help Girls Negotiate the Gray

Dr. Deak helpfully outlines the steps necessary to negotiate the gray.

Step 1: Consciously measure your responses in a manner that allows for deeper exploration of the underlying issues and concerns your daughter may have, or as Dr. Deak advises, “don’t jump into the deep water; wade in and see how far you need to go.”

Step 2: Listen without judgment or the need to identify a solution. Be an active, empathetic listener. Sometimes all a girl needs is acknowledgment of her situation and feelings.

Step 3: Continue to listen and guide her understanding of the situation. Dr. Deak provides the following illustration, “When you said that you hate school, you mentioned some things, but could you help me understand by giving some examples?” In so doing, you are helping your daughter to see things more clearly.

Step 4: Discuss possible strategies. Here again, it is important to refrain from being too judgmental. The goal is to let her practice thinking of strategies and weighing their probability of success or failure.

Step 5. Arrive at resolution through action or acceptance. The final step becomes clear as the situation either dissolves over time or requires action or acceptance.

Take the Opportunity to Shape Them.

Throughout the entire process of negotiating the gray, be comfortable making value statements about your core philosophies or moral standards. Since so much of the world is gray, it is vital for children to know about the areas that we as parents deem to be black and white, and this understanding gives them a sense of relief and comfort.

“When we embrace the process of connection, listening, and sharing strategy, we create opportunity for genuine growth in our girls, ourselves, and our institutions,” Dr. Deak concludes.

As a mother of two girls (and one boy!), I applaud Dr. Deak for sharing her “guiding principles for understanding girls, understanding their hopes and dreams as well as their struggles and pain, and understanding what we can do, as adults, to create family and school environments in which they can find their best selves and live their best lives.”

A Career Devoted to Children.

Dr. Deak is an author, educator, and preventative psychologist who has invested three decades of her life to helping children develop into confident and capable adults. She wrote a best-selling, award-winning children’s picture book titled, Your Fantastic Elastic Brain: Stretch It, Shape It illustrated by Sarah Ackerley and published by Little Pickle Press.

With the help of her nephew, Terrence Deak, Ph.D., she has written a sequel to this book, which will be illustrated by Freya Harrison and released by Little Pickle Press in September 2013.

Rana DiOrio is the Founder and Chief Executive Pickle of Little Pickle Press. She has written her way through life–as a student, a lawyer, an investment banker, a private equity investor, and now as a publisher of children’s media. Her interests include practicing yoga, reading non-fiction, dreaming, effecting positive change, and, of course, being global, green, present, and safe. She currently lives in San Francisco, California with her three Little Pickles.

Tags: parenting, teenage girls, teenagers