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MENTORS CAN HELP TEENAGE GIRLS

5/23/2004

Pegine Echevarria tells how to be a mentor and how to find a mentor

“Teen years for girls today are a period of extraordinary danger,” says youth counselor Pegine Echevarria, MSW, author of the new book For All Our Daughters: How Mentoring Helps Young Women and Girls Master the Art of Growing Up (Chandler House Press, $14.95). “Girls entering puberty often face a ‘crisis in confidence' which makes them vulnerable to risky behavior, and these bad choices can have devastating lifelong consequences,” she reveals.

What's more, most teen girls will not talk to their parents about the dangers they face. “No matter how good your communication is with your daughter, there are things she will not and cannot tell you,” Echevarria says, “things she needs desperately to tell someone.”

The answer? Female mentors - someone girls can trust who isn't Mom or Dad. “You must point your daughter toward a trustworthy role model - an aunt, a cousin, a grandmother, a Girl Scout leader, a teacher, a friend, or some other responsible caring woman,” she says, “because your daughter's survival depends on it.”

The Crisis Years

Echevarria believes the challenges teen girls face are tougher than those faced by boys, adding that “no parental relationship, in and of itself, is strong enough to see a daughter through these years. If you want your daughter to emerge from the crisis years as a healthy, well-adjusted adult, you need to reach out to another woman.”

The most important thing a mentor can do is to listen and to lead by example. She isn't there to judge, punish or condemn. And as crucial as her role becomes, it is a temporary one - a mentor will never replace a mother. According to Echevarria, “The mother/daughter bond will remain a dominant force in your daughter's life for as long as she walks on this earth.” Indeed, she suggests that one of the most rewarding relationships is formed when a mother reaches out to mentor her daughter's best friend. Some mothers “cross-mentor” each other's daughters.

13 Crises

What struggles do teen girls face today? For All Our Daughters describes “13 Crises,” which include having sex, getting pregnant, drinking, smoking, developing eating disorders and contemplating suicide. Echevarria predicts that the vast majority of girls will confront at least one of these before she turns 18. “If parents think their girls won't be faced with one of these crises, they're dreaming,” she says. “And because these problems are also things girls don't want to share with parents, a mentor can mean the difference between life and death.”

Sexual Statement

For All Our Daughters examines what is happening - both within girls' own bodies and within our society - to make the challenges they face more dangerous and complex than for any previous generation. Because puberty happens earlier and is more apparent in girls than boys, it can be a very difficult transition.

“Whether she likes it or not, whether she means to or not, whether it's fair or not, your daughter now makes a sexual statement every time she walks into a room that contains other people,” Echevarria writes. “Girls find themselves pigeonholed by males (young and old) who make assumptions about sexuality based on the prominence of a young woman's breasts.”

Today's changing society makes it even tougher for girls to adjust to their own changing bodies. “Girls are struggling with media manipulation, uncertain moral standards, self-loathing arising from impossible standards of physical beauty, heavy peer pressure concerning sexuality and substance abuse, and a host of sobering academic and career dilemmas,” she says.

Practical Solutions

Along with hundreds of practical tips on how to connect with teen girls, For All Our Daughters is filled with riveting, true stories of real girls, the hurdles they faced and the mentors who helped pull them through. And the most gripping of all is the author's own true story, which includes abandonment by her father at age 8 and attempted rape by an uncle when she was just 12. “I survived the bad neighborhood, the family problems and the sexual abuse, because someone reached out to me,” she says. Echevarria's own mentor was her Aunt Lu, and the relationship was a deep and lasting one encouraged by her mother.

Beyond describing the dangers girls face, For All Our Daughters tells how to choose a mentor for your daughter, how to be a mentor yourself, and it gives practical, sound advice about what girls really need to become healthy young women. Echevarria shares knowledge she gained as a youth counselor, mentor and mother. She offers insights in five key areas, the “Five Essentials” of physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual development, and financial accountability.

Physical Development

One of the best ways to get a girl to talk is through shared physical action - something as simple as walking together, or as challenging as rock climbing. Because “physical action takes a great deal of pressure off of both of you,” For All Our Daughters offers “23 Physical Activities to Share With Your Girl.”

Emotional Development

Gaining control over her emotions is especially difficult for a teen girl because they are likely to shift from day to day, hour to hour, or even moment to moment. Echevarria notes that “healthy women learn to manage the emotional changes they encounter on a daily basis.”

Intellectual Development

Mentors can help with the “Academic Falloff” so widespread in teenage girls. For All Our Daughters examines why, when girls enter junior high school and high school, their levels of self-esteem plummet and they no longer participate as aggressively in math and science courses.

Spiritual Development

Echevarria advocates an “attitude of gratitude,” and observes that “girls who receive support in their spiritual growth have a strong sense of self-worth....They are better equipped to face - and make - decisions. They're more willing to take stands that are unpopular; they're more willing to stand their ground.”

Financial Accountability

An indication of the refreshing practical approach taken in For All Our Daughters is the fact that the enormous issue of teen pregnancy is covered in the chapter on “Financial Accountability.” Echevarria looks at postponing pregnancy not only as a smart moral decision, but as a smart financial decision as well. “Girls who have children during their teen years experience catastrophic and long-lasting declines in their earning potential. The single smartest financial choice a teenage girl can make is to avoid having children before she's ready to support them financially and emotionally,” she says.

In For All Our Daughters, Pegine Echevarria ties together all of the issues facing teen girls and their parents and offers a sensible, thoughtful, cohesive guidebook for what is often the toughest journey any girl will ever face - the journey into womanhood. It is an indispensable resource for anyone who wants to ease the journey “for all our daughters.”

FOR ALL OUR DAUGHTERS
How Mentoring Helps Young Women and Girls
Master the Art of Growing Up
Pegine Echevarria, MSW
(Chandler House Press, $14.95)

According to author, youth counselor, mentor and mother Pegine Echevarria, there are a number of crisis points that will come up in every girl's life as she manages the difficult transition from girlhood to young womanhood. “If your daughter doesn't have to confront at least one of the crises reflected in the statements below by the time she's 18, she's in a tiny minority. When she does confront one or more of these problems, she's likely to try to talk to someone else before she talks to you.”