Friends & Family Fridays: Turning Teenage Girls Into Good Friends

***So this is Friends & Family Friday!! This is my day to talk more about my friends and family (aside from sharing waaay too much about their love lives on my other blog, lol). My friends and family are lovely people, that much I know for sure. Have fun getting to know them through my eyes.***

Well, that's normally what today is. Today is actually going to be about friends in general. I've been posting about my hobbies/passion lately, and one of them in mentoring. I do a lot of this at my church. I'm glad to be of help where I am needed because my church is in need of young women my age to stand up and be a good example. Also, I'm happy they still think I'm a good example even though I left school. Moving on...

I was invited, along with other women of various ages of post-high-school-ness (I was the oldest), to a meeting at my church tonight. All the girls at the meeting are between the ages of 11-17. And they are mostly all friends with each other. We were basically invited for an intervention. I really don't remember going through anything like what they were going through at that age. Don't get me wrong, I had my own issues including horrible taste in men, questionable taste in new friends I made in high school, and a snobbish know-it-all chip on my shoulder.

But these girls are something entirely different. They are a different breed of teenage girl than I was. Most of them come from household with lots of family members helping raise them (it takes a village and all that). Most of them are on track to go to college if they choose. But that still doesn't stop them from making bad decisions and mistakes. I'm not going to go into details, but almost every single girl had a specific and unique issue we talked about as a group to help avoid repeat mistakes. Stuff about boys, disrespecting elders, fighting at school, getting along with other females, and getting along with parents were all covered.

I feel like the discussions went well. I just wanted them to understand that it's better to pause first when you get mad rather than do something you'll definitely regret later. I wanted them to understand that no boy is worth risking your health, your parent's trust, or your future on. And I really wanted them to understand that if you're going to do the teenager "make-your-own-mistakes" thing to stop getting caught! I also may have given a slightly too frank discussion about sex education. I just want them to be prepared and safe and make wise decisions. And I can't have it on my conscience that I had an opportunity to inform them and didn't take it. I also hope that the explicit discussions of how things can go wrong will make them be more active thinkers about the choices they make.

 The only thing we didn't cover was getting along with other females. I figure that's a discussion for a larger group. I believe that will go better if they see women of many different generations who have proof that you can be real friends with a woman. This is probably one of those things that will be better learned by example. If at the end of the day these girls grow into women who make good friends and make good choices, I will feel like I've won a million bucks.