Introduction

Sheri Gazitt 1:07

First of all, I think as a parent, we should make sure we're responding and not reacting to things. We, we have these backpacks we carry around with us. It's filled with stories, filled with emotions. And sometimes what triggers us. It puts this filter. It's we're pulling out this filter and putting it on. And now we see everything through a mean girl lens and bullying. And that's what happened to you. So we have to step back and think about, is there something in our past that's bringing this to the forefront for us?

Understanding Girl Drama: From Mean Girls to Real Life

Dori Durbin 1:36

Many movies like Mean Girls may seem to overplay girl drama But in all honesty, if you're a female then there's a familiarity in that movie with the female competition, jealousy, and frustrations of growing up. So if you're the parent of a girl of any school age from littles all the way to college, then this really is for you to help you and your girls avoid the drama and find real friends in their school years.

Empowering Girls and Parents

Dori Durbin 2:04

My guest today works with teens and their parents to empower girls and ditch the drama and create healthy friendships. She's also the CEO and founder of TeamWise, friendship expert, and she's a life coach as well. So welcome to the show, Shira Gessett.

Sheri Gazitt 2:20

I'm glad to be here.

Dori Durbin 2:22

It's great to have you. And like I said, by the time you're a parent or you're a mom, you've probably personally experienced quite a bit of this drama that can happen with girls. In my perspective, in my family, It seemed like it happened so much earlier than I could imagine, so it happened. From what I remember, as early as second grade for my daughter. So is that pretty common?

Early Onset of Girl Drama: Common and Increasing

Dori Durbin 2:48

And if so, do you think anything is making that even more early in their lives?

Sheri Gazitt 2:54

I think it's common because friendships are just so important and girls are very social. It's wire it into us. Boys are too, but it's in a little bit of a different way. It shows up a little differently. I'm not surprised you see it in second grade. We're more aware of looking at these dynamics as well. It used to be playdates and, recess would be over there and the parents would be over there and not see all of the dynamics. So I think there's a little more awareness of that. But it's okay that it starts whenever it starts, because it's an opportunity for our girls to learn how to have those healthy connections so we can teach them and redirect them as they go. But if they're not having those interactions, they're not learning from them either.

Dori Durbin 3:38

Yeah. And that's interesting, too, because I think there's probably like a range that you see, especially in what you do. From something that might seem really innocent all the way up to mean, do you see a big range for the girls that you see?

Sheri Gazitt 3:52

Yeah, there's definitely a big range and some of it, the intent isn't actually to be mean. But that's, it's just like an unintended consequence that the girls create from their choices and it can be stuff as small as, Ignoring their best friend. Some of that is I'm ignoring you because I want you to come to me and show me that you care about me and. Show me that you care that I'm mad and ignoring can be, I have no idea how to deal with the conflict. So I'm just going to ignore you for now. And then it can go obviously to the ones with a bigger intent to harm, which is the purposeful rumors and the exclusion. There's a lots of things on the other end of course.

Dori Durbin 4:36

Yeah. And I mentioned mean girls because I think, I hope that is like the extreme for most girls. But if you're a parent and you're starting to notice. Maybe it's like you said, as minor as ignoring somebody in the hall and not seeing them. And like I said, it could start early. What do you dismiss as being just a kid thing? And what do you react to?

Sheri Gazitt 4:58

Oh, that's a good

Navigating Emotional Triggers and Parental Responses

Sheri Gazitt 5:01

question. First of all, I think as a parent, we should make sure we're responding and not reacting to things. But we're going to be triggered emotionally when some of this stuff comes up for our kids. So we got to step back. Real in our own emotions process through those and then we can step up to respond because there is a lot of emotional triggering, especially in middle school and high school when we like our memories flood back our emotions flood back from those years. And we're. Right back in it, right? We're ready to take this on again. So we've got to be very mindful of that But other than that like really whatever happens is an opportunity for us to guide and support our daughters Whether it's small or it's really big we can talk them through all of the things and really notice of what our daughter needs support on versus we need to fix it. We need to change this. We need to teach, just watch what do they need from you.

Dori Durbin 5:58

So you answered a few questions I had in my head because. I think sometimes our backgrounds as parents and if we were in the girl drama ourselves in school, we do tend to replay what we experienced and not wanting that to happened to our daughters, we react or respond in a way that is going to prevent that when maybe that's not even happening. And so we're reading in our own experience in that situation. So that's what you're talking about, understanding our own feelings and kind of our background as parents. Yeah,

Sheri Gazitt 6:31

you're exactly right there. Like we, we have these backpacks we carry around with us. It's filled with stories, filled with emotions. And sometimes what triggers us. It puts this filter. It's we're pulling out this filter and putting it on. And now we see everything through a mean girl lens and bullying. And that's what happened to you. So that's how you see that, instance where your daughter doesn't get a birthday invitation. Takes you back to that time. Somebody purposely did that to you and was so mean about it. And maybe it was that girl didn't have enough spaces. Maybe she was only allowed to invite six people and she couldn't invite your daughter. So we have to step back and think about, is there something in our past that's bringing this to the forefront for us? The great thing is, we can take our experiences and instead of reacting because of them, and step back and say, what did I need when I was that age? In that moment, what did I need? What support did I need for my parents? What did I want to hear from them? And that's what you can supply for your daughters.

Dori Durbin 7:32

I love that because then you're still helping them. You still have that sense of like supporting them, but you're not solving the problems for them or trying to solve it. I have to give you it's funny. There's a scenario that is just sticking in my head so hard. And this was my own mom and she was doing her best But she actually got involved in a discrepancy in a conversation that I had with a friend. And by the end, of course, it ruined the friendship. We ended up seeing this my mom drove to the person's house and was like confronting girl. And I was like, and I remember being just mortified because I was like, that's not what I wanted you to do. But she wanted action. She wanted to just solve the situation and. Sort of justice for what was going on, but I wasn't feeling everything she was feeling. So it's really interesting to step back as a parent and try to look through that lens. What

Sheri Gazitt 8:24

you're saying about the fix it. I think this is an extremely important point to talk about because when we as parents are like, oh, I'm going to fix this and we are so proud of ourselves and we're like, I'm taking action. But what's happening is you're telling your daughter, you can't deal with this. You don't have the strength, you don't have the knowledge, you just, you're too weak to deal with this. So we're robbing them of the opportunity to step in and solve that problem on their own or choose to not solve it, right? They have that opportunity as well to pick your battles, so to speak. But when we as parents step in, I call it the intrusive parenting strategy. It really denies them that opportunity to figure it out on their own.

The Impact of Social Media on Girl Drama

Dori Durbin 9:08

And okay, you mentioned this just for a second the social media piece of it, because I feel like that is a special spot that kids are leaning into because parents aren't there. And the parents aren't able to solve problems. And yet that's also a dangerous spot because it seems like things can escalate quite quickly there. So what are you seeing on that end with the whole concept of girl drama?

Sheri Gazitt 9:33

It's interesting because we talk a lot about social media and there's definitely a piece there because it's a 24 seven social cycle and the olden days, pre internet and social media. We'd get home from school and we would have a respite from that. We wouldn't have to deal with it. But even if your kids are off their phone from 9 PM to 9 AM they wake up and there's been a lot of stuff that's gone on that they've missed. So it's warps. speed catching up on the social stuff. So that kind of exacerbates everything. I think the bigger issue though, that I'm seeing these days is texting and group texts and Snapchat even, but not the social media as much as that constant texting and the group dynamics within a group text. That's big. Are you ousted? Are you allowed in? Did you post something and nobody responded? There's so many things that are going on and it's all kept in receipts as the teens like to call it. They take screenshots of all these things so they can use it as almost like a weapon. If you betray me, I've got these receipts on you. If you think you're better than I am, I've got some receipts to show you're not. There's a lot going on there.

Dori Durbin 10:45

Yeah. I didn't even think about Snapchat. I actually I've seen where people have looked at where people are on Snapchat and then realized that two people were together and you weren't part of that.

Sheri Gazitt 10:56

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Dori Durbin 10:58

So that's been interesting too, because it's not even just the conversations. It's the fact that you can locate where people are and you can see some of that interaction that's not happening or happening. When you're not there. So yeah, you're

Sheri Gazitt 11:10

left out and it's shown on social media and you can see it on Snapchat.

Dori Durbin 11:15

So tricky. And I think, like you said we didn't experience that. We didn't have that. So I know that you have a framework that you use for parents because Part of me thinks if I was a parent coming into this and my child had been raised pretty much their entire school age. On some sort of device or just in schools in general, there are probably things under the surface going on that I just don't know about. So how do I deal with drama in the form of your love framework and definitely tell us what that is and how that works.

The LOVE Framework: A Parent's Tool for Support

Sheri Gazitt 11:51

Yeah, so I like to say all I need is love and of course it's not that simple. I wish it was, it comes down to this unconditional love, but basically The first part of it is the L, which is listen. So if your daughter comes to you and she's telling you something big is going on and Don't start asking her a million questions about it. We want to let her talk and vent it out because it's a brain dump. And that is a release in and of itself without doing anything else. And also if we interrupt when they're talking to us, it breaks their flow of consciousness and their stream of words. And I've caught myself, I'll do that sometimes. And then. We try to go back and they're like, Oh, I don't know where I was. And then that's the end of it. So just, just listen. And a lot of times that's all they need. They don't need anything beyond that just to be listened to. And girl drama, you can feel very unheard, disrespected, invisible. So for your parent to sit there and listen to you with no distractions, it builds back up your self esteem and makes you feel worthy of that time. So the second piece is offer help or advice. So offer is the key word here. Don't just go into a lecture and say, here's what you need to do. Say, do you want me to just listen or are you looking for advice if they say yes, they want advice That's great But if they don't just know that you've planted that seed That you're there for them when they want it A lot of times when they come to you and they're venting they're in the total emotional part of their brain They don't want to hear logic They don't need to hear logic. And if you try to tell them all these solutions and advice It's going to just go, in one ear, not the other. So yeah, that's the L and the O and then the V is validate their emotions, which is very key. And it doesn't mean that you have to validate their behavior or tell them that they're right about this situation. A lot of times with girl drama, there's two sides of the story. You know that there is perhaps some responsibility in there for your daughter. So But at that point, you're just validating the emotions. And this is really key. Also, a lot of parents will say, what do I do if my daughter is the one who's doing kind of these behavioral issues, if she's doing mean things right now it doesn't matter. They need the same thing. They need the exact same thing as the girl. Who's the target of these things. Validate those emotions. And then the last is empower her. And again, this is no matter where your daughter is on in the girl drama empowering your daughter will help the rest of the stuff kind of fall into place. And that's when she's the one that's looking at the solutions and fixing the issue if there is an issue to fix. Or maybe it's just processing her emotions, understanding there's a different way to look at it.

Dori Durbin 15:30

I just love that. Let's say there's, like you said, bullying, you would take parents through that framework and help them work through it.

Sheri Gazitt 15:36

Yeah. I, in the girl drama webinar that I do, I talk about this framework. So in parent coaching, I don't necessarily say let's go through all of these, but I definitely refer back to this idea of how you want to step in at the moment.

Dori Durbin 15:51

So let's say I'm a parent listening and I have at least one girl and I'm starting to think, okay, this is beyond me. I'm just reacting emotionally, or maybe it's just. need the extra help. How do they contact you work with you? What does that look like?

Sheri Gazitt 16:07

Yeah. So I do parent coaching and then I also do private coaching for girls that are going through the drama and friendship issues. So the best thing to do is to go to my website and watch the girl drama webinar. This is for parents who have girls. You don't have to have them in the midst of girl drama and friendship issues, but it gives you a really good way to look at how you're going to support her and empower her through the stuff that comes up. And that is a, we talked about the three different ways that we tend to parent through this with unintended consequences. So three ways we want to avoid. And then the fourth way is the supportive way, which is based on the love framework.

Dori Durbin 16:49

I probably shouldn't ask what those three ways are because they should probably listen to the webinar.

Sheri Gazitt 16:53

Yes, that'd be good because otherwise I have to go through them really fast. I'll tell you what they are though and then you could go listen to the webinar. It's dismissive, intrusive, and dramatic.

Dori Durbin 17:03

Oh, interesting. That definitely gets my attention and want to hear more. So that's awesome. So teen wise, tell us a little bit about teen wise.

Sheri Gazitt 17:13

Yeah, so teen wise was born out of an interesting,

Teen Wise: Building Healthy Friendships and Confidence

Sheri Gazitt 17:16

windy path to starting this company. It's about 15 years old, and I really wanted to help girls before they got to clinical anxiety, clinical depression and friendships are something that are so key in our lives that really bolster us and help us to get through difficult times when we've got those secure and healthy friendships. And so I noticed that was the place that girls were really struggling. There really wasn't great support out there for it. They can read a book, but that's very different than getting, coaching one to one doesn't take them through their specific situation. So I love working with girls in private coaching because I'm working on confidence, identity, conflict resolution. I do some cognitive behavioral therapy type stuff where we're looking at the thoughts that they're having about themselves and others. in these situations that makes it feel so much bigger than it actually is. It just really, it's all about empowering them. And so I do that through private coaching through online courses for girls, I have some parenting courses and I do a lot of stuff in the community is to support parents. And the teens. That's

Dori Durbin 18:23

awesome. It's funny, when you were talking, I thought I had this one thought and I wasn't planning on going there, but I'm gonna go there. All right. Do you ever tell the teens that they have friends that they shouldn't have? Or do you think it's more perspective of understanding people and having as many friends as you can?

Sheri Gazitt 18:39

I never tell 'em they shouldn't have a friend that they're talking about. What? Because if you do that as an adult. They're going to prove you wrong and they're going to dig in, I'm going to show you this is a good friend. Because our kids are kind, our girls especially, they're nurturing. So if you are saying that about somebody, they're going to be like no, but look, she did this for me and said that. What I like to do is have them evaluate their friendships. I'll do something called a friendship analysis. So we'll go through and look at your friends. What is it about them that you like? How do you feel when you're hanging out with them? How do you feel after you've been hanging out with them? Do they lift you up or bring you down? And so they begin to see the friends that are lifting them up and the ones that are tearing them down.

Dori Durbin 19:24

And that probably extends so much further than just the work that you're doing because all of a sudden now they're looking at friends beyond years of friendship instead of just friends. For

Sheri Gazitt 19:33

years of friendship. Exactly. Yeah, I work with people up into their 20s. So sometimes we'll go through and we'll start out with daycare. What do you remember? What's the 1st friendship you remember? And it's very interesting when we do that because we can see like an evolution of how they reacted and responded and friendships. So they can see their ownership and different things that kind of they needed to tweak or maybe their thoughts of I'm not good enough or I need to prove that I'm a good friend. So we can really look at a lot of stuff that came along the way, but it's never in a way that we're going to sit there and we're going to wallow and we're going to talk badly about that friend that did us wrong. In fact, if there's a friendship that went astray, let's say it went really wrong. We'll look at that and say, What do you want to thank that person for? And we start that and that becomes a release. And then also a gratefulness for that friendship when it was good.

Dori Durbin 20:31

That's so neat. then you're not keeping that negative perspective of them. And I'm guessing this works for boyfriends too.

Sheri Gazitt 20:38

Absolutely. Friendships are where we start to learn what a good relationship is. So if we have a toxic friendship, that can become a toxic romantic relationship down the line. A lot of times, if you'll see someone who is in an abusive relationship, let's say And you're looking at their life like, where did that come from? Their parents weren't in a relationship like that. How did they ever get the idea this was okay? Sometimes it comes back to those friendships, that they didn't ever recognize within their friendships, their self worth and what they deserve to have.

Dori Durbin 21:15

That's so integral into like their future and It's something you wouldn't think of, like your friends in daycare are going to show you what you're drawn to later is as your spouse, right?

Sheri Gazitt 21:27

Yeah, we're packing all this stuff in our backpack, right? In our, backpack of life, and we have to take notice of those things, and this is why the work that I'm doing is so important, because it's not just, oh, it's a girl drama, they'll get through it, they're creating their identities along the way. They're creating the patterns that they're going to accept and that they expect in their friendships and their relationships. So what happens when they're 12, they carry that to 22 and 32 and 42. So we want to make sure that they're empowered. It doesn't mean they're going to have all wonderful, amazing friends and that every interaction is going to be great. It doesn't mean there's no girl drama, but it means that they're empowered as they're dealing with stuff and they're recognizing along the way. What they will and will not accept in a relationship.

Dori Durbin 22:17

Yeah, I just, I had flashes of jobs, their future jobs, where they're living, what they think they're allowed to have, what they're worthy of having, and that's all tied in there, right?

Sheri Gazitt 22:28

Yeah, and it's choices. That's what we have to really teach them. It doesn't mean, I've gotten a lot of pushback aren't you victim blaming if there's a toxic friendship? I'm like, no, not at all. If we say you are a victim, that means you've got no choices. And if we're saying these things are happening to you, let's see is there a different choice you can make to get yourself out of this situation or to process through it or to set your boundary. There's things that we can do even in the worst of relationships to make different choices.

Dori Durbin 23:02

Awesome. Okay. So I'm the parent listening. I have all these thoughts in my head. I know I need to reach out to you. How do I reach out to you? And what are three to five things I can do as soon as this podcast is over?

Sheri Gazitt 23:15

Yes. So let me tell you how to reach out first. Super easy

Practical Tips for Parents: Immediate Actions

Sheri Gazitt 23:18

teen wise. com. And then from there, I would say, jump into my Facebook group. I have, I'm constantly doing Facebook lives and putting information. So that's a great place to start after that, I would say, sit down in a quiet place with a cup of tea, maybe in journal or think about your friendships as you were growing up, thinking about what are the filters that you're bringing into play as you're making your parenting choices, especially when you're supporting your kids. through these difficult social things that are going on. That's really important. The other one would be to evaluate your methods of support. Starting by watching that girl drama webinar would be a great way to look at that, but then think about when your daughter comes to you and she's got stuff going on, it doesn't matter if she's in kindergarten or in college, are you helping her to step into her power or are you trying to fix it? That is a super key and it would be great if we could step in and fix this stuff But we've got no magic wand for that, right? and then I would say the last thing is to lay the foundation so that your daughter or Sons, whoever can come and talk to you about what's going on and instead of saying honey You can talk to me about anything. You want to be very specific. You can come and talk to me I'm not going to judge you. I'm not going to get mad. I'm going to stay calm and I'm not going to get in, get involved in it unless I have your support, unless you want that so that they know what to expect. And then the key is hold to that. Whatever you tell them, whatever that list is, you've got to do that. You've got to stay calm. They need to know that you're going to be the same mom every time they come to you. Not mama bear one time, and then this cute little calm kitten another. You gotta stay, just like super calm.

Dori Durbin 25:12

It's funny you say that because I think there are situations where that reactivity wants to come up. Oh yeah.

Sheri Gazitt 25:19

Oh yeah. It doesn't matter how old you are. Yeah, I've got that in our dialogue. Like, how could she say that to you? She was so mean, I'm not going to say those things. It's not going to help.

Dori Durbin 25:31

Yeah. I don't think it stops when they get in their twenties either.

Sheri Gazitt 25:33

Oh no. No. My three kids are in their twenties. It does not stop. So

Dori Durbin 25:37

tell me about your online friendship course for girls.

Sheri Gazitt 25:41

fostering friendships. And it's based on the 15 years I've been coaching. I know that not everybody can get into my private coaching. I've got limited spots and also, financially we have to make decisions. So I wanted to make the primary things that I talk about in private coaching available to everybody. Almost right. It's not free, but it's a low price point. And it's a really great course that goes through how to connect It talks about the, the emotions and the thoughts that go along with potential rejection. And then also the different levels of friendship. So there's a lot in there. There's about 10 modules. And it's a really great place for girls to start, whether they're going through friendships or not. It's really key.

Dori Durbin 26:24

I think any parent at this point should check that out as well. Because I think, again, it's giving them keys and tools to use, right?

Sheri Gazitt 26:33

Absolutely.

Dori Durbin 26:36

This is awesome information, Sherry. I love your program. I love what you're doing for girls. And I just, hope that parents listening right now and especially moms, if they're feeling that tug of this was my experience, I don't want this

Supporting Girls Through Turbulent Times

Dori Durbin 26:49

to happen. They need to really contact you and, or at least listen to your webinar I just really appreciate your insight and your willingness to help kids, girls go through hard times really.

Sheri Gazitt 27:00

Yes. Hard times, but also exciting times like friendships are fantastic, but there's a little turbulence along the way.

Dori Durbin 27:08

Yeah. Thank you so much, Sherry.

Sheri Gazitt 27:10

I'm so glad to be here..