{"id":7150,"date":"2006-09-14T22:27:11","date_gmt":"2006-09-15T03:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/?p=7150"},"modified":"2011-07-06T08:34:49","modified_gmt":"2011-07-06T13:34:49","slug":"5149","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/2006\/09\/14\/5149\/","title":{"rendered":"New Book Focuses on Issues Facing Teenage Girls"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO, IL (September 14, 2006) – Ginny Olson had the frightened male youth pastor in mind when she wrote her new book, \u201cTeenage Girls: Exploring Issues Adolescent Girls Face and Strategies to Help Them.\u201d
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\n\u201cBased on conversations I\u2019ve had with male students, I\u2019ve come to realize that adolescent females can be terrifying creatures if you don\u2019t know much about them,\u201d says Olson, who serves as co-director of the Center for Youth Ministry Studies at North Park University. Most male youth workers have \u201conly a vague idea of how girls are wired.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olson deals with a breadth of issues facing teenage girls, ranging from eating disorders and self-image issues to concerns about emotional well being, sexuality, spirituality, family, and relationships. She draws from her own experience as a youth worker and professor, as well as that of therapists, youth pastors, and focus groups of young women.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\"\"<\/a>When discussing important issues, youth pastors need to understand that teenage girls of varying ethnic groups approach areas of their lives in significantly different ways, Olson says. \u201cMuch of what has been written about adolescent females comes from research based on Caucasian girls,\u201d she explains. \u201cFortunately we\u2019re seeing a rise in research being done with girls of color.\u201d<\/p>\n

That research has revealed differences in areas such as body image as well as changes in self esteem as girls get older. \u201cFor example, when it comes to body image, African American girls are usually much more confident than Latinas or Caucasian girls,\u201d Olson says. \u201cAfrican American girls are also less likely to diet or have eating disorders – unless they are surrounded by peers who are focused on their weight and dieting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reasons for attempting suicides also differ among racial and ethnic groups. \u201cCaucasian girls who think they\u2019re overweight are more likely to attempt suicide,\u201d Olson says. \u201cThe opposite is true for African American and Latina girls. They\u2019re more likely to attempt suicide if they believe they\u2019re extremely underweight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Race and ethnicity also impact girls\u2019 self esteem, Olson says. \u201cTypically, African American girls are more confident than Caucasian girls. However, they also discovered that while Latinas begin school with the highest level of self-esteem, they also show the most drastic change; by the end of school, they had plunged to the lowest level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Increased struggles with self-esteem also have led to an increasing number of girls who injure themselves through cutting or mutilation, or suffer depression and eating disorders, Olson says. Research has found that girls as young as five have serious struggles with their body image.<\/p>\n

Despite her years in youth ministry, Olson was surprised by some of the findings, especially the rise in aggressive behavior among girls. \u201cI was aware of the relational aggression that goes on \u2013 excluding girls from a clique, spreading rumors – but I didn\u2019t realize that 25 percent of all teenagers between the ages of 13 and 15 who are arrested for aggravated assault are female,\u201d she says. \u201cOne survey found that eight percent of the girls who responded said that they had been in a physical fight in the past year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Girls also are becoming more aggressive in their relationships with boys, Olson says. \u201cWhen I talked about this recently at CHIC, I had a number of boys tell me that they had been stalked by girls after they had tried to break up the relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adolescent girls also are increasingly the initiators of sex in relationships, Olson adds. She quotes a counselor who states in a New York Times article that \u201cThe teenage boys I see often say the girls push them for sex and expect them to ask them for sex, and will bring it up if the boys don\u2019t ask. There has been a shift where girls now see themselves as sexualized and approach men with pretty much the attitude – \u2018This is all I have to offer.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Although her book was writing primarily for young male youth pastors, her book has been finding an audience with fathers who are trying to understand their daughters, Olson says.<\/p>\n

The book is published by Youth Specialties\/Zondervan, which is considering a parental version of the release as well as a book to help female youth workers understand teenage girls that will be written by a different author.<\/p>\n

To purchase the teenage girls book, please visit the online Covenant Bookstore<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Copyright \u00a9 2011 The Evangelical Covenant Church.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Report This Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO, IL (September 14, 2006) – Ginny Olson had the frightened male youth pastor in mind when she wrote her new book, \u201cTeenage Girls: Exploring Issues Adolescent Girls Face and Strategies to Help Them.\u201d Report This Post<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nNew Book Focuses on Issues Facing Teenage Girls - Covenant Newswire Archives<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/2006\/09\/14\/5149\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New Book Focuses on Issues Facing Teenage Girls - 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