Watch out, Energizer Bunny
Girls can be so mean, can’t they? Especially in high school. And girls (especially in high
school) can be so frustrated and angsty and angry with the world that they need some sort of (usually inappropriate) outlet.
So what are we to make of this story that’s all over right now, about six teenaged girls who made a list of 300 people they wanted dead? Now, I’m not saying these girls did a smart thing – I mean, they posted the list on freaking MySpace, for one thing, which is as public forum as any. And in this post-Columbine world, kids have to know that any threat of
violence is not going to be dealt with lightly.
But a charge of
homicide conspiracy? Even the principal of their school admitted that he didn’t think he’d “thwarted a shooting incident or an act of violence.” And the list included classmates and faculty, but also Tom Cruise, Oprah Winfrey and the Energizer bunny. Were these girls really serious?
There is some great advice on dealing with arguments between teenaged girls which, as we all well know, can get pretty nasty, here on the Parents of Teens board.
“I know how hard it is ... my own dear daughter (now 15yo sophomore) went through her own fair share of mean girls stuff in 8th grade, with girls she had been friends with since 3-4th grade. I wanted to strangle a few scrawny 13yo necks, that''s for sure.”
“Who knows why girls are so passive-aggressive, it may have something to do with the fact that girls usually do not "slug it out" the way boys do, and then move on. Girls can be vicious, in my humble opinion, much worse than boys.” This poster also recommends, as a way of gaining more insights into teen girls’ mean behaviors, reading Queen Bees and Wannabes , an excerpt of which can be found here.
But back to these six girls in Tennessee – did they deserve to charged with homicide conspiracy? Or has political correctness gone too far, making us all overly skittish about the threat of school violence?