[originaltext]M: A new book explains why girls feel the pressure more than boys

M: A new book explains why girls feel the pressure more than boys, it is called Stressed-out Girls--Helping Them Thrive in the Age of Pressure, the author is psychologist Roni Cohen-Sandler. Roni, good morning. Good to see you.
W: Thank you!
M: I usually hate to start by saying, let me play devil’s advocate to keep it. Let me play it for a second. When I was a kid, I thought it need to be good in soccer, in baseball, and to look good, and wear the right clothes, and be popular, and do well academically, so why is it harder for girls than boys?
W: Well, it’s true, Matt, that boys academically want to succeed just as much as girls, but there are two issues. One is that girls face such more intense racial pressures during middle school and high school. You know, they want to be seen as looking good, and especially they have issues about body-image appearance that boys don’t have. For example, girls that I spoke to, for this book, told me about waking up early in the morning, sometimes an hour or more, to blow dry their hair, to put makeup on, to make sure that their makeup wasn’t too much or too little, and especially to pick out their out-fits because they know that what they wear will say something very important about them.
M: You’ve surveyed, I think, 3,000 girls for this book, and you talk about the fact that girls tend to view their or experience their relationships in a different way than boys do, explain that.
W: Well, they care so much about their relationships, how their relationships are going well. We’re talking friendships here, every kind of relationship, urn, their relationship with teachers, their relationship with parents, their relationships with their peers. And in fact, unless they feel like their relationships are going well, Matt, they can’t feel successful. Boys are much more likely to slough it off, but for girls they go through their school day much differently, thinking about how their relationships are going.
M: This needs to feel extraordinary or to be extraordinary in so many different areas of their lives. More extraordinary than boys apparently they feel they have to be, how does that impact their personalities with that, the weight on their shoulder?
W: Well, they think thru they have to be great in everything, and of course, they have limitations. And when they have limitations, they feel like they can’t, they can’t please people. They feel like they are just not good enough, that their best isn’t good enough, and they end up feeling terrible about themselves, and sometimes they give up, they start feeling like they’re hopeless and not trying this hard.
M: Let’s talk about some things that parents can do to look for signs of hidden stress, not obvious stress.
W: Right, the girls tend to keep their stress in, because they want to please people. So, you know, every girl, for example, is going to be irritable and tired sometimes, but the key is if it becomes a pattern or she suddenly starts saying she hates school or complains about certain teachers, parents should really think about the fact that maybe something stressful is going on.
M: Help create a sensible schedule, big peppy, that I think so many kids are over-scheduled, you got to create downtime.
W: Absolutely, and parents need to be the voice of reason here, I suggest no more than once work per season, that they make sure that their daughters have at least one free period during the school day, and especially they have a couple of days after school. They just rest and relax, relax and rest, and have downtime.
M: All right. So, and also help develop tangible goals, and I would imagine that wouldn’t be: get straight-- As, or you’ve got to get 1,600 on your SATs, what are tangible goals?
W: Tangible goals are: do your homework at night before you go to bed instead of trying to do it in the morning before a class or read over your papers before you hand them in, so you don’t make careless mistakes, or read your textbooks again before you take a big test for example.
M: Give it your best effort, but don’t worry about the results as much.
W: Absolutely!
M: That’s good advice and the last one of course: don’t be afraid to make mistakes.
W: For sure.
M: Thanks so much. Good to have you here.
W: Thanks for having me.