New Edition of Queen Bees & Wannabes Out Today

Posted on October 10, 2009 - 9:40pm by loretta The new revised edition of Rosalind Wiseman's Queen Bees & Wannabes went on sale today, October 13th. Rosalind posted a little Q & A on her website. Here are a couple of the questions and answers from the website. Q. A good part of the new edition is devoted to technology and media. How much of an impact does social networking (E.G.: Facebook, MySpace) now have on young girls and their friends, cliques etc.? A. Girls don't exist without social networking. Websites like Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and countless others have changed everything-being connected 24/7 is the norm. As a result, everything from the way girls bond, communicate, gossip, fight, make up, and express themselves is completely different than it was even five years ago. As a result of this, parents often feel overwhelmed and completely unequipped to monitor their use. A huge part of why I re-wrote this book was to give common sense rules about how to deal with their daughter's tech-savvy and tech-saturated social landscape that is changing every day. Q. What have you discovered about the effects of texting and sexting? A. Texting is another technology development that didn't exist 7 years ago when Queen Bees first came out. Back then it had just barely become the norm for everyone in the family to have a cell phone. Now, kids and parents keep in constant contact with these devices. Cell phones have been great for keeping track of kids, but they are essentially portals for all sorts of stuff to come at them that you didn't bargain for-text messages saying "the whole school hates you" received right before taking a test, incoming messages at all hours of the night when they should be sleeping and their phone is their alarm, etc. And even when they're just chatting back and forth between friends constantly and there are no problems, there has become an incredible dependency on technology. There are no breaks, so the good, the bad, and the ugly that happens in girls' friendships anyhow is not only at school, but is brought home and constantly percolating via cell phones. In the book I'm equipping parents with tips on how to give their kids use of technology while monitoring it responsibly. Sexting takes things to another level and is understandably really upsetting. For parents to think about their daughters sending sexually explicit, nude or semi-nude photos of themselves is hard to believe. But as difficult as it is to swallow, chances are good that even if your daughter has not sexted herself that she will see content of someone who has, and you need to know how to help deal with that. For more Q & A's go to Rosalind's website at rosalindwiseman.com.