Talk, talk

By Jennifer Sbar

  Imagine: your daughter engages in that age-old favorite female tradition of meeting her girlfriends at their favorite haunt for a latte, where they sit for hours and chat about their current trials and tribulations; everything from how their current crushes seem to ignore them to their disappointment in not making the cheerleading squad.
  On the surface, this scenario seems benign; however, there is an unsuspecting threat lurking, and it is not the caffeine or the calorie count of the girls’ drinks. It is their discussion.
  Now, at this point you are probably asking yourself how a friendly chat over a latte could potentially pose harm. According to some researchers, though, one of the most enjoyable rites of passage to womanhood for a teenage girl could also be one with a hidden dark side.

  It’s called co-rumination, the propensity of teenage girls to excessively discuss their problems with their friends. And three University of Missouri-Columbia researchers — Dr. Amanda Rose, Dr. Wendy Carlson and Dr. Erika Waller — have found in their psychology study that teenage girls who indulge in this practice benefit from better quality friendships. But they also had increased occurrences of depression and anxiety over time.
  Rose said for years society encouraged children to discuss their worries and problems with friends, because talking about problems and seeking social support was considered healthy.
  “Co-rumination likely represents too much of a good thing,” she explained. “Some kids, especially girls, are taking talking about problems to an extreme. When that happens, the balance tips, and talking about problems with friends can become emotionally unhealthy.”
  Rose said when girls co-ruminated, they spent a large amount of time dwelling on their problems and worries, causing them to feel sad and hopeless. These feelings, it just so happens, are also symptoms of depression.
  “In terms of anxiety, co-ruminating likely makes them feel more worried about the problems, including about their consequences,” Rose said. “Co-rumination also may lead to depression and anxiety because it takes so much time.”
  The problem, study co-author Carlson said, is that, despite all the time dedicated to discussing the problem, it may never be resolved.
  “You could come up with 50 ways to solve one problem but never actually put any of those into action,” she said. “Although, I think that the goal is to solve it, sometimes I’m not sure if that goal is ever achieved because it seems like the positive feelings actually come out of the talking about the problem as opposed to actually solving it.”

  Dawn Jett has experienced what Carlson is talking about first-hand.
  Jett, clinical director of The Family Counseling Center of the CSRA, has a 17-year-old daughter, Jessica, who confessed to sometimes making a big deal out of nothing just to receive support. That’s when Jett discovered that adolescent girls sometimes use co-rumination to have their emotional needs met through the pouring out of sympathy, advice and caring from their friends.
  “When the crisis is over, they miss that feeling of closeness and warmth and being supported and they do not know how to get it back without having another crisis,” Jett said. “If you really buy into your crisis, then eventually your life is one big crisis and you are depressed.”
  Jett also learned from her daughter that the support came with a big price tag: pressure and increased anxiety.
  Girls felt enormous pressure to follow through on their friends’ advice, even though they may not have agreed that it was the best way to solve the problem. Why? They feared they would lose their friends if they did not take their advice, Jessica reported to her mom.

  Losing friends at any age can be disheartening. According to Glenn Hills High School Guidance Counselor Yetive Larke, however, friendships are even more vital to adolescents.
  Larke said high-school girls, who typically have four to five girlfriends, co-ruminate more on their girl friendships than on any other issues including dating.
  She said one or two girls would come into her office saying the other girls in the group were talking badly about them or were revealing private information which they had previously shared with the girls.
  That coincides with what Rose, Waller and Carlson also found in their study, which was published in the American Psychological Association’s journal Developmental Psychology: that some girls tended to strategically use highly personal information they received from their friends during co-rumination sessions to position themselves in a more superior social position.
  Larke works with Glenn Hill’s 12th graders, and admits that most of her time is spent with students discussing academic and graduation requirements, rather than on behavioral skills. However, she stresses to her students that her door is always open to discuss problems and she did approach students whose friends or teachers notified her were having trouble.
  Larke said she would ask the girls why they allow such behavior from their friends. She never got a satisfactory answer
  The guidance counselor said if she had more time, and, of course, way less paperwork, she would love to provide workshops for mothers and daughters on everything from skills needed in school and out in the workforce to the kind of behavior people admire and respect.

  Classes like the one Larke suggested would probably be as helpful for moms as it is for daughters, since it is widely accepted that the best place for a child to learn how to convey their feelings and acquire healthy coping and behavioral skills is with their family.
  “Parental involvement is the greatest missing piece of the puzzle,” Larke said.
  Jett, who counsels families daily at the Family Counseling Center in downtown Augusta, fully agrees.
  “When parents model clear boundaries, they have children who have healthy self-esteem and also model clear boundaries, and who can say to other kids, ‘I know you might not like me if I tell you this, but it’s not OK for you to call me stupid’ or ‘You are copying off my paper. I don’t like that,’” Jett said. “Parents have to have it in them to teach it to their kids.”
  Kim, an Augusta mother of an 11-year-old who wished not to reveal her last name, said she is conscious of the fact that children do model their parents’ behavior.
  “I do think about some of the stuff that I do,” she said. “I’m real careful about the way I dress because girls do pick up what they see their moms do.”
  “I feel strongly about the way I carry myself because it does reflect on how they will carry themselves when they get older, how they will present themselves when they go out in public,” she added.
  Kim said she did not agree with the findings of the study, saying she believes it is important to always discuss problems and feelings. She said she was not worried about her daughter Monique co-ruminating and preferred she talk with someone — if not with her — than with nobody about her problems.
  However, Sasha, a mother of a 13-year-old girl in Hephzibah who also wished to protect her last name, said she agreed with the study’s findings and did find it worrisome as a parent of a teenage girl.
  Sasha said she could definitely understand how girls could get depressed if they just talk about a problem and not resolve it.

  So, just how does a mom decide when her daughter is chatting too much about a problem?
  Carlson, who now teaches psychology at West Virginia’s Shenandoah University, said there was no magic number one could point to and say, “Hey, that’s too much.”
  “But I do think it is when it does start having an effect on a daughter’s everyday functioning,” she said.
  Carolyn Ramp, a counselor with Magnolia Associates of Augusta, said parents who observed their daughter only wanting to hang out and chat with the same friend all the time instead of being actively involved in a number of activities could be co-ruminating.
  “I think it is very important for parents to be aware [of what their daughter is doing],” Ramp said.
  Recently, when Kim found Monique staying in her room a lot, she asked her if everything was OK. And although she said it is sometimes difficult to get her kids to discuss their problems, she employs her own “shock and awe” method to get them to open up.
  “I just ask a bunch of questions,” Kim explained. “It’s more like asking the same question but just rewording it each time. Eventually they get tired of you asking the same question and eventually they’ll tell.”
  Ramp said when teenagers involved themselves in positive activities, such as scouting or hobbies, they did not have the opportunity to constantly focus on their problems, thereby avoiding the rut of obsessing over them.
  Additionally, teenagers needed to stay physically active in order to help work off feelings of anger, anxiety and frustration, she said.

  One of the main resources parents can utilize in helping their children deal effectively with problems is their children’s school.
  Kim said her daughter’s school was excellent at offering students counseling and giving handouts for the children to bring home to discuss different issues with their parents.
  In addition, Kim’s daughter Monique has a chance to discuss her problems at school, since she and a group of girls meet every week with a school counselor to address any concerns and issues they have.
  Monique said she felt that the sessions with the counselor have helped her acquire skills such as respecting others and refusing to gossip.
  Where there are gaps in the school system for learning coping strategies, parents can utilize an array of community resources in the area.
  Families R First Director Dr. E. J. Holt said his organization offers anger-management courses, family violence and substance-abuse programs, counseling, as well as GED and job-skills training.
  In addition, Holt said, in the near future they would also be offering a transitional shelter for teenagers in need, where they would learn life, job and behavioral skills and receive psychiatric assistance.
  The Family Counseling Center of the CSRA also offers individual and family counseling, life and parent coaching, and a women’s self-esteem support group.
  Visitors to the Family Counseling Center are greeted in the waiting room by a colorful poster entitled, “What all children want their parents to know.”
  The first verse reads: “Teach me to love and care for myself through your positive example. I will learn much more from what you do than from anything you could ever say.”
  So, the next time you head out to your favorite cafe to meet friends for a chat and a latte, set an example and bring an old board game along and play a game instead of kvetching the whole time. Or at least most of the time.

  For more information, contact Families R First by calling (706) 828-4855 or visiting familiesrfirst.org. Reach Family Counseling Center of the CSRA by calling (706) 722-6512 or visiting fcccsra.org.