The Girl in Her Teens

by Margaret Slattery

But all this, some teachers may say, belongs in the home. It is the duty of the home to look after these things. Yes, it is true. And it is a cause for thanksgiving that in so many homes, sweet, patient, wise mothers watch over their girls and give them what they need. But every Sunday-school teacher of girls in their teens has at least one girl whose mother does not or can not help at the time when help is most needed. Some have had no training themselves and do not see the need; some are crushed by the multitude of burdens, some are careless, and some have no knowledge as to how to cope with the wilfulness of girls which sometimes appears in the years of adolescence. “The whole need not a physician, but they that are sick,” the great Teacher said once, and it is true to-day. Both the public school and the Sunday-school exist to cultivate all of good that appears in the girl’s life, and develop what she lacks.

Here is a group of girls in a certain Sunday-school class, most of them well taken care of physically, but with very little of direct teaching and development morally. They are selfish, self-centered, and vain. The teacher’s task is clear. Here is another class in a nearby church, suffering not only from moral and intellectual neglect, but from physical as well. Again the teacher’s task is plain.

We have seen that buried deep in the heart of every adolescent girl is the desire to be attractive, to be popular, to have people “like” her. This desire prompts her often to little acts of courtesy and kindness and efforts to be agreeable; more often it prompts her to make herself physically attractive. Take a walk through any park, along the boulevards, up the main street of small manufacturing towns, or watch any high school group at the hour of dismissal: if your eyes are open you will be conscious of the struggle to be attractive,—to look well. It is registered in hair and hats, bows and chains and pins. Sometimes it appears in fads in dress,—low shoes and silk stockings in winter, or the strange combination of no hat, a very thin coat, and a huge muff. These are the things that make the people of common sense ask the very pertinent question, “What are these girls’ mothers thinking of?” It is a hard question to answer satisfactorily. Often the mothers have helplessly yielded under the power of that insistent phrase, “All the girls do.”

If once these girls can be made to see the attractiveness of absolute cleanliness, of the charm of simple but spotless clothing, of teeth, hair, hands and skin that show care, a great deal will have been done toward helping their general physical condition.

Anything which has to do with personal appearance must be handled with great tact, for the adolescent girl is sensitive and she resents direct criticism. But on the other hand she accepts eagerly anything which promises to help her look well. If a teacher does not feel equal to the task of assisting the girl to make the best of her physical side she can find some one to help her. I know of one class of girls in their teens who will never forget the talk given by a bright, attractive, clever woman at the monthly social, on “Tales Told by Belts,” and not a girl in the Girls’ Club, I know, ever forgot the talk on “Sometimes the Head Rules and Sometimes the Feet.” More girls than usual wore rubbers the next rainy day, and some high heels disappeared.

Perhaps one of the most helpful of the little incidental ways by which the Sunday-school teachers may help is through praise. I have in mind now a girl of sixteen who usually selected her own clothes, and seemed to have a talent for putting together the wrong colors. One spring, she, in some way, was persuaded by another girl to have her coat, dress and hat all in browns that harmonized. One can hardly imagine the change it made in the girl. She realized it. That Sunday in the hall, I told her very quietly that she looked “dear,” that she must never wear anything except soft colors that harmonized; that I loved to look at her. She showed her pleasure. The next January she asked me one night if I thought dark blue would be all right for her new suit if she got “everything to match.”

No one can associate sympathetically with the girl in her teens week after week and not be concerned about her physical welfare. There are so many pale, anemic, tired girls that move one’s heart. Some work too hard. Many live under unhygienic conditions. Many can not stand the pressure and rush of school and social life. Great numbers suffer from improper food, and many more because they do not get enough sleep. Almost every Sunday I hear some girl say she “went somewhere every night last week.” This mania for “going” seizes so many of our girls just when they need rest and natural pleasures, the great out-of-doors, and early hours of retiring.

So many of our girls are “nervous.” A bright, interesting eighth grade teacher told me recently that she had fifty girls in her class and that according to their mothers forty-one were “very nervous.” It seemed to her a large proportion even for girls in their early teens, and she began a quiet study of some of them. One of the “very nervous” girls who, her mother thought, must be taken out of school for a while, takes both piano and violin lessons, attends dancing school, goes to parties now and then, and rarely retires before ten o’clock. Another “very nervous” girl takes piano lessons, goes to the moving picture shows once or twice a week, hates milk, can’t eat eggs, doesn’t care much for fruit, and is extremely fond of candy. In each case investigated there seemed to be much outside of school work which could explain the “nervousness.”

It is most interesting to note the gain, physically, made by almost every girl in her teens who enters a good boarding-school, where plenty of exercise, a cheerful atmosphere, regular hours and wholesome food is the rule.

Just how much the Sunday-school teacher who is a real friend of the girl in her teens can help is a question, but I know of enough cases where an earnest interview with the father or mother has resulted in better care of the growing girl, with more attention paid to her food and rest, to make me sure that it pays to attempt to help. If it only means that the girl in her teens shall not go to school or to work without breakfast, it pays.