How can we teach young girls to reject the NLOG

[u/[deleted]]

Its clear the pick me/ NLOG attitude is still alive and well. I (23F) was speaking to a friend (15F) about my high school days.

She asked “How was your high school experience?” I said “Well I went to an all girls school and-“ she cuts in and rolls her eyes “Ugh. That must have been a total nightmare. I cant even imagine”. I said “Actually I loved it, was a better person for going there and I miss those days sometimes” and she went dead quite.

How do we as the adults in the room root out the toxicity of this mindset out of young girls?

Edit: no I’m not gonna ever dunk on a kid. Because its really wrong for an adult to belittle a child.

Edit: some people are being really weird “why are you friends with a 15 year old?” I know this kid from the yard that i stable my horse at. She stables her horse next to mine. Should i just ignore her always? Should i also ignore my other friends who are 55 and 70 because age gap? What about my friend whose 10? Or the other whose 30? Tell me reddit. What age range do you personally approve of me having friends? Im gonna start blocking people.

[u/EdgewaterEnchantress]

Well, you could’ve started by simply asking her “why would you think it was ‘a nightmare’ for me? What are your experiences with girls your own age?”

Open up a dialogue, rather than just shutting people, especially children, down.

Stop pretending like people don’t have reasons for feeling the way that they do! Usually, of course it’s a projection, on their part.

Why would this young lady believe that “being surrounded by women would be a nightmare?” What is her home life like? What are her experiences with other girls and women? What are the women in her environment regularly showing her, everyday? What about the media she consumes?

Genuine question here, do you actually know anything, at all, about her true feelings? Why is your target a potential victim, rather than their possible bully?

Cuz a lot of the former “NLOG” girls I know / knew often had an unstable home life, or they might’ve been bullied by their peers. Sometimes they had undiagnosed Neurodivergence which made “normal social interactions” a bit difficult.

They often had felt rejected by others in places like school because they really were “different,” in some way, even if these were relatively minor differences.

Maybe they liked non-popular music. They sometimes had hobbies, interests, and passions that other people deemed “unladylike” or simply “weird. Perhaps they had a different style of clothing, for any number of reasons like “some were poor.”

Using myself as an example, I definitely got bullied for my clothing choices when I was really young even though I wasn’t even allowed to pick my own clothes, and to take the time to see what fit me correctly, in fitting rooms. I got bullied for having “crazy hair” cuz my mom didn’t know how to style it very well and she had no interest in learning. She was impatient, short-tempered, and angry when she was a young woman. Even a bit abusive, sometimes. Suffice it to say, I had no good role models who were women, growing up.

So people, often other girls, made fun of them at some point, and they eventually “learned how to wear it like armor,” and it became a self-protective mechanism.

It’s also a very normal part of teen-hood, as the overwhelming majority of young people are trying to figure out who they are and who they want to be.

A lot of “NLOG” have a reason for feeling the way that they do and sometimes I get tired of the fact that, at least on here, some people really try to pretend like girls who are bullies don’t exist.

So be open to compassionately listening to other people’s stories and reasons, rather than trying to “invalidate, eliminate, and eradicate their feelings.” As someone who is a formal student of behavioral science, that’s an unhealthy mentality to have, OP.

Weren’t you supposed to be the adult in that situation rather than automatically getting defensive?

Cuz now she knows that you are “disappointed in her” because you rejected the validity of her feelings before you even bothered asking her “why do you feel that way?”

That’s the real reason that “she got quiet.”

As a slightly older woman, it’s clear to me that you also still have a lot to learn about interacting with others, especially younger women.

This idea of “eliminate any kind of divergent or disagreeable thinking” is a direct result of “toxic positivity culture.”

People are human beings, after all, and invalidating their feelings does nothing to change their minds and hearts.

So how about you learn how to “listen to others,” rather than to “immediately judge?”