The world which we live in is quite fast- paced and there is little or nothing anyone can do about it. the message we seem to get from the media is that of a world of glamor. Unfortunately, our young girls are caught up in this web of glamor, so much so that they do not wish to be left out. In fact a young girl who does not do what her peers do or who does not appear in a certain way that is supposedly considered in vogue, such individual is looked down upon, and considered archaic! This young girl is pressured into doing all she can to fit in. This is why you find young girls from decent homes snubbing their moral values to engage in bad behaviors. These decent girls do not become bad because they want to, they engage in certain wild behaviors so as not to be laughed at by their peers, plus they want to be popular too. You find these an issue common among school children. This is not to say that adults don’t find themselves in situations like these. Today you have lots of girls going heavy on alcohol. Even at an illegal age, they find ways to smuggle in some alcohol. Trust me; most of these girls do not take alcohol because of the sweetness of it! Most of these girls actually abhor alcohol but they do not want to appear as the odd ones in a hall full of students drinking without a care in the world. Now, while we cannot do much to eliminate some certain external factors that pose serious challenges at us, there is always something we as parents, uncles, aunties and other adults can do to help either their teenage daughters, cousins, nieces or pupils:

1. Redirect their focus: Going by what we see on TV these days an average teenage girl has it nicely summed up in her head that beauty, glamor, power or wealth is it. You can tell by their total devotion to acquiring these. Don’t get me wrong, these stuff are worth craving for, but going to outrageous extremes to get these have consequences. However, shifting their focus onto other creative stuff would help them see beauty and glamor as bonus.

2, Let them know the truth about alcohol consumption and other substance abuse. we as parents need to help them understand that they do not need to do whatever they don’t want to do, not for whatever reasons! Alcohol consumption does not gain you popularity of any kind, just as substance abuse does not give any kind of power, at least, nothing permanent.

Finally, there are lots of other things we can do to help our young girls, we need to pay them lots of attention to discover these.