IMPOSSIBLE. I really tried, like, I was trying real hard to be good.
Anyway, like, this music teacher came in when I was playing the keyboard, you know, before the class actually started, just made up this tune, see, it was so cool. Everyone said it was. And she says, like, ‘Get off that keyboard. Now!’ and I go, ‘In a minute.’ And she goes, ‘I said NOW.’ And I go, ‘I said in a minute.’ And she goes, ‘That’s it. You’re suspended!’ And I go, ‘You can’t suspend me.’ And she goes, ‘We’ll see about that, young lady.’ Next thing I’m up at the prin’s office and I’m suspended for a week so I lose it and chuck a chair at her and next thing I’m expelled.’
I don’t want to get into a discussion about school policies and who should have done what in this situation. I know that putting anyone on a contract is probably doomed to failure because it’s almost impossible to be that perfect for the rest of your school life. I have met brilliant school counsellors who are totally overworked and underpaid, and I’ve met school counsellors who I wouldn’t send my dog to, and there are some in between.
The problem in Rossie’s case was that there was no one she felt confident enough to tell her problems to and who would listen to her without dumping a load of advice in her ears. Her parents were going through a violent and messy separation, she felt totally rejected and that no one really cared. Her secret stuff was really chewing her up. So she ended up on the street, on drugs, getting used up sexually by a heap of guys, and feeling very bad about herself. I felt that a lot of her problems could have been avoided if she could have shared her secret worries and fears with someone she could trust.
One problem with many adults is that they want to solve your problem when you offload it. Often you just want to spill your guts and let it all out, then you can go on your merry way feeling heaps better.
Some schools have peer educators or junior counsellors or buddies who trot round wearing badges and looking for kids to help. You might want to talk to them about your problems and then again you might not. The good thing about them is that they don’t have an office so they usually float round the school yard. This means you don’t have to actually make an appointment and hang about the pupil welfare coordinator or school counsellor’s office looking desperate. But on the other hand you mightn’t want to entrust your secret to another student who is practically a stranger, even if they seem sympathetic.
If you can’t trust your friends’ reactions to your secret, or you think they’ll give you a heap of advice that you don’t need, or you don’t feel like hearing some possibly heavy psycho-babble from a school social worker or psychologist, you need to find someone who will listen without piling advice onto you.
There is a new service called the Community Listening Project and the idea is that if people really stopped and listened to one another, we could build a safer and nicer community. So if you ever see someone in a shopping mall wearing a badge that says Person Willing to Listen, that’s what the person’s job is — to listen to anyone who wants to talk! This person has been trained not to give advice or anything like that, but they try and put themselves in your shoes and see the world through your eyes. What a great idea!
However, you mightn’t be able to find this person when you need to. Sometimes this is where females in public toilets at the mirrors, and in shopping malls and at bus stops can be really useful, especially if you pick older grandma types or young women in their twenties who’ve probably gone through the same thing. You can start up a conversation, tell them what’s bugging you, offload the problem or the thing that’s getting up your nose, then walk away.
If they want to take you to their house or drive you anywhere it’s not a good idea, because after all they are strangers and could even be strange. You don’t need that on top of everything else! A milkshake in a public place is okay, but don’t tell them where you live or give them your phone number. If they want to help you by meeting again, then organise for it to happen in a public place where lots of people are around you, and see what they have to offer that could help you. This also applies if you want to meet someone you’ve been corresponding with via email.
Like I said, most people are nice but there are some weirdos out there who can sound really genuine. That’s why it’s important not to go anywhere with a new person until you know them quite well and you’ve told someone else about this person as a backup in case things turn nasty.
Dear Diary,
Ally has this mad crush on this older guy called Oliver who drives a station wagon, so we were walking home from school and she saw his car unlocked and parked in the street. Oliver is also a youth counsellor and Ally wanted to tell him about a problem she was having with Menzel. So for a joke we got in the back and hid under a blanket. Then this guy gets in and starts driving off. He had the radio on loud and we’re lying under the blanket scared shitless because Ally stuck her head up to say, ‘Hi Handsome’ and it wasn’t Oliver or his car! It was a guy we’d never seen before! So we hid. The guy was driving like a maniac round the main drag. I was PRAYING we wouldn’t get killed. Ally whispered she’d just peed her pants. We were so scared. But then he stopped outside the Nevada for a coke or something and as soon as he left we bailed! Never again will I ride in a strange car with a strange man!’
Okay, so this was plain stupid but it made me more careful, especially when Ally got one of her spontaneous ideas.
So whether you’re meeting someone to talk things over or getting a ride home with your friends, try to let someone know where you are and who you’re with if you can. There are lots of weirdos out there who are clever at sucking you into to believing they’re ready to help you with your life.
Sorry if I sound like I’m deviating away from this section, School Stuff, but it sort of fits in, because school environments can cause problems and sometimes teachers are too busy to notice, or counsellors are snowed under with big problems and they might think that yours is insignificant. But it’s important to you, which makes it big.
If you try to tell people about your problem or secret and no-one will listen you can always phone Kids Help Line or Lifeline or Youth Works or Dial a Mum and chat to someone there. The telephone operator will give you the number for your city or town. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to an anonymous person on the end of a phone line.
They’ll listen to all sorts of problems, especially ones about friends, family and school.
But, hang on. It could be you who is in the role of listening to a secret or a problem. I remember when my daughter was at high school and one of her friends told her that a teacher was trying to crack onto her. He obviously didn’t have just a regular teacher-student relationship in mind. And he’d threatened to fail the girl in his subject if she didn’t go with him to his house after school.
The best thing to do in this case was not keep this secret and to persuade the girl to see the school counsellor or welfare coordinator, or year level coordinator, or even the principal. Teachers are not allowed to have intimate relationships with their students, in or out of school.
If someone is trying to tell you something, whether it’s about school stuff or not, it’s really important to listen carefully.
Dear Diary,
There’s this girl, Judy, and no one likes her much. She looks kinda grubby and she smells of BO. I feel sorry for her because no one wants to be her friend but then she’s started hanging around with Ally, Jan, Yvonne and me. Ally told me to piss her off, but then Judy started telling me that her mother and father are both alcoholics and she gets bashed up and there’s no food and I didn’t want to listen because what was I supposed to do? So I said I didn’t want to be friends any more because four was company and five was a crowd. But deep down I feel so guilty. I should have listened and now someone said she’s in a home or something. I was a coward. I should have done something.
Okay, Judy wasn’t exactly a friend but she needed someone to listen to her.
Tips for listening to a friend:
Try to listen not only to the words but also for the feelings behind the things the person is saying.
Try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. In other words, imagine that you are that person. Try to experience their world with them.
Let the person know that you’ve heard what they are saying by doing this thing called paraphrasing. That means you repeat what they’ve said to show that you understand that they are feeling bad, mad, glad or sad. It shows that you are truly listening!
Try not to give advice unless the person says, ‘What should I do?’ Then offer some options. The person really needs to take responsibility and make his/her own choice of options, even if you personally don’t think it’s a good choice.
Try to listen for the deeper feelings, because when someone sounds angry they are often hurt and sometimes fearful. Anger and fear often go together. Under sadness there is often anger too.
If you think the person isn’t telling you the whole story, just try to accept what they have told you for the moment. Remember it is their secret anger/fear/joy/guilt/triumph, not yours, and they have the right to tell you only what they want to.
If the secret is really awful and involves danger to someone, suggest that you go together to talk to a trustworthy adult. Often the person might just need someone to go with them in a supportive role. So sit outside the room while they talk to the adult. That’s what I should have done with Judy.
Sometimes at school things can get very complicated when rumours start flying round the place. In fact lots of rumours start at school and spread like a grassfire, and the heat can be very intense for the poor person who is the butt of the rumour.
Once a school principal phoned me at the Alcohol and Drug Centre where I was working and said, ‘Margaret, could you come to the school assembly on Monday morning and speak to all the girls? There’s been an episode of glue sniffing and I’d like you to tell the whole school how dangerous it is.’
I said, ‘No. I won’t come and talk to the whole school. First of all probably 90 per cent of the girls haven’t ever thought about sniffing glue or anything else. If I make a big deal about it some of them will think they should be doing it! Like, they’ll think it’s the cool thing to do! How many girls are involved in this glue-sniffing?’
The principal said, ‘Seven, but there are three main ringleaders.’
I said, ‘Okay, bring the ringleaders to the centre and I’ll chat with them.’
We all know that sniffing certain substances makes you feel weird. Some people like that feeling. Parents would say to me, ‘Why don’t the manufacturers ban these substances?’
The point is we can’t ban petrol, methylated spirits, turpentine, glue, lighter fluid, deodorant, fly spray, eucalyptus, cleaning fluids, Tippex, texta pens, fibreglass resin, and thousands of other substances that some non-cool person decides to sniff. Sniffing is not cool, it’s dumb. If you want to get a high, listen to the type of music that really turns you on, run along a beach, take a dog for a walk, look at a sunset, eat a little bit of something you really like even if it’s fattening, or do something nice for someone else. The last suggestion really makes you feel good!
Anyway, back to the alleged sniffers. In they came, three Year Seven girls, sulky and defiant. Their teacher was all set to come in too but I said, ‘Sorry, this is confidential. You’ll have to sit in the waiting room, please.’
I asked the girls if they’d like a cup of tea or a glass of water. The answer was no. They said their names were Anna, Karen and Leanne. So I said, ‘Why are you here?’
‘Dunno.’
‘What were you doing?’
‘Nuthin’.’
‘Well, you must have been doing something because you’re here.’
Silence. Then Anna said angrily, ‘They said we were sniffing glue and we weren’t. Now there’s a rumour going round and the whole school reckons we’re full-on druggies.’
‘So what were you doing?’
‘We sniffed some spray deodorant, you know, like just mucking round after PE.’
‘What happened?’
‘I threw up,’ said Karen.
‘Yeah. I felt dizzy,’ said Anna.
‘Are you going to do it again?’ I asked.
‘Nah. No way.’
‘Okay. That’s it, then. You can go.’
Silence. Then Leanne said, ‘Aren’t you going to give us a lecture?’
‘What for? You said you don’t want to sniff deodorant again.’
We’d only been chatting for two minutes. They looked at each other. This wasn’t what they’d expected. I could almost read their minds. Go back to school after three minutes? They’d look silly!
‘Um, I’ve got something else to tell you,’ said Anna. ‘It’s not about sniffing or drugs. It’s about other stuff. Is that all right?’
Well, those three girls unloaded a lot of stuff. Some of it was about home. Some was about school. A lot of it was about rules.
‘Your mum is so excellent,’ said Anna to Leanne. ‘Like, she lets you stay out practically all night.’
‘Yeah. No curfews. You can go where you like and do what you like. It’s totally cool,’ said Karen.
Leanne bit her lip and scuffed her shoe on the carpet.
‘I’d rather have your mum,’ she said to Anna. ‘At least you know she cares about you when she yells at you and says, “Be in by ten or else!” Mum hasn’t got a clue where I am, who I’m with, what I’m doing. She’s too busy with her boyfriend, and, like, it’s kinda scary.’
Anna and Karen were dumbfounded. They hadn’t realised that Leanne, with all her freedom, was angry, resentful and scared. The deodorant-sniffing problem seemed insignificant. We ended up talking for over an hour about the girls’ feelings about other things.
‘What will you tell the principal?’ asked Anna when it was time to go.
The girls suddenly looked defensive. What if I told their secrets?
‘I told the principal that this talk would be private and confidential,’ I reassured them. ‘And it is.’
And in order to maintain this confidentiality I’ve changed the girls’ names, their year level, and some other details. In doing this I have kept my promise and kept their secrets!
Of course not all school problems are as heavy as this. However, the everyday problems of school life might seem trivial to other people but not to you. Or they can be really important to other people and not to you. That’s how it is! One person might sail through the day and not think there are any hassles while someone else in the same situation might see it in a totally different way.
For example, I was never good at sport. If I played softball I either missed when I swung the bat or dropped the ball when I was trying to catch it. The other girls would tease me and I never got picked for teams at recess time unless there was a flu epidemic and there weren’t enough girls to play.
I wouldn’t catch the ball because I’d been hit on the head hard by a cricket ball when I was a kid and I was scared stiff of being hit again, and also everything looked a bit fuzzy to me so when I tried to hit the softball I’d miss it every time. Of course I didn’t say anything to anybody. Why? I don’t know. Maybe I tried to and no one listened.
It wasn’t till I kept complaining of headaches and that I couldn’t see the chalkboard properly that my mother thought she’d better cart me in for eye tests. Yes, I needed glasses. But I was still scared of cricket balls, softballs and baseballs in case they smashed my glasses. Lots of girls don’t like certain sports for different reasons.
Some do like sport but there are times when you don’t want to play and teachers or coaches or parents don’t want to listen. Here’s an email from Emma:
>From: Em
ma.
>To: Margaret
>Date: Tuesday
hello there margaret,
i’m really pissed off coz i wrote a reeeeeaaaallllly long email to u in Info Tech 2day at school and when i tried to send it, it goes, ‘You Have Performed an Illegal Operation, The Program You Are In Must Now Terminate, and i’m going ‘nnnnooooooo’, and i press cancel, then Internet Explorer shut down. i was rather angry i must say.
2day was a pretty shit day. i got bagged once again by my bitch of a sports teacher Ms Brown. 2day we were playing tennis on the courts.
it was boiling hot, it felt like 40 degrees and we were complaining. she says ‘don’t be such wimps, it’s only 20 degrees’ and i say to kate, ‘20 degrees my arse. she should go shove her thermometer up her bum cos it’s nowhere near 20 degrees.’ and coz i hadn’t had anything to drink i was dehydrated and felt sick and i sat down while kate, jessica and leanne kept playing and i sat next to phong who had a strained tendon.
then ms brown comes up to me and says, ‘emma, get back on the courts, this is no time for resting,’ and i go, ‘but ms brown, i’ve got a headache coz i get dehydrated easily’ and she goes, ‘don’t be such a wimpy spoil sport, the others are all playing and i’m sure they’re all hot too,’ and i go, ‘i swear. if i play, i’ll vomit,’ and then she goes, ‘and ur not wearing a hat either, (but neither was anyone else), ‘if u don’t bring one next sport lesson u’ll get an order mark. so just get on the courts and stop complaining,’ and she strutted off.
i felt like slapping her bitch face i felt so yucky and sick. so i just sat there, and i was sitting on this bagging thing, the thing u drag round the court to clean it after u’ve played, and it’s got a diamond pattern of holes on it and coz i’d been sitting on it for yonks, when i stood up i had a waffle bum.
Secret Girls' Stuff Page 3