Maturity Involves Being Honest And True To

Teenage Girls Are Extremists Who See The World In Black-and- White Terms, Missing Shades Of Gray. Life Is Either Marvelous Or Notworth Living. School Is Either Pure Torment Or Is Going Fantastically. Other People Are Either Great Or Horrible, And They Themselves Are Wonderful Or Pathetic Failures. One Day A Girl Will Refer To Herself As "the Goddess Of Social Life" And The Next Day She'll Regret That She's The "ultimate In Nerdosity.

We Are A Small, Interconnected World; That We Are All Safe Or None Of Us Are; That We Are All Well Cared For Or All At Risk.

Maturity Involves Being Honest And True To Oneself, Making Decisions Based On A Conscious Internal Process, Assuming Responsibility For One's Decisions, Having Healthy Relationships With Others And Developing One's Own True Gifts. It Involves Thinking About One's Environment And Deciding What One Will And Won't Accept.

We Live In A World Filled With Language. Language Imparts Identity, Meaning, And Perspective To Our Human Community. Writers Are Either Polluters Or Part Of The Clean-up Team. Just As The Language Of Power And Greed Has The Potential To Destroy Us, The Language Of Reason And Empathy Has The Power To Save Us. Writers Can Inspire A Kinder, Fairer, More Beautiful World, Or Invite Selfishness, Stereotyping, And Violence. Writers Can Unite People Or Divide Them.

One Important Reason To Stay Calm Is That Calm Parents Hear More. Low-key, Accepting Parents Are The Ones Whose Children Keep Talking.