Juan Ramirez

Professor Malcom Campbell

English 1103

February 11, 2015

Topic Proposal: “Like a girl”

Teens across America have been suffering for ages from self-esteem and confidence

issues. The way children grow up to think, later affects the puberty stage and that is where many

are affected and their confidence and self-esteem seem to plummet the most. I will be analyzing

why teens’ self-esteem and confidence plummet so much during puberty and adulthood and how

that affects them in many different aspects of their life. According to many studies done by many

health experts, psychologists and others, teens and especially teenage girls suffer from many

difficulties during their transition into their teenage years. It mostly starts during the transition to

middle school all throughout high school. Problems with self-esteem and confidence can change

the mindset and goals of teens and affect their future in many ways, sometimes more in a bad

way than in a good way.

Many renowned sources have written articles for teens themselves and for parents on

ways to cope with stress everything that may have an effect on the self esteem or confidence of a

teen transitioning into middle school and or high school. Aboutourkids.org, shares a list of

reason with a time frame of what may affect teens’ confidence and self esteem. Girls now start

experiencing thoughts that may alter their confidence as young as 10 years old and it may

increase as they grow up. These changes occur during 5th grade all the way through 12th grade.

Research on the self esteem and confidence of teens resulted in the information needed to

understand the self esteem and confidence of a transitioning teen.

This topic causes many people to think about the ways society is built and if things like

the media may have to be censored or if there needs to be a change in order to have fewer teens

with low confidence and or self esteem. In other worlds, there are points of views that argue that

something more has to be done to have less of an impact on the lives of teens and especially girls

when the have low self-esteem or confidence because of the stress of the media and how they

have to be certain way to be accepted. Others argue that parents need to be more involved or

communicative with their kids in order to make sure their self esteem and psychological health is

well. Many organizations and even companies now have been starting campaigns that help

people and teens become educated about the changes in a pre teen’s life to teens. Always is a

company that recently launched a campaign about the use of describing someone doing

something like a girl and how many don’t realize how it may offend girls to feel unequal to boys.

A topic like this one brings up many questions and there are many questions to be asked.

How specifically does a kid’s confidence and self esteem change during their transition into

becoming a teen? What factors cause this change and how can one eliminate these factors? Many

questions bring up much research and studies to be done to find these answers and do the best

one can with the results.

My interest results from living in the generation where self esteem and confidence is a

problem. This topic also brings concern because there are children who are affected by it every

day. I feel like this shouldn’t be problem for children growing up and in order to change that, we

must first change our selves and that mindset. There has been a rise in awareness because of the

changes it causes in girls and boys and sometimes it leads to more serious topics like bullying,

suicide, and health problems. I feel that I wouldn’t want to hear my children saying that they

aren’t happy with their body or that they are being told, that they do this and that “like a girl”.

Those things make a child’s confidence and self esteem diminish and some are strong enough to

rise above those ideas but others are not and like most of the fish, follow the current.

I will continue to read articles and research websites from organizations and other

companies that work towards changing these mindsets that affect many. I will also ask girls and

boys questions like what it means to them to do things like a girl and if they find that it is

offensive. Also asking them if they’re satisfied with their body or if they wished to change

something about it would be some other questions to ask.