About this item
Today's middle school girls have it rough.In a few short years, they go through an incredible number of biological and emotional changes, making this the most formative - and riskiest - time in their lives. Groups turn on each other, a trusted childhood friend can reveal secrets by sending a text message or updating a Facebook status, and deciding where to sit in the cafeteria can be a daily struggle. As any tween will tell you, life for a middle school girl can be summed up in one word: drama. Haley Kilpatrick's own turbulent middle school experience inspired Girl Talk, a nonprofit organization in which high school mentors offer a "just been there" perspective to tween girls, helping them build self-esteem and develop leadership skills. Here, Haley delivers the definitive guidebook, packed with anecdotes from real girls around the country, who offer their insight into why her friends' approval is suddenly vitally important, why she feels pressured to be perfect, why she's no longer telling her parents everything, and what three vital things adults can offer to the girls in their lives to downplay the drama.
About the Author
Haley is the founder and Executive Director of Girl Talk, a national nonprofit organization through which high school girls mentor middle school girls to help deal with the trials and triumphs of the "tween" and early teen years. She is also a former preteen who remembers occasions when she ate alone in the school restroom to avoid being left out in the lunchroom, until she found a source of confidence and hope in an older high school girl who helped her to understand that she was not alone, and inspired her to get through a difficult and all too familiar middle school girl experience. It was this experience that inspired her to start Girl Talk in 2002 at the age of 15, and to build it into an organization that now reaches 35,000 girls in 43 states and 6 countries and that aspires to reach many more.
Haley knows from both personal experience and from experience in the trenches with today's preteens that the issues these girls face are both challenging and universal, and that they can be overcome to reveal the wonderful potential and unique beauty of every young girl. It is this knowledge that inspired Haley to give the girls themselves a voice in her book, The Drama Years: Real Girls Talk about Surviving Middle School - Bullies, Brands, Body Image and More (2012, Free Press) , which serves as a guidebook for parents, teachers and anyone else who works with middle school girls on helping them weather these challenging developmental years. Haley's hope is that, by better understanding the landscape and perspective of girls this age, the adults in their lives can support their development into kind, confident, and compassionate young women whose self-esteem and leadership skills strengthen not only their own futures, but the futures of the communities in which they live and the people they influence.
Haley has been named one of Glamour Magazine's "20 Young Women Changing the World Now," the Huffington Post's "Greatest Woman of the Day," and People Magazine's "All-Star Among Us," among many other honors. She has been featured on NBC's Today Show, NBC Nightly News, CNN, HLN, and TBS.
Haley enjoys traveling, speaking, volunteering, and inspiring others to discover their passions through community service. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
