Daddy Makes Daughter Feel Beautiful Again

Source: Peter Werkman/Flickr

If you read my previous blog, I discussed the importance of a mother'southward influence on girls' body prototype evolution. In this blog I volition at present focus on the importance of a father (or father figure) in a girl'due south life and how he can also bear upon his daughter'south body image development in a powerful manner. The bottom line is this: Dads, you make a meaning divergence in how your girl will feel about her trunk and appearance, likewise equally her self-esteem.Consider some of the post-obit strategies to help your daughter maintain a positive torso prototype throughout her girlhood and adolescence:

1. Stay close. Research shows that girls with close begetter-girl relationships are more likely to have self-confidence and assertiveness, do ameliorate in schoolhouse, and accept greater career advancement, among many other positive outcomes.ⁱ Dads, make a conscious effort to spend ane-on-1 time with your daughter and so that she feels valued and loved. If she doesn't perceive that she has your approval, she will seek it from other men and will try to please them instead. That is not what nearly fathers desire for their daughters!

2. Keep hugging. Many dads become uncomfortable as their daughters' bodies starting time to change and mature. If you have always been affectionate, this is non the time to end hugging your daughter or to push her off your lap simply because she has grown a little (or a lot). She will take this change as a rejection of her developing body, and she is looking for your approving during this time in her life. Keep showing her appropriate physical affection, every bit she will definitely notice if yous seem to pull away.

3. Lookout man your words about women'south worth. Pay attending to the kinds of comments you make about women in general. Your words tin exist harmful if your daughter learns that the but thing you value in women is their physical features. If you lot make frequent comments about women'southward appearance ("That Kelsey is the most attractive attorney on their staff!") but never mention other strengths ("Kelsey is ane of the brightest attorneys on their staff"), your girl will internalize the message that you value women only for their bewitchery. Instead, aid your girl empathise that you have respect and genuine admiration for women as complete individuals, including their many other strengths and abilities. Information technology is important to keep in mind that you lot are modeling how your daughter volition expect to exist treated by future boyfriends and men in her life.

4. Don't criticize her appearance. Yous should make a witting attempt not to criticize your daughter's weight, shape, or appearance. Fifty-fifty teasing a girl nearly her changing trunk tin can cause her to believe that yous think she is overweight. Commenting on the fact that she has gained a few pounds can definitely exist plenty to crusade her to feel rejected. This is the last thing she needs from her begetter at this fourth dimension.

five. Do compliment her appearance. If yous remain silent about her appearance, she will interpret this as a rejection and she will believe that she does not have your approval. So do continue to make positive comments about her appearance. There is i caveat: Try non to link your compliments about her advent to her weight. For example, "You look cute wearing that new dress! It actually brings out the blue in your eyes!" versus, "You seem to have lost some weight; that dress looks actually dandy on you lot now!" You don't want her to feel like she needs to lose weight in order to maintain your approval regarding her advent.

six. Praise her for her many strengths. While she however needs to hear compliments about her appearance, it is even more beneficial to praise her for her strengths and all the things that make her unique. It is important to acknowledge that you encounter her as more than just her physical advent, and that you value her many other positive attributes. Compliment aspects such as her sense of sense of humour, her kindness, her self-initiative, and her generous spirit. These are character qualities that atomic number 82 to confidence and positive self-esteem. They are too strengths that don't require her to continuously hunt after an ever-changing cultural standard of dazzler.

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Dads, it is my hope that you understand what a valuable role yous play in your daughter's life. You are her start model for how she should await to be treated past males in the future. If you evidence her that she is accustomed, valued, and loved just for who she is (not for how she looks), she volition non experience the need to desperately seek this approving from others. If she knows she has your approval, what a priceless gift you will have given her!

Notes

¹ See Silverman, R. (2010). Good Girls Don't Get Fat: How Weight Obsession is Messing Up our Girls: And Nosotros Can Help Them Thrive Despite It. New York: Harlequin.

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Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/girls-women-and-wellness/201507/dads-whats-your-impact-your-daughters-body-image