My daughter is a lovely sweet polite 10 year old, recently she has begun worrying a lot about puberty, self image and has become hyper aware of everyone around hers "faults"
She would never say anything insulting to other people but she does share all these things with me, I have spent many hours of time over the last year listening to her worries about periods, her figure, other people faults. I tried talking about it and reassuring her / explaining that no one is perfect and we just need to accept and love ourselves and others. I've bought her books, I've also gone the other way and told her to stop worrying and shut the conversation down...neither does anything to stop her worrying/in her words "thinking mean things about people" I don't know what else to do.
The other issue is she also tells me the mean things she has thought about me and my appearance, I have tried to act like I don't care what she's thinks it only matters what I think of me, I have tried to tell her that it hurts and she shouldn't say those things even if she thinks them. The comments on my weight have stopped and now she has moved to picking out of things I am insecure about, she would never know that as I try to promote a positive self image and I know she's not trying to upset me but it does. When I say I don't want to hear what she thinks is wrong with me or other people, she's gets upset and tells me that she has no one else to talk to and talking about it helps her.
What can I do to help her, she is obviously having trouble coming to terms with growing up but I don't know how to help her navigate that and at the same time I know I need to stop the mean things but how do I do that without her feeling like she can't have a open dialogue with me.