To tell my daughters they are pretty?

[Sleepingugliness]

Do you believe, like me, that they will grow up thinking looks matter because thats the world we live in, and I'll be damned if i'm not going to try to protect them from all that hell and make them believe in their own beauty. Cameran diaz has written something on the subject and says we shouldnt tell young girls they are pretty because it reinforces the notion their worth is defined by their looks. I agree we should praise young girls for other stuff too but I know I will tell my daughters they are beautiful, not least because they absolutely are and always will be.

The research into this shows that children who are told they are pretty / beautiful, and praised for their looks, have lower self esteem rather than higher, and actually score more highly on negative body image scales than children whose parents don't comment on physical appearance.

It's very, very hard not to tell children they're beautiful, I try not to but it slips out because I do think my children are so totally beautiful in every way.

But I do believe that commenting on appearance can make children believe that you value their appearance. I try not to comment on anybody's appearance, positive or negative, in front of my children. true, they'll hear it from other people but YOU are their main influence.

I was praised very highly for physical appearance and intelligence - didn't do my self esteem a bit of good, I always felt I had to measure up.

Hmm, interesting, my older sister was always viewed and praised as the pretty one, I was the tall one!

It affected my self esteem massively as in I never felt "pretty". My sister admitted later in life she would've preferred being me because I was more confident and had more friends and she thought I was prettier.

So everyone reacts differently to being told they're beautiful/pretty according to what's inside and how they view themselves IMO.

DS1 is 16 & is going through the painful 'I have a monobrow'; ' my nose bends to the right' phase. I can offer suggestions to deal with the former but not the nose thing. It's true & to deny it would be silly. I could tell him that he's gorgeous/beautiful to me but it's no longer my opinion that he cares about.

He is charming, helpful, patient with his GM & very thoughtful towards his father. He is also extremely funny. I value all of these more than anything else & any physical attributes.

Quite frankly Cameron Diaz has a face like the back end of a bus so what she knows she'll soon forget.

Yanbu

(And you should do it even if they weren't beautiful. It is your job to do so, as a mother)

I think it's a bit of a strange idea to praise your children for being pretty because it's not something that you have any control over, so there is no 'well done' involved (perhaps it's well done to us parents for having mixed the genes well?). Likewise for being clever, again that's a gift of genetics.

Research suggests that praise is best given where effort has been made. I know this is true for me personally, I moved for the UK to North America where praise is handed out all the time and it makes me very very uncomfortable when it's not earned. If I've worked hard and done a great job I want to be recognised, but otherwise it rings very false.

So I think that we need to be careful about going overboard and assuming there is no downside to 'you are so pretty'.

Having said that I often referred to my two when small as my beautiful boy and my gorgeous girl. Now they are teens they'd not be happy to be called pretty. dd has just told me that 'stunning' is more appropriate, whilst ds prefers 'manly' They are both pretty well adjusted I'd say. They know looks are not really terrible important but both have a strong sense of personal style.

My parents never really commented on looks at all as it wasn't something important to them. I grew up to like myself just the way I am much more than many of my contemporaries (although I would have liked more obvious unconditional love too).

I was never told I was beautiful. And I actually was!! But never knew it. Only looking back in photos I know.

I wasn't told I was ugly either. My looks were never commented on.... At all.

I never believed my mum when she said I was beautiful anyway, just thought well you would say that you're my mum! I will tell my children they are beautiful but not in a comparing themselves to others way, I think that's where the problems come in because there will always be someone else more objectively beautiful than you are, if you're told that you are exceptionally pretty then there is a danger you will always rank yourself against everyone else you ever see. It's good to encourage children to see beauty in everyone including themselves.

Oh and what an unpleasant comment daisychain.

Just because someone doesn't meet your personal standard of beauty you think it reasonable to say they know nothing? Personally I think that you rather prove her point about the pressure girls/women are under to look 'pretty'. Having googled a bit to see what she was saying I thought her point was well made, praise peopel for who they are not how they look.

Oh and apparently she had terrible acne as a teen so probably had her fair share of beauty angst.

Come on daisychain she is gorgeous. Totally irrelevant I know, but she is.