Not a stealth brag... Tips on raising an exceptionally beautiful child.

[Trytrytryasimight]

I know. I'm cringing at the thread title too.

I'm absolutely average, so is her dad. She happens to have an aunt who is an outlier in their family that looks like Claudia schiffer, and seems to have inherited all of her looks from her.

She's all rosy cheeks enormous green eyes and a mass of curly blond hair that never seems disheveled. She chooses her own clothes, keeps them nicely and puts them together so she looks fabulous every time. She is that child and this is through no effort of my own - I was more of an awkward indie kid through my tweens and teens. I can see other girls want to be her friend cause she's fun and kind but then look decidedly jeolous and irritated at dds clothes, hair, general oh wow look I'm so perfect and yet so pretty unspoken general vibe.
She's 12 and we've noticed teachers, club leaders, family members do seem to give her some kind of preferential treatment and I think it's becuase she is very compliant to adults and also very pretty she is.she is also genuinely good hearted and we've never had any reason to think she is unkind to others.
I want to guide her as best I can, as having an opposite experience of my looks growing up and generally being fairly invisible, I don't really know what you to help someone not place too much worth in their looks while acknowledging it's a lovely thing to be beautiful. Any advice on how to raise a particularly good looking child??

Why don't you ask Claudia ?

I give up. People don't get it.

Disagreeing with you isn’t not getting it

Speaking anecdotally, I got way less attention from men as a chubby, bespectacled buck tooth adolescent than my more 'conventionally attractive' peers. I'm pleased now, though it knocked my confidence a bit. I avoided the very unwelcome attention of seedy older men thankfully, but boys of my own age never 'asked me out'. Turned out to be a good thing as decent men have been attracted to what I hope are my other qualities.

@Catsknees this was exactly me too in my teens. Took a lot of name calling because of my glasses and brace. By the time I had the brace off and got contact lenses my self esteem was in shreds. Like you I didn't get that creepy attention from older men but boys my own age didn't ask me out either. Ironically, now at nearly 60 I think I'm slightly above average looking for my age!

I read somewhere once that really beautiful children struggle later in life to form friendships because when they are little, other kids are just drawn to them because they are pretty, so they never really have to work very hard at making friends.

So if what you're saying is true, I'd continue to teach her how to be a good friend. Listen to others, be interested in other people, be supportive, be fun etc etc

But more importantly, learn who is a good friend to her too. People who value her for who she is and not what she looks like.

she's trying to discuss the problems extraordinarily beautiful children face. The ones who cannot walk down a street at 12 without men gawping at them, who in year 7 get catcalled words they've never heard of from the year 10s, who have to fend off males at far younger an age than the children who are beautiful to their parents. They can't be treated like other children, because I don't need to particularly (thankfully) tell my 12yr old dd how to respond to 'I want to fuck you' because she doesn't hear that yet. Get some empathy people.

Sorry this is rubbish.

Posters on this thread who are soooo dismissive of the impact beauty DOES have on your life honestly sound like they’re bitter about OPs daughters good looks, really underlining the very real truth of jealousy from other women and it’s negative impact on good looking females. That’s the other thing to prepare your daughter for OP - sometimes girls and women will be dismissive and cruel for no other reason that jealousy which they haven’t addressed and are projecting on to her. It’s much easier to stomach someone being more beautiful than you if you can pick apart their personality or remove the threat you instinctively see them as by ensuring they are excluded from your social circle. She can be as kind and funny as she likes but she will be under more intense scrutiny from other women watching out for ways she isn’t perfect - and will probably find that rumours and gossip stick to her more than her less attractive friends too. So she needs great self esteem and a circle of true friends to weather those storms.

I actually find it quite worrying that a parent could think an 11/12 year old getting catcalled obscene words by a 14/15 year old could be in any way related to the attractiveness of said 11/12 year old. That’s a really messed up way to think.

I have met one stunningly beautiful woman through work. A green eyed redhead who would not have looked out of place in a Botticelli painting. She was really nice as well. Also one stunningly good looking bloke but he really did think he was god's gift and was known to have had an office affair or two.

Christ, I can’t believe this is still up.

I think you're getting a weirdly hard time here, and I also think that people on this thread have got no idea what it's like to grow up in a family with an insanely beautiful sibling.

I've got a very close family friend where this is the case, and it has really damaged the fabric of the family. The Hot One is completely different from the rest of them. I think the most important things are not to make her looks a taboo, but not to over praise her for being gorgeous. Try to find things she's not naturally brilliant at, and encourage to try and fail at them, so that she's developing resilience like her siblings will have to.

I think it's perfectly sensible that you're thinking about this and I'm surprised by the general response.

The ones who cannot walk down a street at 12 without men gawping at them, who in year 7 get catcalled words they've never heard of from the year 10s, who have to fend off males at far younger an age than the children who are beautiful to their parents

This is such rubbish. My daughter got gawped at annd catcalled at 11. She was as tall as an adult,

And as for. Y10 saying stuff to a Y7, I’ve been a secondary school teacher for 25 years. Believe me y10 don’t even know y7 exist.

If there’s catcalling then issue is the catcaller not the victim.

she is very compliant to adults

This is a No-No and I'd hope it hasn't been instilled in her from home.

You need to stop being over-focused on her looks as that's likely visible to her, and others.

Just bring her up normally, don't worry about or focus on her looks. Build her inner confidence so she knows how to deal with mean girls and pervy men.

Interesting the amount of women on this thread raising the issue of predatory men as if they only go for 'attractive' children

Good point

@Pbur

Posters on this thread who are soooo dismissive of the impact beauty DOES have on your life honestly sound like they’re bitter about OPs daughters good looks, really underlining the very real truth of jealousy from other women and it’s negative impact on good looking females. That’s the other thing to prepare your daughter for OP - sometimes girls and women will be dismissive and cruel for no other reason that jealousy which they haven’t addressed and are projecting on to her. It’s much easier to stomach someone being more beautiful than you if you can pick apart their personality or remove the threat you instinctively see them as by ensuring they are excluded from your social circle. She can be as kind and funny as she likes but she will be under more intense scrutiny from other women watching out for ways she isn’t perfect - and will probably find that rumours and gossip stick to her more than her less attractive friends too. So she needs great self esteem and a circle of true friends to weather those storms.

I 100% agree with this.

I don't understand the dismissive attitude to looks on here... They do affect how people are viewed, male or female in fact.

Do you know what, I'm REALLY fed up of women being labelled as jealous because they don't applaud something another woman does. Because we're just all bitchy mean girls right

Posters on this thread who are soooo dismissive of the impact beauty DOES have on your life honestly sound like they’re bitter about OPs daughters good looks, really underlining the very real truth of jealousy from other women and it’s negative impact on good looking females. That’s the other thing to prepare your daughter for OP - sometimes girls and women will be dismissive and cruel for no other reason that jealousy which they haven’t addressed and are projecting on to her. It’s much easier to stomach someone being more beautiful than you if you can pick apart their personality or remove the threat you instinctively see them as by ensuring they are excluded from your social circle. She can be as kind and funny as she likes but she will be under more intense scrutiny from other women watching out for ways she isn’t perfect - and will probably find that rumours and gossip stick to her more than her less attractive friends too. So she needs great self esteem and a circle of true friends to weather those storms

Ok, so l was exceptionally beautiful when a young adult. Complete strangers would stop me, l did modelling, l was a 10. Alas no longer, BUT no one was cruel or dismissive. My mates were lovely.

@arethereanyleftatall

Ironically, the many many negative posts on this thread, indicate precisely how difficult it is to be beautiful. Not only do you get far more harassment from men, but also many many women can't handle it either.

Yep

Bask in it now. If you look at pictures of most beautiful adults they were awkward odd looking kids.

I think you're getting a weirdly hard time here, and I also think that people on this thread have got no idea what it's like to grow up in a family with an insanely beautiful sibling

I had one (she modelled from 16 to her mid-20s) and another sibling who was almost as beautiful (an actor). I'm pretty plain - my mother called me "handsome" and told me once that I would "grow into my face."

I was never catcalled in the street like either of my sisters, but I was also never pursued by any boys/men for romantic relationships as they were.

There is oodles of research which demonstrates that conventionally attractive people are more successful, because other people treat them better. So I had to get where & what I wanted by brains skill talent alone. And learn to be charming so people don't realise I'm plain-looking (someone once told me I became more "attractive" as he got to know me).

On the other hand, now in late middle-age I have almost no insecurities about my looks or my body, whereas one of my sisters has quite a few ...

I'm not jealous of either of them: I love them dearly. But it is interesting to grow up so close to head-turning beauty. I'm actually quite relieved I've never really had that burden, because it is a burden. I know that if people respond well to me, it's because of me, not my outward "attractiveness."

@arethereanyleftatall

Comments like this, showing absolutely zero empathy. The op is not talking about normal looking children, who are indeed beautiful to their parents and grandparents and friends amd neighbours, she's trying to discuss the problems extraordinarily beautiful children face. The ones who cannot walk down a street at 12 without men gawping at them, who in year 7 get catcalled words they've never heard of from the year 10s, who have to fend off males at far younger an age than the children who are beautiful to their parents. They can't be treated like other children, because I don't need to particularly (thankfully) tell my 12yr old dd how to respond to 'I want to fuck you' because she doesn't hear that yet. Get some empathy people.

There is so much wrong with this post, I don't even know where to start.......

When you praise her do so for a character strength, not her looks. If she is kind, hard working, generous, etc make sure she knows you see that in her and value that. Looks do change, I do know a couple of girls who were stunning tweens when we started secondary school and then by late-teens their face shapes/hair colour/skin had changed and they were quite average looking by the time we left school, and others who started looking 'average' (whatever that is) were considered stunners. It is very hard for girls to deal with a perceived loss of looks if they have invested too much self-worth in their looks early on. Of course be nice about her looks, you want to build her self-confidence, but don't lay it on thick.

Beauty is fleeting; character lasts. It would be best to ignore her looks and work on building her patience, diligence, and resilience.

I'm not a troll I'm a real poster and I have posted asking for advice for which I've had a lot. Thanking all for the positive discussion

There is so much wrong with this post, I don't even know where to start

What’s wrong with it? I think it is clunky to say that you would treat these children differently - I disagree - they’re a child!
But I agree with the premise that some girls are treated in a disgusting way by men who think they have the right to make nasty, sexualised comments.
I had it as a teenager - and it really shook me because I had no one to talk to and help me navigate such comments. Imagine, age 13, a man in his 20s/30s telling me I had a “fat pussy” and licking his lips. Or other men asking for my number in the street and being scared they’d find me at a later date and realised I’d given a fake number. Or another man asking me to be his “baby’s mother”. All around the age 13/14.
I hated it. It crushed my confidence because I constantly felt like a piece of meat and there was no one to talk to and help me through that.

@Hoppinggreen

“She’s probably not actually beautiful “ “She will probably be an ugly teenager” Etc etc etc First thing you need to do OP is warn your daughter how nasty and jealous other women can be.

brillant and so true