My daughter asked me if she’s pretty

[GirlMumof2]

My nine year old asked me if she is pretty and I didn’t know how to respond. Of course she is beautiful to me and I do think that she is objectively pretty, but I don’t want to encourage her to think about her appearance too much.
My mum was a raging narcissist who constantly talked about her weight and appearance, so I make an effort to focus on more important things with my own kids.I told her that yes she is pretty but that that is the least most important thing about her and that she is smart and funny and kind. She seemed to accept my answer but I’m worried that her preoccupation with the way she looks is only going to increase as she gets older. How do I ensure that she has healthy self esteem without making too much of a fuss about her appearance?

Tell her yes you are beautiful and tell her this at other times, preferably when she’s laughing or doing something which brings her joy. Try not to
connect it heavily to clothes or later, make-up, or - god forbid - her weight. My mum started to tell me I was attractive when I was an adult and had lost weight - the time I needed it was when I was a child and a teenager. Of all my female friends I’ve made over my life, the most securely confident ones had parents who thought they were wonderful, attractive unique individuals and let them know this.

Eh? She’s nine. And asked her mum.

Why is it not ok to value being pretty?

Intelligence, physical strength, musical talent etc. are all also just accidents of genetics but people are allowed to be proud of these and want to be noticed for them, but if you're naturally blessed with good looks you have to pretend you don't know and never admit to being happy about it.

My father especially used to tell me all the time that I was beautiful...in fact one of his nicknames for me was 'beautiful daughter'! Even during my awkward fat stage I actually thought I was pretty gorgeous 😂it definitely helped my self esteem.

Moving ahead to adulthood, I think because looks are so highly rated in romantic relationships, if a woman doesn't think she's attractive or if she has low self esteem, she will be far more likely to stick with an awful man as she'll believe she can't do any better. So I think it's really important to increase confidence.

This is very true. Those formative years are so important for confidence and self-acceptance.

As a result my pre-teen seems wonderfully unbothered about her attractiveness - she doesn't have to think about it because I've made sure it's ingrained in her.

@sharplily i totally agree with this. My daughter is the same.

So true.

This is funny but it reminds me we went to see Jurassic World this week and my son loved this line, he turned to me and said, this is so true! He sometimes suffers low self esteem (ND related rather than me not bigging him up enough haha!)

"Other people may talk shit about us, but we don’t have to do the job for them. Otherwise, it comes true"

That's so strange. I read it in the voice of Maggie Smith also but as in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.