How to help daughters have a good self image and see their value

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Looking for a good book and/or CD that helps explain a healthy self-image to young girls. There is so much in the media to influence girls to diet and become very thin and focus solely on your outside appearance.
 
More so than explaining why looks shouldn’t be too important, stress what ought to be important, instead–what to look for and be in friendships, how to look for and develop her interests and strengths, active relationships and interests pursued with her family (especially her dad), and so on.

I found these interesting: Reviving Ophelia, Queen Bees and Wannabes, and Odd Girl Out, Revised and Updated: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls. The main theme I found related to your question is that girls with a good self-concept don’t just avoid focusing too much on looks, but have positive things to focus on, such as family relationships, healthy friendship, personal interests such as sports, hobbies, artistic pursuits, and so on. They “float” in other waters than the fashion-obsessed and popularity-obsessed ones, and have places of emotional refuge from the covert aggression that can be a problem in adolescence. It is easier to keep things in perspective when you have a bigger picture.
 
This is actually a song, not a book, but check out the song “Is It Any Wonder?” by Nicole Nordeman. It’s about societal ideals of masculinity and femininity and how they harm us. The verse about girls goes like this:

Is it any wonder / that she will feel less than real when she reveals
What is clearer / in her mirror
Take a look around her / magazines, beauty queens, waistline dreams in her diary
So inspiring.
Nobody told her that little girls don’t have to have the softest curls / for love.
 
My husband and I raised two daughters who turned out well.

Here’s a link to a good article: childmind.org/en/posts/articles/2012-9-25-13-ways-help-build-your-daughters-self-esteem

The main point that I want to emphasize in this article is to get the girls involved in sports early. There are many studies demonstrating that girls who are involved in a sport (s) have a higher self-esteem and better body image than those girls who are not involved in sports.

Dr. Dobson says that it is important for every child to have at least one “thing” that is their “area of expertise”. This “thing” can be almost anything: sports and the arts, especially music, are the most common childhood “things.” But it can be other things, too. Dr. Dobson always gives the example of “raising rabbits for fun and profit.” How cool! Can you imagine how other children would admire a child who brings his/her rabbit to school and knowledgeably describes all the other rabbits that they have at home, and how they take care of them, and how they harvest the fur (angora rabbits) and sell it? I actually had a friend who did this with her children, but they took it even further and wove the angora into yarn and then knit it into sweaters, which sold for several hundred dollars each!

But whatever it is, the “thing” should give the child some status with other kids. I played piano and this helped me to hold my own among other kids.

I think sports are an excellent choice, since in the U.S., we place such a high value on sports. Also, many sports are fairly cheap. In our city, one of the black men with two sons raised them to become good at basketball. When they were just little boys, he got them out of bed at 5 a.m. and spent two hours drilling basketball with them in a local gym. He also worked out with them after school . He told them that he couldn’t afford to send them to college and this was the only way he knew for them to earn a scholarship. As it turned out, both of them were high school superstars, and both of them earned college scholarships, and for the last two years, one of them has been a star in the March Madness tourney. I think that’s such a great example to all of us. The boys said they hated getting up early when they were little, but the older they got, the more they appreciated their father’s workouts.
 
Thank you very much for all who gave of their time to offer suggestions. They are all very good and I value them very much. I printed out the article, will listen/share the song, and look into the good book suggestions. Also, I greatly appreciate the helpful words to find other avenues to place more focus on. May God bless you all.
 
Cat said:
My husband and I raised two daughters who turned out well.

Here’s a link to a good article: childmind.org/en/posts/articles/2012-9-25-13-ways-help-build-your-daughters-self-esteem

The main point that I want to emphasize in this article is to get the girls involved in sports early. There are many studies demonstrating that girls who are involved in a sport (s) have a higher self-esteem and better body image than those girls who are not involved in sports.

Dr. Dobson says that it is important for every child to have at least one “thing” that is their “area of expertise”. This “thing” can be almost anything: sports and the arts, especially music, are the most common childhood “things.” But it can be other things, too. Dr. Dobson always gives the example of “raising rabbits for fun and profit.” How cool! Can you imagine how other children would admire a child who brings his/her rabbit to school and knowledgeably describes all the other rabbits that they have at home, and how they take care of them, and how they harvest the fur (angora rabbits) and sell it? I actually had a friend who did this with her children, but they took it even further and wove the angora into yarn and then knit it into sweaters, which sold for several hundred dollars each!

But whatever it is, the “thing” should give the child some status with other kids. I played piano and this helped me to hold my own among other kids.

I think sports are an excellent choice, since in the U.S., we place such a high value on sports. Also, many sports are fairly cheap. In our city, one of the black men with two sons raised them to become good at basketball. When they were just little boys, he got them out of bed at 5 a.m. and spent two hours drilling basketball with them in a local gym. He also worked out with them after school . He told them that he couldn’t afford to send them to college and this was the only way he knew for them to earn a scholarship. As it turned out, both of them were high school superstars, and both of them earned college scholarships, and for the last two years, one of them has been a star in the March Madness tourney. I think that’s such a great example to all of us. The boys said they hated getting up early when they were little, but the older they got, the more they appreciated their father’s workouts.
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I agree. Sports or involvement in sports is a great way to both physical and emotional health.

I was involved in the martial arts as a teenager and to me my teenaged years were a lot better than my childhood years.
 
I’ve heard good things about the “All Things Girl” series.

One I recommend for fathers of daughters is Dr. Meg Meeker’s book, Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters. Dr. Meeker herself has three daughters and one son. Her husband is also an M.D.

I think Crystallina Evert (Jason Evert’s wife) wrote something for younger girls also, but I can’t remember the titles. I’m sure if you type her name in a search engine (or go to Catholic.com) you will find something.
 
Mary_Rowinski said:
Thank you very much for all who gave of their time to offer suggestions. They are all very good and I value them very much. I printed out the article, will listen/share the song, and look into the good book suggestions. Also, I greatly appreciate the helpful words to find other avenues to place more focus on. May God bless you all.
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… and there is also no substitute for your guidance in the day to day. I essentially copied my mothers model of guidance which was to discuss with a daughter, the morality of things we watched on TV or in movies as they came up. To discuss things on the news that involved womens choices and to promote morality as ‘beautiful’ whenever you can.

My mother received a monthly Catholic family magazine and often put them on my pillow at the relevant article for me to read. When I married, she gave me a years subscription to that same magazine which I’ve kept up over the last 26 years. I do the same thing for my daughter leaving articles relating to young singles, open for her to read. I think it is only an Australian mag. (The Majellan) but there should be equivalent mags. in your area.

So far I feel very proud and relieved that my daughter has absorbed the Catholic worldview of young single life. At 20, she and I have a very close mother/daughter relationship and I know she values my point of view.

God bless.
 
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