Tag Archive for: daughters

Body Positive: 10 Tips to Creating a Better Body Image for You and Your Daughter

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bigstock-portrait-of-a-happy-mother-and-61707815-200x300So many of my best “body image” conversations with my daughter happen in the bathroom while we are getting ready for bed. It is where I’ve gotten the question; “Do you think I’m beautiful?” and where, when she was just three years old, she said to me; “Mommy; you have a big tushy!” This is how that conversation went:

“Mommy; you have a big tushy!”

[Pause. This was one of those moments where I knew I could either mess up totally or help to set the positive body image values that I hold dear. Pause. Breathe. Smile.]

“Well of course I do! I couldn’t have your little ‘Tallie tushy’ on my big Mommy body! Then I couldn’t do all the things I love!”

“Like what?”

“Like…yoga, going for run or chasing after you!”

[I start to tickle her and we have a good laugh.]

“My body allows me to do all my favorite things. What does your body allow you to do?”

“Gahnastics!” She laughed. “And pwaying at the pak!”

“Yes! Out body allows us to do all of those things that we love.”

[I picked her up and we looked in the mirror.]

“Aren’t our bodies amazing? Aren’t WE amazing?”

“Yeah! We amazin’! I amazin’!”

Our bodies are the vehicles for everything we do- it’s how we participate in our passions, our favorite activities and our everyday. It’s how we express love, anger, sadness and frustration. It gives motion to our lives. We need to love our bodies because they make the lives we lead possible and by loving our bodies and being grateful for our bodies, we are able to use this vehicle to drive us anywhere we want to go.

So here are 10 Quick Tips that we can all do today to set the groundwork for positive body image:

  1. Speak with gratitude about your body: Talk about what your body allows you to do instead of how it appears. Love yoga? Softball? Running around after your niece and nephew? Your body allows you to do that.
  2. Create a Fat-Talk-Free Zone: Make your home or at least the dinner table your safe haven. Make it a blanket rule. Hang a sign that says “leave your fat-talk at the door.” They are always welcome to pick it up on the way out.
  3. Hang around with body positive people: If you always spend time with people who speak badly about their bodies, your body or the neighbor’s body, you will find that your mind goes there too. Let your friends know that you are trying to embrace a more body positive lifestyle and language and spend time with those who support it.
  4. Learn your hot buttons and acknowledge them: Is it every time you look at a certain magazine, watch a particular show or spend time with a specific family member that you start to feel dreadful about your body? Notice what sets you off so you can make some changes or at least confront the problem itself. Stop that subscription, turn off the show and stop making lunch dates with that person who makes you feel like you are not enough.
  5. Realize where the voice is coming from: Whose voice is it telling you that you need to change your appearance, lose weight or cover that mole on your chin? Sometimes it’s someone in our lives now—other times it’s the voice of an old boyfriend, kid from the 5th grade or long gone relative. By giving the voice a name, you separate it from your own and can tell it to go fly a kite.
  6. Say good-bye to perfect: There is no such thing and yet we chase it. When we let go of the unattainable, we can embrace the person we are rather than focus on what we lack.
  7. Exercise to feel good rather than to look a certain way: When we exercise, we reduce stress, get the blood pumping and produce endorphins that make us feel great. You don’t have to do something that bores you! Dance, do a color run with a friend, box or get silly with a favorite child in your life!
  8. Do for others: When we volunteer and help others in need, it gives us perspective. There are many more important thing in life that how we look. Do something that touches your heart and gives you a sense of purpose.
  9. Be kind to yourself- now: Don’t wait until you lose “the weight!” Buy yourself a nice outfit that makes you feel beautiful. Go out to lunch with a friend. Get a massage! You deserve to be valued now because of who you are.
  10.  Be a positive role model: It can be incredibly powerful to imagine yourself holding the hand of a young girl or boy—what would you want them to hear you say? What would you hope they would echo? There are always eyes and ears watching and listening. Be the example you always wish you had. (I did a podcast on this topic for SheKnows here)

While it may take some awareness and effort to move to a more positive way of thinking, feeling and acting when it comes to our bodies, it certainly is worth it. It will surely help those impressionable girls (yes, and boys too!) to see the value of “owning” and loving our bodies as they are but also it will help ourselves.

Create a habit of body positivity. You don’t need to do all 10 of these tips right away– but pick one or two– then keep adding as you put them into place! I’m rooting for you.

Warmest regards,

Dr. Robyn Signature

Verizon Viral Ad for Girls: What are We Telling Our Daughters about Math and Science?

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It was a great Good Morning America segment this morning!  We focused on a new viral Verizon campaign and ad that questions whether it’s time to move from telling our girls that she’s simply “pretty” to telling them that they are “pretty brilliant” too. What are we telling our girls about their abilities in math and science?  Can we attract more girls into STEM?  We explored this topic.

Why are we seeing greater numbers of ads reaching out to young girls and women giving them the message they can be more?

First, let’s not forget that these companies want to sell products and in these ads they are appealing to big markets, women and girls. But aside from that, I think these companies are seeing that by moving away from looks and celebrating the strong minds of girls, they can inspire a larger pool of future game-changers.  These are the people who can invent something important and become the next generation of leaders in their companies. We are looking for leaders, not hood ornaments.

The ad quotes a statistic- 66% of 4th grade girls say they like science and math, but only 18% of all college engineering majors are female. So where does the disconnect happen? Is it the fault, as the ad suggests, of parents?

Parents get such a bad rap—but it’s not just parents, it’s society as a whole.  If a girl is interested in Science, Technology, Engineering or Math, many of the toys that support those interests are in the “boy” section, the protagonists of the majority of books & movies in this genre are boys—and while there are companies and wonderful grass roots efforts to change that, there is still a message we are working against that says STEM is not for girls and if you go in that direction you’re different, nerdy or boyish.

How does this play out with my own daughter?

My daughter is full of life and curiosity—and, as I tell her and my audiences when I present on this topic, you can’t fuel curiosity if you’re worried about getting your hands dirty. My daughter wanted to be a veterinarian now she wants to be a pediatrician.  She’s interested in science. So when she’s outside digging in the dirt, mud under her fingernails, a worm in her hand and not a care in the world, I say “go get ‘em girl.” That’s curiosity and learning at work.

What can parents do to help daughters reach their potential?

(1) Develop your child’s gifts.  Interests do not come with gender label on them.

(2) Compliment her on more than just her looks because she is so much more creative and nuanced than that.

(3) Develop her character.  Show her and tell her that powerful words like persistence, focus, goal-setting and commitment are vehicles to realizing her dreams if she simply chooses to employ them.

(4) Expose her to people and companies (large and grass roots) that believe that girls can be and do anything!

What are your thoughts about this topic?

Dr. Robyn Signature

 

 

 

 

The Many Sides of Girls: From Spiderman to Princesses and Everything In Between

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tallie_farm-205x300The first thing my daughter, Tallie, wanted to do this morning was go downstairs and have me read her two Spiderman stories from her brother’s new Adventures of Spiderman book he received for Hanukkah last night.  So that’s what I did.  It was from that book that I read her a good night story before bed last night (because nothing says sleep like Spidey against “Lizardman”).  She has also taken a liking to her brother’s new Hess helicopter and truck (so we got her one too that she’ll get for Hanukkah one night).

Tallie loves to climb, tickle-wrestle, play with cars, play baseball, roll in leaves, make snow angels and run.  She also loves to play dress up, play dolls, play pretend and get her nails done with Mommy.

My point is that she is beautifully complicated and multi-faceted.  She is not one-note.  And my guess is, neither is your daughter.

nature_talchar-200x300As parents we must be careful.  Society tells us that girls are meant to love princesses and pink—and some of them do—but not all of them—and for those who do, that’s not all they love.  And it’s vital to our girls’ healthy development that we nurture all sides of them.

The side that likes to pretend.  The side that likes to build.  The side that likes to do puzzles.  The side that likes to run, jump and get dirty.  And the side that likes to read about everything from superheroes to bugs (a current interest of Tallie’s) to space to princesses and whatever else perks their curiosity from one week to the next.

My point it; we can’t let society dictate what our daughters love.  We must let our girls do that.  I’m currently coaching one mom who said to me on a recent coaching call; “I’m really not a fan of swimming so I’m not all that excited about it.  But my daughter is.”  Yup.  Sometimes we are not “in” to what our daughters like.

Tallie asked me for a book on caterpillars last week— not exactly one of my top interests but we got one out from the library.  I so want my daughter to be curious, ask to learn more and have a way of delving in.  Each time she does this, she acquires knowledge.  But she also learns how to learn and how to nurture her own curiosity.  The byproduct is probably more important than the immediate learning.

It would be so easy to create a child who is a reflection of our own image.  But is that really the goal?  As parents, we are charged with the job of bringing out the best in our children—the best version of themselves that they can be rather than the most convenient version of them that we would like to see.  There is typically a difference.  And while it takes courage to open our eyes and work to help them achieve the goals that light them up inside, as parents, we can help them discover who they truly are, the gifts they can bestow on the world and the people they were always meant to become.

Girls will continue to span a beautiful and diverse continuum of what it means to be a girl.  Some will feel best enveloped in pink, frilly dresses playing with dolls and drawing rainbows.  Others will feel most at home digging in the dirt, playing sports and reading about Superman and Wonderwoman.  But my guess, is that while many will fall somewhere in between, most are destined to jump around that continuum surprising us all.  And that’s one of the best parts, isn’t it?

vet_hospital-225x300On Sunday morning, Tallie, dressed in her “Dora the Explorer” nightgown, sequestered herself in her room, playing with her “animal hospital” she helped build with her Daddy the night before. On line to be “checked out” were several horses, a tiny kitten, a goat, a sheep and an alien. At the “reception desk” was one of the new “Lottie dolls” dressed in a blue sparkly shirt and a faux fur vest while another Lottie doll, dressed in a frilly purple dance dress, played nurse to her “Dr. Tallie.”

She asked me to play with her as she got her doctor tools ready for x-rays and surgery. “Dr. Mommy,” she explained confidently, “this goat has a fwog in its fwoat.  He needs a hug and to take medicine fah 10 days.” She dispensed her pretend medicine and then carefully laid him down on her favorite soft purple blanket in her bed.  We went on to diagnose a sick pig, a dog with a broken leg and a feverish cow.  I find it fascinating what her mind comes up with while she’s engrossed in play.

After 45 minutes or so, she hugged me and smiled a huge smile. “I yuv you, Mommy. I yuv you the whole world!” To which I responded, “And I love you my sweet love…every single side of you.”

And I do.  I really do.