5 Tips to Build Your Daughter's Self-Esteem
Have you noticed that your daughter is hard on herself?
Is she highly critical when evaluating her appearance or her performance?
Perhaps she has become more withdrawn, stressed about grades, focused on spending all her time with her friends, always on her phone, or perhaps she's just irritable.
All of these can be an indication that your daughter is struggling with self-esteem. While this is a very normal experience for teens, it can be painful for your child and painful for you as a parent watching her doubt her worth.
Positive self-esteem can be one of the most difficult things for a teenager to develop.
Teen girls are especially susceptible to struggling with low self-esteem because they are trying to understand their value and identity in many areas of life, with family, friends, as a student, as an individual, and as a sexual person.
Girls are being judged on their attractiveness and sexual worth at earlier and earlier ages.
As early as fourth and fifth grade, girls will share that they are highly concerned about being attractive to boys. They are often in constant competition with their friends to have the best clothes, seem the most mature, and get the attention of boys.
While the age may be younger than you experienced, teen girls being sexualized isn’t anything new. We have all seen magazines, movies, and music videos that showed teens that they should derive their value from their appearance and their sexual appeal.
What may surprise you is how much more complex those messages have become. With the advent of social media, there is a whole new world of possibilities for comparison.
Comparisons based on magazines or television have morphed into Instagram, SnapChat and YouTube videos. Girls don’t just have to be beautiful anymore, they have to be “liked”. They need followers, subscribers, likes on each and every pic and post sent into the abyss of social media.
Identity for teens is no longer about who you are or how you look, but your content, the following you have and the likability of your “brand”. Mix in the social acceptability (more like expectation) of sexting, sharing yourself as a sexual creature online, and you have the ingredients for deep insecurity.
So what can you do as a parent??
I have several suggestions that can make a real difference for you and your daughter.
Talk to your daughter about social media and its pros and its cons. Be a voice of reason, not judgement. Social media is an incredible tool, but it also leads people to believe their value lies in the attention and likes they receive. Be clear with your daughter that sexting is a crime, both for her to send images and for anyone to request them. It actually falls under child pornography laws!
Talk to your daughter about how you and she measure a person’s value and how you communicate about what is valuable in people.
Help your daughter realize that people are drawn to confident, kind, and positive people. When you say nice things about yourself and others, people are more willing to be around you as they feel better, but if they hear you saying mean things about yourself and kind things about others, they may not trust that you actually think good things about others.
Help your daughter challenge her negative self-talk. You can also lead by example! Remember, the things you think and say become the things you believe.
Stay positive as a family. Help her make a list of why she is great, practice as a family sharing why you are grateful for each other, and look for ways to compliment your teen often.
Adolescence is a time of major identity formation.
It is important to remember that no matter how irritable, stressed, or withdrawn your daughter has become she needs you to remind her of who she is and help her navigate this difficult time.
As a parent, you are incredibly important in the development of positive self-esteem in your daughter. However, if you feel like you need more help, don't hesitate to seek out a teen and family therapist.
