Raising girls is difficult.
I haven’t raised boys myself, but I can say from my heart that raising girls can be very tricky.
All your insecurities and challenges are reflected onto this cute little girl. A little girl you love more than anything! I love each of my three girls, and I love how they’re each so uniquely different.
You want to keep them from everything you struggled with growing up. But you also want them to be stronger than you were so things don’t bother them in the same way.
How do you talk about body image when you also struggle with it?
For me, it used to be hard to talk about body image with my girls. You see I myself have struggled with body image issues my entire life. I’ve spent a long time working 
through my own emotional healing and the process around it.
I’m not a perfectly confident woman all the time, but I also believe that nobody truly is. I want to teach my girls that everyone goes through changes and It’s about embracing change and accepting yourself through the process.
One of the best books that taught me how to love myself in every stage was from a book by Elizabeth Walling Love Your Body — The Imperfect Girl’s Guide To Positive Body Image.
Beauty Comes In Every Stage of Life!
It’s important to teach yourself before you teach others. If you have a positive body image your girls will sense that and carry that with them through their own journey. This book helped me and my girls discover that we are beautiful in every stage of life!
In the Love Your Body book we learned how to:
- Detect and banish negative body thoughts
- Overcome thought patterns that cause body hate
- Form positive standards for beauty that empower you
- Free yourself from the body hate that holds you back from reaching your dreams
- Stop habits that encourage body hate
- Work with your body in a positive way that doesn’t get in the way of living your life
- “Talk back” to negative body thoughts so they don’t rule your life
- Learn real, actionable ways you can start loving your body and taking care of yourself right now
Give your daughters compliments that have nothing to do with how they look!
I write about food and exercise because I want to encourage people to be healthier. Kids and adults can be healthy at many sizes, and that should be your focus!
No body is good or bad, and it doesn’t reflect on your own worth as a person. Our daughters are still learning this.
Start by giving your daughters compliments on things that have nothing to do with how they look. Did they cook something particularly well? Did they come up with a creative solution to a problem? Tell them!
Discovering Your Energy Type Can Also Help Build Confidence!
Another method that helped us build confidence was discovering what energy types we each uniquely carry.
Once I understood my energy type (type 1), and my daughters energy types (type 1, type 2, and a type 4), I had a better understanding of what made each one of them feel good.
I owe so much of my recovery from body image issues to discovering my energy type. Learning this information is centered around finding what your strengths are—and discovering what you may see as a fault may indeed be your strongest assets!
If you’re struggling at all with body image, please do yourself a favor and check out this incredible resource. It has helped myself, my girls and thousands of others discover their own inner beauty and more importantly how to embrace it!
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