Exploring how to help children develop a positive body image including practical tips on using empathy, values, acceptance, and positive reframing to guide your kids toward body acceptance and self-esteem.
Exploring how to help children develop a positive body image including practical tips on using empathy, values, acceptance, and positive reframing to guide your kids toward body acceptance and self-esteem.
Project Parenthood is hosted by Chelsea Dorcich. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
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Are your kids starting to compare their bodies and appearance to their peers? To television and magazine portrayals? Do you notice they are more focused on flaws than strengths? As parents, we may quickly dismiss and reassure our kids that they are just right, or cheer them on to feel better about themselves.
Or maybe even freeze because we just weren't expecting this yet. Hi, welcome back to Project Parenthood. I am your host, Chelsea Dorcich, licensed marriage, family therapist in California. I am here to join you on your conscious parenting journey, bringing more curiosity, openness, acceptance, kindness, and non judgment along the way.
My goal is for us to accept what is out of our control, commit to improving our parenting life and discover better outcomes for ourselves and our family. Body image, body acceptance, body respect, being critical consumers of social media, managing stress, and feeling good about our bodies are preventative measures for eating disorders.
Feeling good about our bodies entails accepting and valuing our bodies. So, how do we teach our kids to do this? Today we will discuss using empathy, values, acceptance and commitment, and positive reframe to improve our kids body image and body acceptance. If our goal and hope is for our children to accept their bodies, we are not asking them to tolerate, put up, or resign themselves.
Instead, we are asking them to drop the struggle with body image, make room for their bodies, expand on them, open up, breathe into them, allow them, and be willing to have their body. When your children express dissatisfaction with their body image or start to question it, start with empathy. Use the five secrets of communication if you can.
So when your child comes to you saying things like, I'm ugly, I'm fat, I'm too skinny, I don't like my hair, listen. It might sound like, wow, I can hear the hurt and pain in your voice. This is really troubling you. Can you tell me more about what is going on or what you're feeling? We want to know more of the context and the situation.
What triggered this? Why is this coming up now? Did someone make a comment? Are they just seeing way too many depictions of people that don't look like them and not enough that resemble them and who they are? There's probably room for your own expression of feelings and self disclosure with challenges with body acceptance.
And maybe for those of you that don't resonate with this, you're thinking about your body and your values about your body. It will be helpful in the next steps. So it might sound like I can see your defeat and sadness. I felt this way a lot growing up and it is so difficult to navigate, or it can be really hard to see someone else and appreciate their body without being hard on our own bodies.
Try not to rush empathy. If we go right to cheerleading or trying to persuade them they're not too fat, skinny, tall, short, etc. They will feel dismissed and there will be a disconnect. Your connection with your child plays a vital role in their self esteem. Using empathy first is a sure fire way to strengthen that connection.
I still remember the first time my daughter expressed dissatisfaction with her body. And I, my first thought was, this is ridiculous. What are you talking about? But luckily I was able to not verbalize that out loud and just sit and listen and get more of the context. And it actually made more sense. And I was able to navigate the situation more knowing why this came up at this moment.
Thank you. Values. We want to bring values into their awareness. What are our kids saying to themselves or about themselves? Does it move them towards their values or away from them? So are our kid’s actions or beliefs about their bodies moving them towards the kind of valued life that they want to live or what the values they hold on to?
Does what they're saying represent who they are and who they want to be? Now think about the way you treat your body. You talk about your body. Does this move you towards your values? Are you modeling this for your Children? Children absorb what you're saying to yourself and to them. Are there moments when you can highlight their worth?
Remember what we are. Is what teaches our children more, more than what we say to them. So remembering, again, being more cognizant and aware of how you are treating and talking about your body, that is going to make a big impression on your children.
Acceptance and commitment. What do our kids have control over and what do they need help accepting what they don't have control over? What can they commit to, to improve their self worth, their self esteem? What are they exposed to, both in person and digitally? Are there any positive changes, steps our kids can take to change their self worth and appreciation of their bodies?
Do you know what they're looking at online? Is there a way to navigate that differently or to process that with them and have a dialogue about what they're observing online? Are there different ways they can be active or learn more about nutritional eating habits? Are there others in your community that I can connect with that have similar features and they can feel like they have a role model?
Are there books or magazines they can read and connect with? Again, maybe they need help interpreting social media. This is a big factor as our kids are exposed earlier and earlier. Positive reframe. Why is what they're saying a flaw and not a strength? What does our body do for us? You know, is our hair texture or eye shape a beautiful expression of our ethnicity and culture?
Positive reframe. Is our body capable of getting us around? What are all the amazing things our bodies do for us? How do our bodies show up for us on a daily basis? How can you help your children change their language around their body? The power of semantics, maybe even adding humor. You know, yes, I have big hair and it's beautiful.
And this way you can always find me in a crowd. In the end, our goal is for our kids to form a positive, loving, and honoring relationship with their body. Dr. Joy Cox, an author, researcher, and speaker, she speaks a lot about body diversity and body acceptance. Body diversity does exist and is not required for a body to look and move a certain way to have value.
Quote, What a beautiful creature I found myself to be when I no longer named things on my body as flaws, And just accepted them as part of me and quote, can we help our children extend their thinking and see their body outside of the stigmas and social media pressures they are faced with help them connect with the pureness of who they are two books that I am very fond of.
That are different age levels. The first one is bodies are cool. I remember the first day I was exposed to this. And I was able to read this to my great friend's daughter. She was two. And she had me read this book over and over. And it was the most amazing book. And I wondered how I did not have this book in my house with my kids yet.
And I ordered it the next day. And one of the books that my daughter loves is No such thing as perfect. So just, I know there are many more out there. But these are two that have been really prevalent in our household. I want to close today with an African folktale. It's called Singing the Truth. It's about a girl who lived in a village at a time when life was very hard, crops not growing, food was difficult to come by.
One day, the girl came back from the bird snares empty handed, and the villagers were not happy. She reported that there was only one tutu bird in the snares, and it sang the sweetest song that filled her with such joy that she just had to let it go. The villagers were so upset that they dragged the girl into the bush, where they built a small hut around her, made from strong thorns and branches with no door or window.
The girl was naturally frightened and cried and cried as she sat alone. When she ran out of tears, she began to sing. And it was the same song that the sweet singing tutu bird was singing when she freed it. She sang the song over and over. And she knows that someone came to the hut and started to slowly make a hole.
And as the hole got bigger, fruit would start to drop down. And then again, as the hole got bigger, she started to realize it was the tutu bird that she saved and was starting to sing the same sweet song. So this tutu bird would continue to sing with her and continue to make the hole bigger and continue to drop fruit to this young girl.
Eventually the girl was freed from the hut and the tutu bird and the birds of the forest celebrated the girl with a feast of fruits and nuts. The villagers praised the birds and welcomed the girl back into their village. But the girl actually refused to speak to them or eat with them and ran off with the birds.
A person's song is their truth, the expression of their innermost feelings and thoughts. People can fail to hear their own song and the sweetness of it because they're too busy listening to the singing of others, family, friends, peers, social media. Allowing others to define how they should be, what they should look like, what they should do, what they should want prevents them from searching for their essence and expressing it their own way.
So remember acceptance, it doesn't mean tolerating. It doesn't mean putting up with giving into or resigning yourself. It means dropping the struggle, making room for letting it be, allowing it and a willingness to have it. When our kids can truly accept their bodies, they move towards genuine happiness and contentment and also move away from the traps of perfectionism.
It sets them up for positive changes and personal growth. To hear more on body image, check out Savvy Psychologist episode 376. That's it for this week's edition of Project Parenthood. Remember to be curious, open, accepting, kind, and nonjudgmental on your conscious parenting journey. If you have any questions about this episode, about your parenting journey, and or topics you'd like to hear more about, please reach out to Parenthood at quickanddirtytips.com or leave a message at 646-926-4111. Project Parenthood is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to the team at quick and dirty tips, Holly Hutchings, Davina Tomlin, Morgan Christianson, and Brannan Goetschius. May you be happy, safe and protected, healthy, and strong and live with ease.