How do our personal hang ups affect our girls?

I recently had a conversation with my niece about having our photo taken.  She told me how much she disliked photos of herself and I found myself agreeing and telling her about my own insecurities around the same thing.

When I got home, I kicked myself; when she said ‘I dont like pictures of myself’ instead of saying ‘me neither’, which is what I said, I should have responded ‘why not, you’re beautiful’.

I started to reflect on all of my personal hang-ups and realised they are built on an old habit of holding onto negative things that were said about me, from childhood.  I have unrealistic body image expectations because I was teased for being fat at school, I don’t like to speak up in a crowd as I was taught that children should be seen and not heard, I don’t like to give an answer to a question unless I am 100% sure of the answer because I grew up in a family that doesn’t like to fail. The list goes on and I am sure I am not alone.  Hang-ups are closely related to self-confidence and they are also caused by comparisons. We know that our young women are a product of us so how do we break the cycle?  

• Monitor and break down the comparisons made with images driven by the media, which have their own laws and make feelings of inferiority worse.

• Be aware of the demands you put on your girls in the family environment that either consciously or subconsciously impose a model of perfection.

• Try to avoid making comparisons with others, ‘So and So looked so pretty with a dress on’. ‘So and So’s daughter got straight A’s in her exams’….

• Instill and repeat that nobody is perfect.  Always trying to achieve perfection before ‘entering the game’ will lead to missed opportunities to shine.  Making mistakes is how we learn and teaching our girls this will give them the confidence to speak up, be involved and be seen.

• Teach your girls to look at themselves as a whole person, and be careful not to initiate their hang ups with seemingly innocent comments based on appearance; ‘does my bum look big’. 

• Ensure they are surrounded with the right friends, people who accept them for who they are. 

I am a long way from mastering these tips but I am going to try and learn from my own mistakes, first by being kinder to myself and secondly by projecting that new found confidence to my daughters.