UGH! STOP telling my kid she's pretty!!! - Page 4

[Leatherette]

My daughter went through this crazy stage of being very particular about what she wore to preschool and having to "look pretty". There would be tantrums if no skirts and tights were clean, because pants were out of the question. It was between about 3 and 4. She is 4.5 now, and getting over it.

I tell her she is beautiful and smart and strong every day. I don't mind if others call her pretty. Growing up in our culture as an African American girl can be hard. All the "real princesses" are White and don't have afros or braids. Little White kids who haven't seen many Black children look at her and ask their parents, "What is that?", much to their parents' mortification.

Call her pretty.

My mom would tell me I was pretty and smart, then use it as a weapon against me (You think you're so pretty/smart, well, you're not. Or it doesn't matter because you are ___________.) I don't think we need to withhold any positive feelings about our children.

And I don't call my son pretty, but I do say he is handsome/gorgeous, because he is.

L.

[rhubarbarin]

I have to say the constant focus on little girl's looks annoys me too. I wouldn't care if people did it to all kids; but it really is just girls. For boys they will usually think up something more interesting to compliment them on that has to do with their personality or acheievements.

However people really mean well when they say it, and there's nothing you can do to stop them that wouldn't offend many.

My youngest sister was very focused on her looks all through childhood, but got over it at about age 13. Now at 17 she still presents herself well but it's not an obsession, and she has a good self-image and is a die-hard feminist who quotes The Beauty Myth.

My mom would tell me I was pretty and smart, then use it as a weapon against me (You think you're so pretty/smart, well, you're not. Or it doesn't matter because you are ___________.) I don't think we need to withhold any positive feelings about our children.

I think being negative towards your children is awful and damaging, 100x worse than all the unrealistic positivity in the world. However if you can manage to be both loving and neutral/quietly supportive instead of gushing over their accomplishments and overpraising everything about them, I think that's the best.

I dunno, my dad is constanly telling me how beautiful, brilliant, etc I am, and while it's sweet it's annoying (I've never told him it is, though). It's just his opinion, not shared by most people, doesn't make me feel good about myself, and honestly some of the things he thinks about me are not true in the least. He's just looking at me through rose colored glasses and I would like it better if he tried to understand the real me.

[sadie_sabot]

Originally Posted by rhubarbarin

I think being negative towards your children is awful and damaging, 100x worse than all the unrealistic positivity in the world. However if you can manage to be both loving and neutral/quietly supportive instead of gushing over their accomplishments and overpraising everything about them, I think that's the best.

yeah, that's the approach i strive for.

[Amandamanda]

Originally Posted by Ruthla

You really can't control what other people say to your DD. And saying "you look pretty" is generally considered a compliment!

Generally, when I meet cute little kids in the supermarket or something, I don't know how smart or creative they are, or how fast they can run (I certainly hope I don't find that out in the middle of a store!) but I can see what they look like.

I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that she cares about getting all these compliments. She may just PREFER the sparkly, princessy clothes, and "people won't think I'm pretty" might be the best way she could think to express the idea that the outfit just wasn't her taste. I mean, she's only 3yo, and she doesn't have the verbal skills she's going to have when she's 5 or 6.

Go ahead and talk to her about how appearances aren't important, wear clothes that make you feel good, not what you think others will like better. It really is OK if the clothes that make her feel good are the sparkly princessy ones.

:

[rubyeta]

When people tell my DD that she is pretty, I say "Yes, and she is very smart (or funny, Kind, sweet, helpful etc...) too!"

[crazyeight]

i just can't believe that now we have to deep think into if its ok to COMPLIMENT another person! OMG. beauty has ALWAYS been there....and the WANT for beauty and handsomeness will ALWAYS be there. i agree that handling it in a HEALTHY way is the key. a person who was never told they were pretty, or were taught that many times having a healthy body is what makes a whole PERSON healthy may not care about their body (smoking, overweight etc). i personally would RELISH the fact if someone told me i was pretty and i am happy when others tell my kids BOTH my son and daughter they are pretty. also "prettyness" isn't just about having that perfect hair or a certain color eyes. its whats behind those eyes, lips, smile that makes a person move towards you and blurt out those words. its an engaging PERSONALITY that draws them in. you can't really walk over to someone you've never met and say "hi your daughter has such a shiny engaging personality" we would all think that person was crazy having never spoke or seen that child. so we say "your pretty". now when people say "omg your drop dead gorgeous and look at that hair its just PERFECT and those eyes are like a models oh goodness" THEN its about a superficial image.

as for myself i tell my kids they are gorgous, "oh i just love you so much, your gorgeous" and then i plant tons of kisses on those huge beautiful cheeks and give them big squeezy hugs. my kids are gorgeous (modelly wise) but their eyes, the light, love, and innoncence in them is what completes their "pretty".

as for trying to restrict your dd to something that she hates to wear...i think its unreal and rude to her. its just like telling your son that he isn't ALLOWED to like cars (or climb trees etc). its just something that IS and teaching a kid how to SAFELY climb trees is common sense so how about just teaching a child about the inner/outer and realistic beauty as well?

[Roar]

This is a big part of the socialization of boys and girls. Girls are under much more appearance scrutiny and it is the stereotypically female choices - pink and sparkly for the preschool set - that tend to attract the most attention. I agree you can't really control what other people say and it isn't ill intentioned... but neither of those things negate the fact that this is still a part of the sexist socialization of kids and it is reasonable to be concerned about it.

What I would suggest is now and then mentioning your thoughts about this. That might include talking about what makes a boy and what makes a girl - it is about more than what color clothes they are wearing. I would also talk about why people in public make comments. We had sort of a different issue which was pretty much every where our son went as a preschooler people went on and on about how intelligent he is. I had no desire for him to internalize the message that every where you go people are assessing your intelligence or what makes you a valuable person is how smart you are. So, we talked about how people need something to say in order to be polite and it is a habit for people to comment on things like looks or intelligence. It is meant well, but yes it can get annoying.

[Roar]

Originally Posted by Leatherette

I tell her she is beautiful and smart and strong every day. I don't mind if others call her pretty. Growing up in our culture as an African American girl can be hard. All the "real princesses" are White and don't have afros or braids. Little White kids who haven't seen many Black children look at her and ask their parents, "What is that?", much to their parents' mortification.

Call her pretty.

L.

There is another side to this though and that's that African American or biracial girls and women are often see as having a kind of "exotic" beauty and their appearance may actually draw more commentary, not less. I've been with African American girls who are told nonstop that they should be models. I don't see that as a particularly helpful message or a way to really counteract the Disney depiction of the white princess.

[mamazee]

I think the danger is partially that a pretty child isn't always a pretty teenager and adult, and if a child feels like her prettiness is the one thing she has, her one asset, and then isn't pretty, it can be difficult. This happened to someone I knew and it took a lot for her to get past it, and that didn't happen till after 40.

I don't sweat it when my daughter is complimented for her appearance, but I'm careful to make sure that she knows that pretty isn't who she is. It is what she looks like. Who she is is a special girl with a lot of special qualities.

[Ks Mama]

Originally Posted by Leatherette

I tell her she is beautiful and smart and strong every day. I don't mind if others call her pretty. Growing up in our culture as an African American girl can be hard. All the "real princesses" are White and don't have afros or braids. Little White kids who haven't seen many Black children look at her and ask their parents, "What is that?", much to their parents' mortification.

Yikes! What? Sheesh, where do you live?

If my daughter asks about hair (or whatever a 3 year old asks about when she sees it - because that's what 3 year olds do - observe & ask), I say, yeah that's (fill in whatever it is here) isn't that cool (or pretty or neat or whatever). What is there to be mortified about a child observing & asking about their environment? And who hasn't seen braids or afros?

[littletravelers]

so pretty!

I think most of us have seen the secret by now and i would say in alignment with that would be as the parent to take your attention off of it. I have 2 girls, one currently has no teeth (5 missing front teeth!!!- age 6.5) so EVERYONE comments on it. It's been this way for about 7 mo's so far! She used to be 'cute' - now she's 'toothless.' I didn't pay any attention to the cute comments nor do i the tooth comments and neither does she! she's never said to me, 'why does everyone say that?' but i literally pretend i didn't hear it when people say things. i certainly don't tell her to say thank you or respond. it's often in the grocery store and i usually reply with something like, 'gosh that corn sure looks fresh today, doesn't it?' i'm still very friendly to the person because they really do mean well and are wanting to initiate conversation, but i change the subject for sure! Not one time has someone come back to the conversation of cute or toothlessness. they move on too. this works great in lots of situations! it's great on mother in laws- haha!

At 3.5 i wouldn't get too into your little girls' head with big ideas about being smart and all of that. Know it for yourself and save the big talks for after 7 when they're developmentally ready for that stuff. just let her be 3.

-angelina mom of 2 (pretty) girls

[ashleep]

OP here.


Thanks for all the replies. I love getting such varied opinions.

I have kind of been doing what you posted about, littletravelers. I got super annoyed with it all (around the time I posted) and then just sighed and resigned myself to RELAX! lol I think cutting out TV has helped a lot. She didn't watch much, but it was having a negative effect on her behavior in more ways than one. I have seen a dramatic decrease in the desire to be pretty *all* the time. It seems like just when I was so close to going crazy about pretty this and pretty that...it just faded some. Still there, just not to the crazy obsessive point that it was.

[RainCoastMama]

Originally Posted by Ks Mama

Yikes! What? Sheesh, where do you live?

If my daughter asks about hair (or whatever a 3 year old asks about when she sees it - because that's what 3 year olds do - observe & ask), I say, yeah that's (fill in whatever it is here) isn't that cool (or pretty or neat or whatever). What is there to be mortified about a child observing & asking about their environment? And who hasn't seen braids or afros?

In my Canadian city, I can count the number of Afro-Canadians my dds have seen on one hand. Seriously. They haven't really seen braids or afros, and it really irritates me (I grew up in the Caribbean). The first AC person my DD saw at around 2 yrs old sent her into a panic. It was horrible. (FWIW I'm not white, and my city has 50% Asian immigrants).

Leatherette - I totally get what you're sayin'. Reminds me of that Toni Morrison book 'The Bluest Eye' - people should read it. I just bought MuLan for my DD as she got into the whole 'princesses have blue eyes' thing. Ugh.

Sorry to derail.

[BlueSkyJennifer]

Originally Posted by littletravelers

I think most of us have seen the secret by now and i would say in alignment with that would be as the parent to take your attention off of it. I have 2 girls, one currently has no teeth (5 missing front teeth!!!- age 6.5) so EVERYONE comments on it. It's been this way for about 7 mo's so far! She used to be 'cute' - now she's 'toothless.' I didn't pay any attention to the cute comments nor do i the tooth comments and neither does she! she's never said to me, 'why does everyone say that?' but i literally pretend i didn't hear it when people say things. i certainly don't tell her to say thank you or respond. it's often in the grocery store and i usually reply with something like, 'gosh that corn sure looks fresh today, doesn't it?' i'm still very friendly to the person because they really do mean well and are wanting to initiate conversation, but i change the subject for sure! Not one time has someone come back to the conversation of cute or toothlessness. they move on too. this works great in lots of situations! it's great on mother in laws- haha!

At 3.5 i wouldn't get too into your little girls' head with big ideas about being smart and all of that. Know it for yourself and save the big talks for after 7 when they're developmentally ready for that stuff. just let her be 3.

-angelina mom of 2 (pretty) girls

I haven't seen the secret, but I love your strategy for changing the subject!

[chiromamma]

Originally Posted by ashleep

Thanks for all the replies.

It's good to hear that most of your DDs outgrew this pretty phase. I am totally fine with her liking pink/sparkly/girly stuff. I know that she truly likes it and it's not to please others. It's that she *also* likes other stuff but won't wear it because other people won't think it's pretty. (her words)

I know I can't control what people say. It's just so frustrating. She is internalizing all these compliments and DH and I can see that she *does* care (a lot) when people comment on her looks. It just feels like she is missing being a kid because she is worrying about all this superficial BS. Some days she will play non-girly stuff and barely mention looks. Most days she asks LOTS if she's pretty with this or that on, and won't so-and-so say how pretty I am. Some days that's all she'll talk about and I want to pull my hair out!

So I should just chill out? :

BTW, the shirt will likely never be made because I have way more pressing crafts. But if I get it done she will only wear it around people she sees regularly who would 'get it'.

BTDT. I have a 13yo DD.
When she was about 3 she refused to wear anything but spinny dresses for 2 years. Purple princess glitter, the whole nine yards. She has the classic blonde hair, big blue eyes and was so charming that folks constantly commented on how pretty she was. I constantly struggled with it but came to recognize it as so normal.
One day she realized that cowgirls don't wear dresses and refused to wear anything but jeans.
To this day, it's a struggle to get her into anything but jeans, she eschews the lipstick and hairspray crowd, loves being smart & creative and is working toward her black belt in Kung Fu.

[clsupnorth]

Originally Posted by Datura

Ugh, this is a major sore spot with me. I, apparently, was a cute little kid. However, my parents *never* told me this and discouraged others from telling me as well. <snip>

I would suggest to make sure she has a balanced life and let her get the compliments.

I had a similar experience. From strangers I would always get alot of the "oh such a pretty girl!" and then when I was older it was "you are very gorgeous" and such... But NOT from my mother. She believed that if I was told I was pretty, that it would go to my head and I'd get a big ego, blah blah blah. So to counter this she went out of her way to make sure that she NEVER told me that I was 'pretty. She'd instead make a point of saying something like "You have my very nice legs"... so that it wasn't about 'me'.

The result? No matter what she said, I grew up knowing that I was pretty - but I resent her for her efforts to teach me otherwise.

My advice is: she will put the most weight in YOUR comments, not those of strangers (until boys become an issue, that is). So forget what others are telling her and just focus on making sure that YOUR comments are honest, genuine, and from the heart.

[ComaWhite]

I think that if you get everyone around her to stop telling her that shes pretty, that shes just going to try harder to get the same reaction from people.
In fact, if I tried that on my 4.5yo, Im 100% certain she would go out of her way to be over-the-top pretty, getting in peoples faces and being quite annoying and demanding until she achieved the reaction she wanted out of the person, if I insisted on being rigid and NOT using the word pretty, things would turn into an ugly power struggle very quickly.
She WANTS to be told shes pretty. Tell her what she wants to hear about herself, let her have her moment and let her know and reaffirm that shes pretty to herself-- shell get over it; its just a phase!