My Self Improvement

Sarah asked:


My daughter just finished her first year of school in an inner city preschool. Next year she will be attending a private school in the country. At the tale end of this year she began to ask why she wasn’t pretty like the rest of the girls. She is only 4 years old and I somehow thought that this subject would come up later in her life. She is very lovely, cocoa colored hair, big brown eyes, peaches and cream skin, really very beautiful, many have remark on this. But somehow in her mind she feels less than. My concern is that in inner city the pressure to look pretty certainly wouldn’t be a high as it will be in her new private school in the autumn. How can I help her feel better about her self image and learn to love herself just the way God made her? I don’t want her to have an inflated image either, just a healthy positive mindset. Any ideas? Thanks so much in advance!

CARISSA

Trish asked:


My daughter is 10, in the 5th grade and she’s an only child.

She’s a very happy girl overall, but the girls at school in her classroom and on the playground having been saying things that are critical and rude to her lately and it just devestates her. They say they do not like her shoes or she’s too tall or she cannot play basketball worth a darn and she cries every night about these things they have said to her.

She does not know how to let it roll off of her and move on. I am talking with her constantly about it, but it’s not helping at all.

I did put her in gymnastics two days a week (she’s good at that) that may help her feel good about herself and increase her self-confidence. Any other ideas? Is this just little girl pre-teen angst? How do I know it’s not more serious?

MELODY