Helping Her Love Herself: Inspiring Confidence in Our Kids

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At eight-years-old my daughter is entering the age where she is more self-conscious of her looks and behaviour. It seemed just yesterday that we were sitting around her incubator in the NICU watching as she fought to grow and now here we are, watching her battle a new fight—herself.

As a happy thirty-two-year-old woman who has forgotten about how cruel and unkind the pre-teen and teen years can be, I am on a mission to help my girl switch her insecurities around so what she sees as a negative will now be positive.

Getting Help from the Dove Self-Esteem Project

Dove has been fighting for and with girls (and their moms) to improve self-esteem through workshops, activities, and events for over the past ten years. As many as 60% of girls worldwide feel like their body confidence is holding them back so Dove stepped in and 2 million girls have been reached with the programs messaging. As new girls grow up and need it as well, Dove hopes to reach millions more.

Reading the stories of Alexis, Alexis, and Bryanna I can’t help but feel like their insecurities were right from the pages of my childhood diary. Little things like looking at the extra weight I was carrying, the glasses I was wearing and the gaps between my teeth made it so I was never confident enough to just be me. These are not feelings I want my girls to have.

So we set off and downloaded the resources on the Dove Self-Esteem website and got to work. The “Mindful Me” booklet is full of information for parents (or caregivers) and their daughters and I thought it was going to be a walk in the park. I mean my kid can’t find it that hard to write some nice things about herself, right? Wrong.

We set off to do the “This is Me” activity and I could tell right from the beginning that this was going to become so much more. We talked about how it was not all about how she looked but what was on the inside. What made her happy, what made her sad, what she was proud of. It opened up conversations about what she wanted to be when she grew up.

After we started the conversation we kept it going with two weeks of daily reminders to help her focus on building self-esteem. On being proud of herself. Of being a confident girl who will grow up into a confident woman. To look at her legs and see them as the things that let her run faster than her friends, to see that big smile and realize that it shows everyone around her how she is feeling. These were to keep her strong and help her be the best version of herself available. They worked. I placed them on her sandwiches, on her pillows, and even on the fridge. She needed to be reminded and her overall attitude improved.

Join Us

You can join Dove and their mission to help girls worldwide by downloading the resources on their website and also the daily reminders.

Help the girls in your life become the strong, confident women you want them to become.

Will you share your work using #InspireConfidence on social media?

Available at Real Canadian Superstore, Loblaws, Zehrs, Fortinos and Atlantic Superstore or for convenient pick up here.

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This post is part of the YummyMummyClub.ca and the Dove 10 Years of Beauty #InspireConfidence sponsored program. I received compensation as a thank you for my participation. This post reflects my personal opinion about the information provided by the sponsors.

Aneta Alaei

Aneta is a Toronto-based mom of four that loves a good meal, great company, and learning something new. In her free time, you can find her trying to keep yet another plant alive.

Find me on: Web | Twitter/X | Instagram | Facebook

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14 Comments

kathy downey
May 17, 2017 / 11:54 am

Thanks Aneta,this sounds like a wonderful program for young girls!
Treen Goodwin
May 18, 2017 / 7:22 am

What a great program , all younger girls need this nowadays , thanks for sharing <3
Dee Clarke
May 18, 2017 / 11:44 am

Thank you for being part of this movement. It’s heartbreaking that so many of our girls have low self-esteem. It’s vital they know (1) The spectrum of “beautiful” is wide and there is room for everyone (2) Outer “beauty” is not tied to worth (3) There are actually way more important things in life to be than beautiful.
kristen visser
May 18, 2017 / 12:39 pm

oh my gosh I got goosebumps reading this post and seeing what Dove has done for young girls everywhere! as a mommy of two young little girls and remembering what childhood was like (especially those teens years) I really appreciate this ! what a fabulous program
Olivia
May 19, 2017 / 7:28 pm

I love this! Some of what you’re describing is exactly how we work with girls with anxiety and low self-esteem in our clinical practice. And I love how you’ve used this as a jumping off point to have an ongoing conversation with your daughter. As a mom of 2 girls, I don’t think we can stress this enough.
Elizabeth Matthiesen
May 19, 2017 / 8:21 pm

I love what Dove is doing, so many girls have low self esteem, they think they’re not pretty, their hair’s not nice enough, they’re too fat/thin etc etc. It is far more important what a person is like on the inside rather than the outside. We are all beautiful in our own way.
AD
May 21, 2017 / 2:41 pm

I love that Dove is doing this and has been for a years; so important to create and inspire young girls to be strong women. We need more strong women.
Lynda Cook
May 22, 2017 / 8:44 am

This is great for the girls, I wished they had something like this 30+ years ago, I still have low self esteem and always have, and the way society is today sure doesn’t help, so anything to help girls be strong and hold their heads high is a plus in my book!!
Rosanne Robinson
May 22, 2017 / 8:08 pm

This is an awesome program that Dove is sponsoring, building self confidence in young girls, it’s extremely important for their growth and development.
Janette Shearer
May 22, 2017 / 8:49 pm

Such an inspiring post my friend! My biggest is starting to show signs of low self-esteem and it’s so heartbreaking! Thank you for sharing!
Wanda Tracey
May 25, 2017 / 5:35 pm

I love that Dove is sponsoring such an awesome program for girls.This is really wonderful.
Thanks for the great feature on this subject.I hope it brings more awareness and help for these young girls.
Wanda Tracey
May 28, 2017 / 1:04 pm

I love what you are doing to help girls with low self esteem.It’s important to inspire them and give them the confidence they need.
Janet M
August 18, 2017 / 6:38 pm

Dove Self- esteem is a very good program for young girls at any age.
Debbie White Beattie
August 18, 2017 / 8:45 pm

This is a great program for girls and Dove should be really proud for coming up with this program because girls always think the worst. As the saying goes “we are our own worst enemies” because we never look in the mirror and find all the great things about ourselves, we always find the things we don’t like and we need to change that way of thinking.