Teens Who Just Wanna Be Perfect

Being a Mom, I've seen how much peer pressure can affect a girls feeling of self worth and self esteem. My daughters so called peers told her that she was perfect, which put a lot of pressure on her. Right now I'm trying to put the pieces back together after 3 years of taunting that forced me to pull her out of public school. It did not come easy to make this decision, but I saw my sweet child being torn apart strip by strip by the abuse from her so called peers.


Being a child that didn't want to make anyone mad she would not say a word about the hurtful words. It was incredibly hard to see my daughter hurting so badly. The kids were calling her anorexic, bones, tooth pick and every other word that you can call a healthy thin teenager. Part of the problem is the epidemic of kids that are overweight, so kids that are thin are the minority or so it seems. My daughter has been beating herself up for making simple mistakes and I am seeing just how much the years of being put up on a pedestal of perfection has affected her.


Girls nowadays have so much pressure to act and look perfect. They see all the Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Tori Spellings and think that's the way they should look. Many of the girls are stuck on looking at their outer self then their inner self, which causes an avalanche of problems. Kids are feeling the pressures from society that they need to be thin to fit in with everyone else. Being able to convince my teenage daughter that no one looks that perfect is next to impossible. I've tried reasoning with her, but being a stubborn child theirs no reasoning with her. She comes by the stubbornness naturally. Now a days kid think that they need to be a size "0" in order to be acceptable to everyone around them. Even Jennifer Love Hewitt was put down for putting on a few pounds by the media and she was a size "0". It just sickens me how girls are expected to be perfect by society and their peers. I know myself I have had to reevaluate some of the things I've said to my daughter because she took something the wrong way.

A lot of girls run into the trap of seeing themselves as "fat" when they look in the mirror. In return girls start obsessing about how much weight they have gained and lost. Then parents find themselves dealing with a child that wont eat because she might put on a few ounces or pounds and for a kid that's under 100 lbs this can be extremely dangerous. Girls become obsessed with wearing extremely tight clothing to live up to the stereo type that you have to be thin to fit in with everyone else. Being obsessed with being thin can lead girls into anorexia and bulimia. The need to be thin now becomes a parent’s worst nightmare of convincing your daughter that she's beautiful just the way she is right now. If they don't end up having an eating disorder they end up feeling so bad about themselves they sink into depression, which can lead to suicide.

I know myself; I am trying more to focus on my daughter’s feeling good about herself both inside and outside. If she looks nice I tell her she looks nice and if she succeeds in doing something I will tell her.

How Do You Help Your Kids Feel Good About Themselves?