TheTeenDoc.com » Body Image

Your Teen’s True Self

teendoc — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 11:00:51 +0000

There are so many books on body image. It could be overwhelming if you tried to think of what to read or what might suit you well if you did not have the time to read much. You might also be influenced by whether you, your teen or both of you were going to read the book. Janet Jackson’s True You is easily that book.
She may be in her forties, but the voice she uses to speak to adults and teens is easy to understand for all generations. Her honesty about her own internal dialogue both negative and positive will remind you of your youth while reminding your teen of the other day.
True self acceptance is the goal. Acceptance of who you are in your skin, your religion, your academic talents and other gifts. Learning how to love yourself is the greatest romance that can ever be told, but your teen will not know that for several years and some will never know it. True You is a push to get them to know it earlier and begin the romance of loving themselves earlier.
Your teen will make different decisions when they love themselves, they will seem wise beyond their years and live the best lives they were meant to live! That, is priceless.

Your Teen’s Distorted Perception of Self

teendoc — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:00:14 +0000

By the time your teen is an adult, they should be happy with how they look. There are significant influences on whether this happens are not. One is how comfortable their parents are with how they look, and two is how much your teen compares themselves to people outside the home.

Teens are going flip through magazines and read about their favorite stars and wonder how they will look when they are an adult. Often times, they may compare how they look now to the adult in the magazine and this can weigh heavily on how they feel about themselves. However, long before they see the pictures in the magazine they will hear you as you prepare for work in the morning, go out on a date or just get ready for every day activity. Comments like “This makes me look fat,” “I look awful in this” or “I want body liposuction” can make an impact on the toddler following you around who sees their gorgeous Mommy or Daddy not the negative image you portray. Over time, they too will look in the mirror and mimic what they have seen. This is way before they will see any cover of a magazine.

A parent who is critical of their own appearance, may be equally critical of their teen’s appearance and this can start at an early age with comments like “Stop eating all the time. You look like a stuffed pig going to market” or “Do you have to eat that? Didn’t we just eat?” are subtle (or not so subtle) statements to your teen that they are not good enough the way they are.

These comments in the home complicated by comments at school, or simply comparing themselves to how their peers are experiencing puberty can severely affect your teen’s body image. Your teen can end up thinking, Something must be wrong with me if I am not as developed, too developed, not as tall, more hippy, etc. These personal attacks together with magazine covers, parent and peer comments can culminate in poor self esteem.

The journey to self acceptance is sometimes challenging, but in the end well worth it. The journey is much easier if you start with you and go from there.

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Can I remove this mole?

teendoc — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 11:00:20 +0000

While your teen is growing up they want to be more like the teens around then rather than stick out. Call it human nature. They discover as they get older and out there in the real world that the thing that make them different often brings them the most reward.

When your teen looks at people that make the cover of magazines, they can forget the struggle they undergo to get there. Honestly, they probably don’t even consider the challenges and neither do most of the adults looking at the magazine either. Cindy Crawford in the Sports illustrated magazine swim edition was told her she would have to remove the mole in order to make it big in modeling. Jennifer Aniston was asked to alter her very Greek nose, but no one thinks about that when they see her on the cover of the magazine. Any magazine because Ms Anniston puts a lot of food on people’s tables just by letting people take her photograph getting a coffee at starbucks. When Seal first hit the top of the charts and you saw the cover of the CD, you noticed his scars on his face due to discoid lupus and then you heard his music. Surely someone asked him to airbrush the photo when they realized the undertaking of having to market this artist? Someone must have decided to use his hair.

These scars and features are the defining trademark of some of these artists. Without them, we could not so quickly remind someone of the guy who played Johnny Cash or sang “Kiss from a Rose.” The thing that separates your teen from others is the thing that allows your teen to be memorable. So if your teen has a special thing about them, the thing that makes them stand out, challenge them to live up to that difference by making their lives equally memorable. How else can you honor such a distinguishing mark?

Giving the Gift of Self-Esteem

teendoc — Thu, 28 May 2009 06:33:02 +0000

I wish I could give the gift of you seeing you as others see you. This is what I said to my patient today. However, every day I see someone I want to say this to. Ask what they think of their weight and invariably the girls are too fat and the guys are too small. Small, they want to be bigger. We all go though some degree of poor body image and I’m not saying that I don’t understand, I’m just saying I can’t wait until you get to the other side. And yes, I know some people never get there.

Early adolescence, when you are just starting to get boobs and you wake up with boners, essentially your body feels like there are pop rocks going off inside. Early adolescence when you are 10 to 14 years old. Remember that? You are not sure what is going on and if it is normal and is this going to turn out alright? If it were dim sum you might say, I‘ll take Halle’s body and Angelina Jolie’s lips, etc. I have to remind teens that those people did not know they were going to be that gorgeous, and with the make-up off they want to be them dressed up too. But, that is hard to get into an early teens head. They are still trying to figure out how the equipment works. To help them figure this out they compare themselves to others.

The gift of you seeing you as others see you is that you know that comparing yourself to others is pointless since if everyone looked like Angelina, Angelina would not be unique. There is something that each teen has that makes them unique. The goal is to find that thing and not blend in with the crowd. Part of being an early teen is a desire to fit in. You don’t want anything to be too different. Same hair cuts, clothes, bodies even if they have to starve themselves.

The way we help teens see their beauty and specialness comes from a constant influx of positive messages and then having them be good at something. We need to tell them how good they are. Tell them about their smile and their kindness and their ability to make you smile because you could not have asked for a better teen. We have to work harder to get them to see themselves the way we see them. How a mature adult sees them not the kid at school who posted a negative remark on their MySpace page.

If you ask a teen in your life, “what is it that you can do that is so easy you don’t even think about it?” Use the answer to provide other opportunities and make a connection to that teen. If they don’t have an answer, there is work that needs to be done. As adults, we have the advantage of maturity. Use that maturity to tell them how special they are. Use that maturity to give them the gift of allowing them to see themselves as you see them.