I need to find a way to help my 11-year-old daughter feel better about herself. She has been dealing with anxiety and depression with Covid going on, and now she has very low confidence. She has been seeing a therapist, so this is something we’ve been working on. She has naturally curly hair, but it’s been more of a frizz lately, and she doesn’t want to put any effort into it, so I was thinking of doing a light perm for her (I’m licensed) so that all she has to do is a product, scrunch, and go. She does a lot of drawing and artwork, and we’ve gotten those into the school talent show, so they were on the Youtube channel, and she got so many compliments! She has all A’s in school, does so well, has a lot of friends, but she still feels small. Does anyone have any other ideas on how I can help boost her confidence?? I’m running out of ideas, and she’s still depressed…
Carefully examine your comments/conversation with her, you may be contributing without realizing it. The reason I say this is your comment about her hair. Does her frizzy hair bother her or you? How long has she been seeing a therapist? What is her opinion of therapy? Did she want to enter the school talent show or did you nudge? Is she on any meds? I have one daughter, the middle child of three, and she was much as you describe. I went to therapy as well and discovered that in my concern for her self-confidence, I was subtly adding to it by trying too hard and she became distrustful of any compliment. I learned to back off, ask her what she wanted and get out of her way… it took a bit of time but she blossomed. We did have to try about 5 therapists before we found one she clicked with.