5 Ways to Help Your Teenage Daughter Understand Beauty

1. Talk to Them

This sounds so rudimentary that it almost is ridiculous. But we really have entered an era where communication—honest communication—is underrated. Take inventory of how often you have discussed outward and inward beauty with your daughter. If they’re in their teens, it’s still not too late. Bring up the subject, not as a negative criticism against beauty as a whole, but with an element of curiosity. How do they view beauty? What do they believe is important to define beauty and why? What sources do they rely on to help them identify what is beautiful and what isn’t?

These conversations may not initially redefine beauty for your daughter, but they open the door to having discussions that aren’t instantly a criticism of society’s focus on image. Your teenager will sense judgment coming a mile away if the approach is to correct their priority on beauty. So, instead of correction, enter the conversation with intention. The intention is to listen, understand, and educate yourself on your daughter’s belief system.

2. Ask Them Questions

Conversations can lead to questions or lectures. By the time a child reaches their teenage years, lectures often result in an instantaneous dismissal of what you, as a parent, have to say. But most teenagers appreciate being asked their opinion. If you have ever studied healthy discussion and debate, you know that asking questions in an effort to understand the other’s position is vital to good communication.

Ask questions such as: why do you believe being physically beautiful is important? This can lead to some really interesting feedback. Your daughter may just shrug and say they don’t know, or they may give you insight as to why it’s important to them. Regardless, by asking questions, you also communicate to your daughter that you genuinely want to understand their point of view, not just impress upon them a belief or conviction you have as a parent.

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3. Be Tolerant

This does not mean accept your daughter’s definition of beauty and the level of its importance. What this means is to be very cautious as you enter the conversation, not to be demeaning to their point of view, no matter how shallow or self-centered you feel it may be. Eye rolls, the shaking of one’s head, and sighing never get your teenager very far with you—well, it doesn’t get you very far with your teenager either.

The fact is, they have begun to solidify the critical nature of beauty in their minds. By showing intolerance through body language and unnecessary criticism, you also devalue their opinions—no matter how wrong you believe they are.

So, again, being tolerant doesn’t mean embracing your daughter’s philosophy with open arms. It does mean practicing constructive behavior just as you expect from your daughter in return.

4. Challenge Their Point of View

Hopefully, by now, you’ve been able to gain credibility with your daughter in the conversation, and at this point, you have the opportunity to ask questions that can challenge their point of view.

Do you believe that beauty diminishes when you get older, and youth fades?

How do you feel about yourself on the days your body isn’t cooperating and living up to your personal standards of beauty?

Does your self-worth go down if you feel you don’t measure up to specific standards laid out by society?

If society considers you average, less-than, or not good enough, what are you doing to reinforce your personal beauty?

Challenges aren’t always presented in the form of ultimatums. Often, a most effective challenge is the kind positioned as a question designed to make the other person think and consider their answer.

Once your daughter is thinking about beauty in a constructively critical way, now you can engage in potential solutions.

5. Provide Possible Solutions

Now is the time to introduce your own beliefs on the matter of beauty. You’ve taken the time to talk, ask questions, show patience with them, and challenge their ideas with questions. By doing these things, you’ve validated your teenager as a person with their own thoughts and ideas, as someone whose worth is valued, and that only reinforces the concepts of true beauty.

Present to them the perspectives you’d like to encourage your daughter to have when understanding beauty. Whether it is a deep focus on inward character, integrity, and strength, or a more balanced approach to outward beauty without being so imbalanced as to ignore their inward growth and strength, the odds are much better that your daughter will be willing to listen.

Assuming your daughter comes from a faith perspective, now is also a good time to encourage them to understand what beauty is in the eyes of the Lord—and it is good to validate that Scripture even identifies both outward and inward beauty.

Helping your teenage daughter to understand beauty will take finesse and even strategy. You are competing with the big, wide world of superficial imagery and status being defined by how others perceive you.

Going into a conversation charged to convince them that they need to leave the bathroom and head to their Bible will not be effective. But building that foundational respect and communication will lead you into the deeper waters of conversation, and hopefully, together, you and your daughter can swim them together instead of miles apart.