#Cute middle schoolers how to#
#Cute middle schoolers professional#

Use words like “healthy” and “unhealthy” rather than “good” and “bad” or “fat” and “thin.” Be careful not to shame your kids for what they are or aren’t eating. Words are powerful so choose yours carefully when it comes to this topic. Consider your language when talking about food, exercise, and appearance. So, if all this stuff is weighing heavily on your middle schooler, what can you do? How can you as a parent step in to guide them through so many changes and help them build a more positive body image? Well, here are 6 tips! 1.

#Cute middle schoolers how to#

Related post : Middle School Changes How to Help Develop Positive Body Image Either way, it makes them want to hide everything about their bodies. For the girls who develop last? They also feel like everyone is staring at them. For the girls who are developing first, they feel like everyone is looking at them. Middle school girls will naturally gain weight as their hormone levels change, breasts begin to develop, hips begin to widen, menstrual cycle begins, and they begin to look more like a woman. Add with that things like facial acne (or back acne), a cracking, changing voice, and an onslaught of new hormones causing your body to react in ways you have no control over, and well, let’s just say it’s not easy to be a middle school boy! And trust me, it’s no better for the girls! Middle school girls. Middle school boys are navigating the tension of being the first or the last to grow and develop muscles (changing for PE class is the worst). How Middle Schoolers are Changing Middle school boys. Add to that the messages they’re receiving and the pressures they’re getting in regards to body image, and you’ve got the potential for some major body image issues.Īnd let’s be clear: This is an issue for middle school girls and boys alike! Middle schoolers are already self-conscious about all the changes happening in their bodies. And there is arguably no time that body image is influenced or developed more than in middle school. Things like the portrayal of men and women and how they’re supposed to look in the media, conversations or words from our family members or friends, and even the way we see our parents or other adults talk about or experience their own body image issues. The way we develop a positive or negative body image is influenced by several factors.

It’s more of distorted perception of how you look, and it brings with it feelings of shame, anxiety, and self-consciousness. It’s being confident and comfortable, accepting your natural shape and size, and recognizing that physical appearance says little about your actual character and value as a person.īut others times, that image is negative. It’s a clear, true perception of your body as it really is. When I use that term body image, I simply mean how we see ourselves when we look in the mirror or picture ourselves in our minds. While it may not happen just like it did for me, the reality is that body image is something that most middle schoolers are becoming aware of and beginning to struggle with. She gave me my first sense of body image, and it wasn’t a good one. Thanks to this classic middle-school mean girl, my eyes were opened up for the first time that the way I looked was something I needed to think about negatively. “You kind of look like and act like a boy,” she said. That is why, according to a girl who saw me standing solo on the wall during slow dance after slow dance that night, nobody wanted to dance with me. I wasn’t super girly, and this was definitely the first time my classmates had seen me in a dress.

#Cute middle schoolers professional#

I was determined to be the first girl who made it to the NBA (female professional athletes weren’t super respected back then, which meant I mostly looked up to male athletes). Chicago Bulls clothing (or colors) to be exact. I guess this would be a good time to mention that I was a total “tom-boy” who sported a short hair-cut, was built like an athlete, and up until this point I only wore athletic clothing. Suddenly, everyone was pairing off to sway to the music in that awkward, middle-school-slow-dance kind of way.

That is, until the lights dimmed and music slowed, and Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss A Thing” began playing. A DJ (playin’ “Ghetto Superstar and The Boy is Mine”), tons of snacks and sodas, a pretty dress, my best friends on the dance floor-this was the stuff my 8th grade dreams were made of! And you guys, I was having the best time. I had waited my entire middle school career to be allowed to attend a school dance (my parents had rules). It was my first middle school dance, and, as an eighth grader, this was a pretty big deal. I remember the first time I became super aware of the way I looked.