Yelling at your children …
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The Baby Cage
How to talk to your daughter about her body …
Jai-Jagdeesh · 13,256 like this
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A very important piece of writing. I am taking every word of this to heart for when I have children of my own; we MUST shift the way we talk about our bodies, because we MUST shift the way we talk to our daughters about theirs. It’s time to help the young girls in our lives grow up loving who they are. This is absolutely vital to help lift us out of the “My looks determine my value” culture we find ourselves rooted in. Women are hiding. Little girls are getting lost. The Divine Feminine in so many divine females has been damaged or tossed aside. And that HAS to change for our consciousness to evolve into a state of Grace.
My deepest gratitude to the wise and lovely Sarah Koppelkam for asking us to step up to the plate, and for offering so many beautiful ways of approaching this challenge. I’m on board, one hundred and fifty percent.
Without further ado:
HOW TO TALK TO YOUR DAUGHTER ABOUT HER BODY
By Sarah KoppelkamHow to talk to your daughter about her body, step one: Don’t talk to your daughter about her body, except to teach her how it works.
Don’t say anything if she’s lost weight. Don’t say anything if she’s gained weight.
If you think your daughter’s body looks amazing, don’t say that. Here are some things you can say instead:
“You look so healthy!” is a great one.
Or how about, “You’re looking so strong.”
“I can see how happy you are — you’re glowing.”
Better yet, compliment her on something that has nothing to do with her body.
Don’t comment on other women’s bodies either. Nope. Not a single comment, not a nice one or a mean one.
Teach her about kindness towards others, but also kindness towards yourself.
Don’t you dare talk about how much you hate your body in front of your daughter, or talk about your new diet. In fact, don’t go on a diet in front of your daughter. Buy healthy food. Cook healthy meals. But don’t say, “I’m not eating carbs right now.” Your daughter should never think that carbs are evil, because shame over what you eat only leads to shame about yourself.
Encourage your daughter to run because it makes her feel less stressed. Encourage your daughter to climb mountains because there is nowhere better to explore your spirituality than the peak of the universe. Encourage your daughter to surf, or rock climb, or mountain bike because it scares her and that’s a good thing sometimes.
Help your daughter love soccer or rowing or hockey because sports make her a better leader and a more confident woman. Explain that no matter how old you get, you’ll never stop needing good teamwork. Never make her play a sport she isn’t absolutely in love with.
Prove to your daughter that women don’t need men to move their furniture.
Teach your daughter how to cook kale.
Teach your daughter how to bake chocolate cake made with six sticks of butter.
Pass on your own mom’s recipe for Christmas morning coffee cake. Pass on your love of being outside.
Maybe you and your daughter both have thick thighs or wide ribcages. It’s easy to hate these non-size zero body parts. Don’t. Tell your daughter that with her legs she can run a marathon if she wants to, and her ribcage is nothing but a carrying case for strong lungs. She can scream and she can sing and she can lift up the world, if she wants.
Remind your daughter that the best thing she can do with her body is to use it to mobilize her beautiful soul.
(… Wow, huh?? Spread this far & wide, pretty please! Let’s start a revolution!! xoxo, Jai-Jagdeesh)
Eating is a family affair – breastfeeding, support – Birth Without Fear
Dr Jack Newman – Breastfeeding video
Dr.Jack Newman · 15,496 like this
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It is a power of the bottle that you can look at the bottle and say the baby got x amount of milk. But how do you know that a baby is getting milk from the breast? You cannot know in millilitres or ounces, but you can tell if the baby is drinking well. You can see the “pause in the baby’s chin” in our videos both on our website and on youtube. The pause as the baby opens his/her mouth to the maximum tells the mother and anyone watching that the baby just got a mouthful of milk. The longer the pause, the more milk the baby got. When the baby is “nibbling”, the baby is not getting substantial amounts of milk at that time. So, a baby is not getting milk just because s/he is latched on and making sucking movements. Once a mother/father/health professional knows this, they know that:
1.”Feeding the baby 20 minutes (or any number) on each side” makes no sense. Why would you switch sides if the baby is still drinking?
2. “Keeping the baby on just one side so that the baby gets the hindmilk” also makes no sense. If the baby is not actually drinking milk, s/he is not getting hindmilk because s/he is not getting any milk at all. Or almost none. We recommend “finishing” one side and offering the other. If the baby’s had enough, he won’t take the other side and that’s fine. If he takes the other side, that’s fine too.
3. “Feeding the baby every 2 to 3 hours (or any number)” makes no sense. This is commonly recommended until the milk “comes in”. A baby who feeds well and is in close contact with the mother will let the mother know when the baby is ready to feed again. A baby who feeds so poorly that s/he doesn’t wake up on his/her own needs help in getting breastfeeding well. Waking up a baby so that the baby gets nothing 8 times a day is not better than the baby getting nothing 5 times a day.
4. % weight loss means nothing either because of the intravenous fluids mothers get during labour and birth “overhydrates the baby” with fluid and the baby pees out this fluid after birth. The fact that most babies are weighed on different scales in hospital is another source of error. The baby is weighed on one scale in delivery and another in postpartum. We have documented differences between scales from 80 to 400 grams (3 to 12 ounces). What matters is whether the baby is drinking well from the breast or not. See the video clips on our website or youtube.
When we see a baby who seems not to be gaining weight well but feeds very well, we believe the pause in the chin, not the scale. Continuing observation over days and weeks shows that the pause in the chin is more trustworthy than two different scales. Of course, even when it is the same scale can mislead because people can read the scale incorrectly or write down the result incorrectly.
Breast crawl – initiation of breastfeeding
That time of the month – mighty girl
Family aromatherapy first aid kit
Teaching daughters about pleasure
Teaching Daughters about Pleasure | Marnie Goldenberg
Pleasure is good, yes? We can, I think, admit that experiencing pleasure in life is one of it’s great, um, pleasures. For some, pleasure a great meal with fine wine and friends. For others, yoga, a hot bath or a polar bear dip on New Year’s Day. Pleasures are limitless.
Sexual pleasure is good too. For women especially, sexual shame can get in our way of accepting sexual pleasure as something that we’re all ‘allowed’ to have. In my perfect world, sexual pleasure is something that we all know we deserve.
As mothers, as parents, how do we help our daughters grow into women who are comfortable with their bodies and their sexuality? If sexual desire and pleasure are important components of a healthy and happy life, what is our role in shaping our daughters understanding of these concepts? Can we really be satisfied by the education they will receive on the topic if we don’t play a role?
Teaching our daughters how their bodies work is important. But parents often leave out how female bodies have a fabulous capacity for sexual pleasure. Female orgasm is not necessary for baby-making — maybe that’s why the topic of pleasure is sorely neglected.
With a better sense of and respect for sexual pleasure, women might ask for what they like and may feel worthy of sexual gratification. If they understand that pleasure is an integral part of sexual activity for everyone involved, they might discard relationships that fail to honor it. Equipped with information about their bodies, young women might, without shame, figure out how to bring themselves to orgasm. They might not have to wait until many years into their sexual lives to discover that sex, and their sexuality, is pleasurable.
So what can we do and say so that they grow up understanding the pleasure that their bodies can feel and the right they have to feel it?
• When our toddlers are in the bath and they are having a look about, introduce the word clitoris (and distinguish it from vagina)
• When you explain how babies are made, or what sex is, communicate that sex is not just for baby-making but is for fun, intimacy and pleasure.
• When talking about sex, speak broadly about what constitutes sexual activity and what can feel good.
• If your child masturbates, let her know that she is allowed to make her body feel good in that way. Even if you don’t think masturbation is happening, explain that touching your own genitals is natural and normal and a great way to get to know your own body and what feels good.
• Read age-appropriate books with your kid about sex, sexuality and masturbation.
• When you introduce puberty, let girls know that their genitals will also grow up and may begin to feel tingly when they have a crush.
Share messages of self-love and body-love. If you’re partnered, consider ways that you (can) model healthy intimacy, love and pleasure.
• Reinforce that all sexual activity must be consensual. Describe what enthusiastic consent is and how sexual activity is best when pleasure is experienced by everyone involved.
These messages of self-respect and self-love, coupled with sound information about sex and sexuality can begin early and can set our daughters up for a lifetime a pleasure.
That’s good, yes?
~ Marnie “The Sexplainer” Goldenberg, who’s got a lot of excellent material on sexplainer.com
http://sexplainer.com/
Community –
What do you love about this? What would you add or change?
What messages about pleasure did you receive growing up? What impact did that have on you?
Thanks so much for your participation here which is co-creating a safe space for us to explore, learn and connect.
~ Katharine
Art by Helena Nelson-Reed
☾ Katharine Krueger ~ Occupy Menstruation
Consultant, trainer and guide,
Girls’ Empowerment and Coming of Age http://JoYW.org/