Pages from Ainsley, Perfect You, a book I wrote for my daughter. Steal this idea for Christmas, Please!

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Pages from Ainsley, Perfect You, a book I wrote for my daughter. Steal this idea for Christmas, Please!

Subscribe to my RSS feed and/or email subscription. You don't miss the rest of this series.

In everything we've been reading the damaging effects of media has been a central force.

APA Report on Sexualization of Girls, Girls Inc.'s The Supergirl Dilemma, You're Amazing, Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media all cite exposure to media as a central force in the girls beginning to define themselves as less than they truly are.

While every one of these sources cite media as a potentially damaging influence, they also recommend fighting negative media with positive media.

We have the power to - not just passively ban negative media, which we should definitely do - But we have the power to CREATE positive media for our daughters about girls.

I can tell you this - my daughter thinks it's pretty cool that she's the Poster Girl for Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me. This is one of the reasons I'm inviting you to send photos of your daughter to be included as a Poster Girl on this site. It is one way to take media from outside of our world to a creative and positive medium that includes them.

I created a children's book for my daughter's 5th birthday titled Ainsley, Perfect You. I am practically begging you to STEAL this idea for Christmas (or birthdays).

We read this book before the First Day of School, whenever Ainsley makes negative comments about her self, whenever she feels insecure or whenever she wants. It's a special book that sits out on a shelf and we must wash our hands before reading it.

In the book I addressed issues of beauty, because Ainsley seemed preoccupied with what it was and exactly what criteria people were using to make the judgement about who was beautiful. I addressed school, education, intelligence and learning. I addressed self-worth and a feeling of wholeness and "enoughness." I addressed the meaning of God and her role as a Child of God. I addressed risk-taking and trying new things.

Your family may prize different characteristics or place different values as a priority. What's important, is that you can use this tool to teach her who she is, but also influence, mold and raise or define the bar of expectation for who she will become.

A-N-Y-O-N-E can do this if they have a computer, a camera, $30 and an imagination. You may be thinking you're short on imagination so, while Ainsley, Perfect You is copyrighted I give you permission to steal ideas, concepts, words, etc. Your daughter is every bit as cool as mine, but she may have different attributes and characteristics.

I encourage you to use my book for ideas, but personalize them for your daughter(s). (Of course, its good for your daughter, but don't forget your sons.)

I used www.MyPublisher.com because they were the only company who had a "storybook" feature at the time. Turns out my parents and grandparents were also interested in having a copy of this book (one project many gifts!) and My Publisher has coupons they'll send you frequently. Flickr now offers the feature, and Snapfish and probably all the other ones too.

There are 20 pages so I'll run Ainsley, Perfect You as a series, starting with this foreword. I had to scan the pages, so please forgive the quality.

You'll want to get the RSS feed or an email subscription so you don't miss any of it.

We went to the Exploratorium in San Francisco.

One particular exhibit had a disconcerting effect on me for days.

You sit in between two mirrors and look at your self.

One is a regular mirror and show's you how you see yourself every day. The top photo is how I see myself.

The other shows you what other people see every day. It shows you what you really look like.

Do you see a minute difference between the top photo and the bottom photo?

I've been fascinated by my own emotional reaction. Truly, it was unsettling to see my reflection differently than I do everyday.

The top photo, what I see in the mirror is more attractive to me.

My eyes are uneven in the second photo. The right eye, when looking at it, is slightly lower than the left one.

I find I hold my head slightly tilted in a way that makes my features more even. I think I also hold that eyebrow higher to make the eyes look more symmetrical. I compensate for the flaw I've really only noticed once in a photo when I was pregnant with Zack.

Since you are other people and it's not your face I really have no clue how you are perceiving the attractiveness of the two photos or whether you see the unevenness of my eyes at all. For all I know, everyone who sees me, may choose to make the same correction that I do for myself.

It strikes me as a kindness to myself that my subconscious mind chooses to correct my minor flaw so that I not only feel more attractive, but literally see myself as more attractive.

It also strikes me that people who suffer from eating disorders, like anorexia and bulimia or the emotional disorder of body dysmorphia for some reason they aren't subconsciously fixing their features in their minds.

They are not only seeing their minor flaw - they are focusing on it and magnifying it.

Its also likely they are expecting the outside world, other people, to treat them the way they treat themselves. Did you see how I assumed that others would treat me with the same kindness as I show myself and that others would correct or overlook the minor flaw in their own perceptions, rather than focus on it and magnify it? This assumption is likely a result of my habit of doing such a kindness for myself and for others.

Were I unkind to myself, and if I made a habit of focusing on the minor flaws of other people, I would likely assume that others were also doing so to me.

That's my theory anyway, based on everything I've read about self-esteem, self-worth, and eating disorders and related emotional disorders.

It follows then that maybe we can teach our daughters to serve their own mental health and self-esteem.

Cutting ourselves, our daughters and others some slack for our minor physical flaws teaches, by example, our daughters this emotional skill vital to their self-preservation.

Treating ourselves, our daughters, and others - especially other girls and women - with kindness is also a teachable habit.

Self-love and self-acceptance is a skill. One we learn and one we can teach.

Yesterday I sent Ainsley off to First Grade.

Someone asked me, Did you cry?

Cry? I did cartwheels!

Which is an exaggeration. I felt a some relief.

Have you any idea what its like to work with two small children in your cube?

THIS is the reason I'm not doing cartwheels - Yet.

Zack is bored and lonely when his sister goes to school. He needs to go to preschool. Only I didn't realize my new town has only one and it fills up fast.

I'm praying for two biters and two separation anxieties - Zack's 4th on the list.

Mother's Day Out will give me 2 days a week to work uninterrupted. It will give him social contact with other children and stimulation. He's super smart - which is why he was trying to Make His Own Popcorn For Dinner. Check out his Potty Dance debut on YouTube.

How are ya'll managing your first day of school around the country?

One of my goals, as a parent, is to teach my daughter coping skills and practical techniques for dealing with stress.

Personally, I've found yoga to be instrumental in building a core strength, core inner self and self worth, stress reduction and in communing with God.

Of course I want her to have access to skills like this before she hits adolescents and all the negative coping strategies become available to her.

I used to use negative strategies like smoking cigarettes, experimenting with drugs, defining my self worth by boys and men, and a daily diet of Wellbutrin and Xanex. One of my primary objectives is to prevent the adoption of those.

Over the summer I've been practicing yoga listening to Elsie Escobar classes on iTunes during Zack's nap. Sometimes I invite a friend. Sometimes I encourage Ainsley to try a few minutes.

She posed for these photos and then got bored before we moved out of the sitting pose. A fascination with the incense stick took over and she sat near me waving it through the air like a 4th of July sparkler.

The next afternoon I came out of the shower and found her teaching her friends yoga with a DVD, lit candles and burning incense.

Ssshhhh, Mom, we're having our relaxing quiet yoga time.

The APA's Report on Sexualization of Girls recommends teaching your children a way to center themselves, meditate, pray, and view one's body as having value beyond its appearance, beyond male entertainment. Yoga does that for me.

Hopefully, you have healthy coping methods that center and ground you and hopefully you're finding ways to teach those to your kids.

Teach what YOU know.

Please, please, please take the time to watch the second video of How to Look Good Naked if you have ever uttered any words like, "I hate my freaking thighs."

This episode (click on the second one down) illustrates how girls develop negative body image from listening to their mother's criticize themselves.

The good news is that we, as mothers, have the power to pass positive self esteem down to our daughters by developing it in ourselves.

Easy? Maybe not. But, considering the consequences (eating disorders and self-loathing in our daughters) of passing on a negative emotional inheritance, definitely worth the effort.

by Tracee Sioux

Did you catch the premier episode of Lifetime's How to Look Good Naked?

I think there is enough evidence that body image is, at least partly, emotionally-inherited.

When mothers feel bad about their bodies, daughters are more likely to feel bad about their bodies. (There are always exceptions, of course.)

Nothing is going to change the fact, however, that mothers being critical about our bodies puts daughters in a more vulnerable position self-image-wise.

How is a daughter to stand up to the onslaught of negative messages about a normal woman's body in this highly sexualized and beauty-conscious culture, if Mom can't learn to love her own body and cut herself some slack?

The problem is self-perpetuating. Mom criticizes self, daughter criticizes self and grows up to become mom who criticizes self.

Women need to get proactive about their own self esteem. It takes work to develop and maintain a self esteem. We need to be honest that self-loathing internal chatter is getting us no where.

Enter metro-homosexual Carson Kressly to help us solve our self-esteem issues. Whatever it takes, right?

I was very pleased with the first episode of How to Look Good Naked. While this appears to be a make-over show it is about making over a woman's insides - her self image. Let's face it, women, as a collective-conscious seem to need an internal self image makeover. A lot of us feel like crap about ourselves and that has a negative impact on our daughter's self image and self esteem.

One particular exercise was brilliant. Three women were shown on a monitor walking down the street. One was dressed in a slouchy over-sized sweater, one was in a boring office outfit and another was in a confident, sexy dress. The woman with poor body image was asked to identify the one that weighed most. She chose the one wearing over-sized clothing. What was revealed was that they were all the same woman. It was only her clothing - screaming about her confidence level - that made others think she was the most overweight.

While this is only a television program, it does seem logical to me that we might expect a cultural cure to a cultural problem. In other words, if we can feel better about ourselves while watching such a program - then we should watch it and implement some of the feel-good psychology suggested.

When we feel good about who we are and what we look like - well that translates into a health self image for our daughters. Which, to my mind, is totally worth the effort.