What my body can do

The activity

Now and then, each of you writes a few things your body did this week: something it managed, something it felt, something it mended. Nobody mentions how anyone looks.

What it is for. What a child hears at home about bodies, including what adults say about their own, affects how she sees hers. Noticing what her body did this week, from running for the bus to healing a graze, gives her a way to think about it that has nothing to do with how it looks.

• The first step. Go first, with plain facts about your own body this week: “My legs got me up four flights of stairs when the lift broke. My body got over a cold.”
• Ask her to write or draw a few of hers. Anything counts: a cartwheel, a hug, laughing until it hurt, tasting something new, sleeping, growing, healing a graze.

When to get help. If she tells you that someone is hurting her, that she is hurting herself, or that she does not want to be alive, stay calm, thank her for telling you, do not promise to keep it secret, and act that day, using the routes under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page. If she seems to spend a lot of time worrying about her weight or shape, is eating very little, is exercising too much or has strict rules about food, tell her you’re worried and see your GP soon; don’t wait to be sure. If harsh talk about her body goes on for several weeks alongside a low or anxious mood, talk to her school and your GP.

The other three steps, and your part in it, are in the library.

It goes with

• Body Image. For parents who want their child to grow up comfortable in their own body.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full.

Free on this subject

• Body image. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.
• Self-esteem. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.