263: Is My Teen Too Focused on Her Looks?

Summary

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Ask Lisa: The Psychology of Raising Tweens & Teens

Episode 263: Is My Teen Too Focused on Her Looks?

Air Date: March 17, 2026
Hosts: Dr. Lisa Damour & Reena Ninan

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Episode Overview

This episode addresses a listener's heartfelt concern: her 14-year-old daughter appears obsessively focused on her looks, spends hours in front of the mirror, and frequently takes (sometimes suggestive) selfies. The parent is worried this preoccupation is displacing former interests and wonders if this is normal adolescence, a deeper issue, or something that could have lasting impacts. Lisa and Reena dig into the nuances of teen self-image, parental reactions, the role of social media, and how to restore balance.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Adolescence and Appearance: What's Normal?

[03:06]

• It’s normal for tweens and teens to become more invested in their appearance.
• Dr. Lisa: “I remember spending a lot of time, like, looking in the mirror, worrying about, you know, this little pimple or whatever it was. So that piece is really typical.”
• Adolescence is a developmental stage where self-consciousness and interest in looks are heightened.
• However, in the listener’s case, the focus on looks seems intense and has started to crowd out other interests (e.g., reading, writing).

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2. The Feedback Loop: Parental & Social Reinforcement

[03:40 – 04:41]

• The listener notes both she and her daughter receive compliments about the daughter's beauty—a factor Lisa flags as significant.
• Dr. Lisa: “I was so struck by the line of, like, people telling her and us how beautiful she is. That’s not always the story. And that sort of takes this up another level.”
• There is always tension for parents: you want to share joy and admiration for your child without letting them define their worth by appearance.

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3. Healthy Balance & Parental Modeling

[04:41 – 06:25]

• It's not necessary or realistic to never comment on looks or minimize personal care.
• Dr. Lisa: “I’m not going to say we should not ever talk about appearance… but I do think it’s important that there be a healthy balance.”
• Parents should aim for both enjoyment in self-care and maintenance of core values: kindness, intelligence, contribution.

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4. Shifting Attitudes: Then and Now

[06:25 – 07:45]

• Adolescents today are often more comfortable showing different versions of themselves, e.g., going out makeupless or with full effort, compared to previous generations.
• Social media, however, amplifies concerns about appearance and encourages curation of public personas.

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5. Selfies and Suggestive Posing: Developmental Meanings

[07:56 – 11:09]

• Dr. Lisa describes working with a 12-year-old (pre-social media days) who admired herself in the mirror with “sexy poses”—a reminder this isn’t only a digital-age phenomenon.
• Adults should remember kids don't interpret suggestive images as adults do.
• Dr. Lisa: “They don’t really have the full awareness of how we read this as adults, and we don’t want to assume they do.”

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6. Phones in the Bedroom: A Practical Piece of the Puzzle

[13:27 – 14:42]

• Lisa reiterates her strong stance against phones in bedrooms.
• Dr. Lisa: “If she’s in her room using her phone to take and maybe post suggestive selfies… in the privacy of her room, kids will do all sorts of things… odds of her spending a huge amount of time… go way down if the phone can’t be in the room.”

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7. Risk of Over-Identification with Appearance

[15:01 – 17:43]

• Lisa’s “tributaries and lake” metaphor: Self-esteem is a lake that needs to be fed by many tributaries (academic success, friendship, service, etc.).
• Dr. Lisa: “It’s not preventable and not necessarily terrible if part of what a person… takes pride in is ‘I like the way I look.’”
• Danger arises when appearance is the main, or only, tributary; this puts long-term identity and self-esteem at risk, especially as beauty fades.

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8. Restoring Balance: Concrete Strategies

[18:00 – 20:48]

• Not too late to shift balance.
• Lisa shares her container vs. contents metaphor (from “Under Pressure”):
  • The "container" is the physical self; the "contents" are character, skills, values.
  • Use this metaphor to open conversations that are non-critical.
  • “Container’s great. They come, they go, they change over time. It’s your contents that you control and it’s your contents I want you to focus on.”
• Still, actions matter most: keep teens busy with diverse, meaningful activities to reduce mirror/selfie time.

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9. When to Worry: Practical Markers

[23:01 – 26:29]

• Parents should be concerned if focus on appearance crowds out growth in other areas: academic, social, emotional, or community development.
• This applies to boys, too—increasingly, social media drives boys to fixate on muscularity and body fat.
• Dr. Lisa: “If you feel at all like your kid’s worries about their appearance are getting in the way of them growing in other ways… then it’s time to worry.”

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10. If Suggestive Selfies Are Posted: The “Four Rs” Conversation

[26:35 – 28:38]

• Posting is riskier than private image-taking.
• Lisa advocates for the “Four Rs” approach:
  1. Respect – Start with empathy and acknowledgment of why kids want to do this.
  2. Rationale – Explain the reasoning for family rules (e.g., safety, values, long-term reputation).
  3. Rule – Set a clear boundary (e.g., no posting photos focused on looks/bodies).
  4. Resistance – Expect pushback; it’s developmentally normal.
• Dr. Lisa: “As long as they comply to the rule, they can be grumpy about it.”

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11. Parenting To Go: Compliments & the Value of Inner Qualities

[28:50 – 29:53]

• When strangers compliment your child’s appearance, Lisa’s go-to response is: “And she’s great on the inside, too.”
• This threads the needle between gratitude and reinforcing non-appearance-based value.
• Dr. Lisa: “I just want to offer that to families because it felt like it kind of threaded the needle of not wanting to make the moment weird, but also not wanting to double down on this being the most important thing about my kids.”

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Notable Quotes

• Dr. Lisa Damour:

  • “We care about girls… being seen as whole and valuable people separate from their appearance.” [04:41]
  • “What it means to the kid is not what it means to the adult.” [08:47]
  • “If investment in one’s appearance starts to take up so much time and energy…it’s taking away other tributaries…that’s a problem.” [15:44]
  • “Looks fade, man. They do. All looks do.” [17:28]
  • “Container’s great…But what really matters is your contents. The things you control, the things you build.” [18:40]
  • “If you feel like these other tributaries…are being compromised because so much of their energy is caught up in how they look, then it’s time to worry.” [25:21]
  • “As long as they can comply with the rule, they can be grumpy about the rule.” [28:26]
  • “And she’s great on the inside, too.” [29:45]

• Reena Ninan:

  • “I think a lot of people feel like they just don’t know how to connect to their kid anymore.” [00:07]
  • “I feel like I’m talking at them but not with them, right?” [19:41]
  • “There are many versions of this: how you look at your muscles or how you show up on social media…” [23:01]
  • “That healthy tension sometimes is not one that we like at all.” [28:41]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction & Listener Letter: [00:43 – 03:06]
• Normalcy vs. Obsession: [03:06 – 04:41]
• Navigating Balance & Parental Modeling: [04:41 – 06:25]
• Social Media’s Influence: [07:26 – 08:03]
• Suggestive Selfies & Developmental Understanding: [08:03 – 11:09]
• Phones in Bedrooms: [13:27 – 14:42]
• Long-Term Risks/Tributaries Metaphor: [15:01 – 17:43]
• Container vs. Contents Metaphor: [18:00 – 20:48]
• Worry Markers & The Boys’ Experience: [23:01 – 26:29]
• Four Rs Approach to Social Media: [26:35 – 28:38]
• “Parenting to Go” – Handling Compliments: [28:50 – 29:53]

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Summary Takeaways

• Some increased attention to looks is normal during adolescence, but parents should watch for signs when it becomes a teen’s main source of self-worth or displaces other interests.
• Use nonjudgmental language and actionable strategies: encourage diversity in activities, set clear phone/social boundaries, and model a healthy relationship with appearance.
• “Focus on the contents, not just the container”: reinforce the value of character, choices, and contributions.
• When responding to compliments or raising concerns, avoid shaming and, instead, redirect to inner qualities and tangible skills.
• This isn’t just a “girl issue”—boys face growing pressures about appearance (muscles, body composition) fueled by social media.
• If you need to set limits around online behavior, use the "Four Rs": Respect, Rationale, Rule, and anticipate Resistance.
• Most importantly, keep the conversation active, warm, and centered on helping your teen value all parts of themselves.

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(Next episode: Best-of Lisa on friendships, breakups, and conflict)

Transcript

[A]

Tell me a parenting issue everyone struggles with with tweens and teens, but no one talks about Rena.

[B]

I think a lot of people feel like they just don't know how to connect to their kid anymore.

[A]

I'm Rena Neinen and welcome to Ask Lisa the Psychology of Raising Tweens and teens.

[B]

And I'm Dr. Lisa Damore. We bring you science backed strategies for managing anxiety, discipline, intense emotions and more.

[A]

We decode tough parenting issues with tips you can use right now. So subscribe to Ask Lisa the Psychology of Raising Tweens and Teens and join our YouTube community. Today just Google Ask Lisa podcast.

[B]

We're here to help you untangle family life.

[A]

Episode 263. Is My Teen too focused on her looks? You know, I'm always obsessed with like moisturizers this time of year and I'm starting to use like oils on my face. It's been a cold winter, Lisa, very cold winter.

[B]

Speaking for Cleveland, I will agree. I sort of feel like I need an emollient holster. Like I need a, like a. A belt that has like my chapstick and my aquaphor and my face lotion. Like I am. I just feel so dry all the time. And it's. It's not my favorite. Not my favorite.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. You know, it's interesting. I'm also curious about how we present ourselves in front of our kids when it comes to like makeup and all that this stuff. And the letter we got today is talking about looks and so I want to dig deep into this. I'm going to go ahead and read this to you, Lisa, and I want to get your take. Dear Dr. Lisa, I'm writing with growing concern about my almost 14 year old daughter over the past several months. She seems entirely consumed by her appearance. She spends hours in front of the mirror constantly taking selfies. Some of them even look somewhat suggestive and the sheer volume has become alarming. It feels like this is an obsession with how she looks and it's taken over her life. She gets a lot of positive reinforcement for her appearance. She and I are often told how beautiful she is. We've always tried to instill the values of kindness, intelligence, and the importance of contributing to the world. While we know it's normal for teens to care about their looks, this seems extreme. She's given up reading, writing, things she used to enjoy, and I worry she's equating her self worth solely with her appearance. She's very active with her sport, sports, hobbies, is a great student and friend, and she is a Very social and wonderful kid. As her parents, we're really struggling. We don't know how concerned we should be about this fixation, whether it's part of typical teenage behavior or a sign of something deeper. Most of all, we don't know how to help her pull back and regain some balance. We want her to feel good about herself and not to lose sight of the things that matter most. How can we guide her through this? Should we be worried that this could have lasting effects? Thank you for any advice you can offer. So, Lisa, how common is this?

[B]

I hear it. I hear it. I think that there's a lot of elements in this letter that I think a lot of families would resonate to. You know, kids do become preoccupied with their appearance, especially in adolescence. Right. I remember spending a lot of time, like, looking in the mirror, worrying about, you know, this little pimple or whatever it was. So that piece is really typical, right, for kids to be worried about their appearance, invested in their appearance, spend more time on their appearance. Right. Like that. I think if we sort of think about, like, what's in the normal range, we fully expect that in adolescence. This letter seems to be talking about something that's, like, more than that, right? Like that this kid is spending a lot of time and interesting in this letter. It's also clear, getting a lot of reinforcement for how she looks. Right. I was so struck by the line of, like, people telling her and us how beautiful she is. That's not always the story. And that sort of takes this up another level in terms of what to do about how invested this kid is in her appearance right now, especially when she's getting all this feedback that other people are, too.

[A]

You know, we did this episode earlier. It was, do I tell my daughter she's beautiful? And it kind of feels like a continuation of that conversation where parents are struggling with, you know, how do you tell what. When they've crossed the line and it's too much infatuation with your looks. Is there anything, a marker, anything that you can help us when, you know you've got to rein it back?

[B]

Well, it is such an interesting question, and I'm so glad we did that earlier episode because, like, you know, we care about girls and young women being seen as whole and, you know, valued and valuable people separate from their appearance. Like, that's, of course, a value. You hold, I hold. And yet, and, you know, you've got a daughter. Like, I'll look at my girls and be like, oh, my gosh, you look so cute. Right? Like, I'll say things like that. And I still say things like that. And so I think, like, there's a tension that loving parents navigate about taking pleasure in just the adorableness of our very own children and sharing that with them. And yet at the same time not wanting to reinforce the idea that, like, it's all about your looks and your appearance is what really matters. So I do think to your question of, like, how do you make sure it doesn't go over a line? I'm not going to say we should not ever talk about appearance and we should not admire our kids appearance. We should spend no time on our own appearance. Like, I'm not going to say that. I do think it's important that there be a healthy balance between enjoying and taking pleasure in taking good care of oneself. Like, I mean, Reena, I love putting on makeup. Like, I love getting like kind of put together and remembering that it's really what's on the inside that counts. Right. Like, that's the tension we're always wanting to navigate.

[A]

Is there ever any, like, I feel like our mother's generation, you would never walk out in like, sweatpants and not have combed your hair or like, put makeup on or like, my mother is always like, you're going out like that. I'm wearing my sweats in a baseball gap. But is there anything we need to keep in mind in how we talk about our looks? You know, in the way that we've talked about food or eating.

[B]

I love that. Well, okay, so just, first of all, just to think about what you're saying. Like, one of the things I love about today's adolescent girls is like, they do seem to have a lot more comfort with showing the world various sides of themselves. Right. Like showing up at school. Right. True. You know, totally, like makeupless and low key and then, you know, for whatever reason, on another day, like totally putting themselves together and I'm watching this in my own house, right. Like that my kid will some days be like, you know, they're getting this version. And then another day, I can tell she's enjoyed spending some time on her look or her outfit or wearing, you know, jewelry or something. That to me feels. I don't feel like that's the adolescence I remember. Like, I remember feeling like much more on stage all the time as a teenager than I feel like certainly the kids in my life and I'm around are. Do you feel like you're seeing that too, where there's more latitude for kids on this or girls? Maybe I do.

[A]

And I feel like what? You know, I remember being in middle school and putting eyeliner and mascara and, and I can see a little bit of that in my daughter's age group. But you know, it just seems different now. But it does feel like appearance is everything and how you present yourself because of this era of social media, it can be right.

[B]

And then kids can work really hard on it. And, and I think that that's, you know, it's interesting. Like this letter also brings up like she's taking these selfies, right. And spending a lot of time on the selfies.

[A]

Yes, I was gonna ask.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So, you know what, what do you think about these suggestive selfies? Like what's your take on that?

[B]

Well, it is interesting, right, because it, like it feels like it goes from being one thing then to another thing. Right. So there's the kid who's looking in the mirror, enjoying taking, you know, enjoying whatever makeup, looking at her appearance and getting a lot of feedback that she's an attractive kid. Then there's the kid who's taking suggestive selfies in the mirror. And you know, then there may be also be the kid who's posting those selfies. Right. Like we can sort of think about these at different levels. The suggestive selfies, those are tough. Do we have an age on this kid? Does it say in the letter how old she is?

[A]

Yes, she's 14. So you gotta think probably like middle school, beginning of high school, possibly.

[B]

Right? Probably 8th, 9th grade somewhere in there.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, Yep. So, Rena, here's something that I've encountered over the years around like suggestive stuff. And I'm actually going to take it back. Pre social media. Like I remember 20 years ago in my practice caring for a family, I actually it was parent guidance I was doing with a single mom with a 12 year old daughter. And the mom came in one day pretty worried because she'd happened to walk by her daughter's room and could see her daughter looking in the mirror and like doing these sexy poses into the mirror. So this is like before any of this is being, you know, trafficked by social media. Right. Like a completely, you know, pre social media era and kind of seeing her daughter like doing this kind of adult suggestive posing, you know, with her face and her body and the mom being pretty freaked out by this. And, and, and we ended up having a good conversation, what I think was a good conversation about how what it means to the kid is not what it means to the adult. And I think we have to try to keep that in Mind, like, as adults, we look at this and we're like, whoa. Like, this is really sexy. This seems like you're, you know, trying to portray yourself in this way that, like, we bring the fullness of, like, adult understanding of sexuality to it. Kids can not and do not understand how this stuff comes off. Now we just need to start there because I. Where. Where we don't want this to go wrong is for the adult to be like, oh, my God, you look like. And then fill in the blank. Right? Some, you know, sexualized term. That's not flattering at all because that will strike kids as like, I don't know what you're talking about. Like, I saw this thing and I'm just imitating it, and I'm doing a good job imitating it. Like, they don't really have the full awareness of how we read this as adults, and we don't want to assume they do. So I just want to, like, pause on that for a minute because I know it's so alarming and jarring for adults to even see a kid acting in a suggestive way or putting out a suggestive portrayal of themselves.

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

Lisa, what about the phone in her room? What's your take?

[B]

Well, so this is, you know, right? Like you know how I feel about phones in her room.

[A]

I do, I do, I do.

[B]

And I think, I think this is such a good example of why, right? Like if she's in her room using her phone to take and maybe post suggestive selfies, there's nothing that really makes that strange because she's in the privacy of her room, right. And in the privacy of her kids room. And I think back to this pre social media example I have. In the privacy of the room, kids will do all sorts of things, right? Which I guess is why you have a privacy of your room. I think that the odds of her spending a huge amount of time taking suggestive selfies, if she has to do it in the kitchen or the living room, they go way down. And so again, right. Like if phones aren't in bedrooms and if that's a rule a family's ready to make and feels they can make or can make preemptively before the phone ever goes in the room. I think this is another example of where it shuts down all sorts of things that we're probably better off without. And so whether or not the kid's posting them, just to have that kind of time to take those kinds of photos goes way down. If the phone can't be in the room.

[A]

Okay, well, you know, high school and middle school can be very difficult years to navigate. If this is giving her a little bit of self confidence, maybe not the suggestive part, but okay, who cares? Is this really something that we have to worry about could have lasting effects.

[B]

So the thing I'm thinking about, Reena, is a metaphor I shared in untangled about kids and self esteem. And the metaphor I shared is the tributaries and the lake. So the way I think about self esteem, it's like a lake that needs to be filled. Like it needs stuff in it. And what we want for kids are lots and lots of tributaries. Lots of things that bring a source of pride and self esteem, right? So doing well academically, you're at least feeling good about your academics and having friends and being of service and being a good teammate. Okay? It's not preventable and not necessarily terrible. If part of what a person of any age takes pride in is I like the way I look and I get some feedback about it even that I am a good looking person. That's not the end of the world. Okay, here's where to your question about lasting damage. Here's where it can really be a problem. One is if it's the major tributary, right? If the investment in one's appearance starts to take up so much time and energy, which this letter indicates, it's sort of like bordering on that it's taking away some other tributaries because the kid's not reading, the kid's not writing. If it starts to crowd out other tributaries, that's a problem. Like kids need lots of tributaries and their looks, okay, fine, can be part of it, but it shouldn't be the whole thing. The other thing I will say Reena and I don't know if you know women like this. I think it's changing as people alter themselves so much and appearance is so like dealt with so differently these days. But one of the things we've long recognized when we talk about things like narcissism is that people who are narcissistic need admiration. They need the oxygen of being admired. And one of the things I learned in my training and I have watched in real life is sometimes you'll have an extremely beautiful woman and the world is giving her all this feedback that she's so gorgeous and she develops her sense of value and worth around that and frankly it goes fine as long as she's pretty. And then as she starts to age and the world doesn't give that kind of feedback, if that is her sole source of oxygen for feeling good, she's in trouble. So that's like the, that's the worst case scenario. Want to prevent this down the line. But I've seen it, right? I've seen that happen where looks fade, man, they do they all looks do.

[A]

But it's hard to imagine that at the age of 14 when you have been gifted with great looks, right? And it's hard to see down that turn. But to your point, Lisa, I mean, it's so true. How, how at this point though, can they regain some balance? Is it too late?

[B]

Definitely not too late. Definitely not too late. So the way I would think about this, like, okay, you know me in metaphors. Like, I can come up with 17aminute. Okay. So the way I would think about this is something I wrote about actually in Under Pressure. We're like trotting out all my books today. Yay about. Yeah. I mean, it's fun. I mean, this is the beauty of, like, having gotten to think about a lot of these things for a long time, right. Like, I've gotten to distill my thoughts. In my book Under Pressure, which is about stress and anxiety in girls, I put out this metaphor of talking with kids. And this can be true of all kids, not just girls, about their container versus their contents. Okay, so this kid has a really good looking container, right. Not going to falter for that. It is really important that that be balanced with a focus on her contents. Right? A focus on who she is inside, the kind of person she is, the skills she's developing, the way she contributes to the world. And what I like about the container contents metaphor is that it gives us a language for talking with kids that's not critical, that's not like, oh my God, stop looking at yourself in the mirror, like, go shovel the driveway. It gives us a way of saying things like, kiddo, you got a cute container. And I think this is also a great moment to say, and lucky you, that just happened. Right? You actually don't get a whole lot of credit for that. Right. Like, that is the hand you were dealt. But what really matters is your contents. The things you control, the things you build, the things you make, the choices you make about how to be in the world. Containers, great. They come, they go, they change over time. It's your contents that you control and it's your contents that I want you to focus on. So what do you think of that?

[A]

I think sometimes it's hard for kids to sort of grasp that. Right. And understand it in the moment. I feel like I'm talking at them but not with them, right. To where it'll get through to them.

[B]

I think you're right. I think that she might be like, past the eyeliner, it may not. She might be like, oh my God. Or she may even think, if I try to be a 14 year old, she may even be like, you don't get it. Or she may even be like, middle aged lady, don't you wish what I had? Don't you wish you had what I had? She may feel like, you're diminishing my beauty because you're on the later end of what our culture celebrates. So I think you're right. I think words will only go so far. I don't think they're worth not saying. Right. I think you can still sort of say your piece, but it gets to something else, which is make this kid busy. Help this kid be busy. Minimize the amount of time right. That she can spend in front of the mirror.

[A]

Great point. Such a great point.

[B]

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[A]

so as we pull back and look at looks, you know, I feel like there are many different versions of this in like how you look at your muscles or how you show up on social media. So how do you get us into the headspace of when we think they've become a little bit too obsessive of their appearance, regardless of what it is? Because I think social media does sort of make you pick a personality and sort of stick with it or display it. How do you, I think parents always worry. What is the point of worry? And how can you retool things quickly?

[B]

Okay, this is important. You brought up boys. I will actually tell you. Yes, I worry about girls. I worry about girls who are spending too much time, you know, trying to cultivate a appearance that the culture, the world's gonna admire. Things are going on with boys that have not been going on in the past. And a lot of it is around appearance and a lot of it is around muscularity and losing body fat. And like you say, a lot of it is driven by social media. So just to sort of play this out a little bit. So we've got this girl version of this, you know, cute kid spending a lot of time putting on makeup and looking in the mirror and taking suggestive photos. The boy version that I am hearing is guys spending a lot of time at the gym, a lot of time worrying about what they eat and a lot of time also looking in the mirror, looking at their bodies, taking photos of their bodies, sometimes posting those photos of their bodies. So this is not like a girl problem. Right? The idea that the culture could tell you you're supposed to look a certain way and then you're going to spend a lot of time on this because you're a teenager. And this is something that you can be very vulnerable to. This is sort of equal opportunity. So to your question of like, when should you worry? How do you know? I mean, I really think if you feel at all like your kids, worries about their appearance are getting in the way of them growing in other ways. Right. Like when we think about health in young people, what we want to see is progressive development across the board. We want to see them taking better care of themselves all the time, getting better and better at managing their self care. So like, that's, I guess, one version of this though the Boys piece and also the girls piece. At times, kids of all gender, like, they can start to take very bad care of themselves in the name of what they think is, you know, appearance. But we want to see them also developing as students, and we want to see them developing in their friendships, and we want to see them developing in their ability to, you know, be of use to their community and their family. So if you feel like, oh, wait a minute, like these other tributaries, these other ways that they can grow and should be feeling good about themselves are being compromised because so much of their energy is caught up in how they look, then it's time to worry. And then to my point about, you know, this girl, then it's time to actually be like, you know what I need you to be, you know, helping down at the church, or I need you to be, you know, here's the activities that your school has this season. You, you don't have to, you know, you can choose which ones you want, but you're doing at least one or two of these right? Like, requiring kids to be useful in the world, to do things in the world, to build skills in the world for two reasons. One, to crowd out how much time they can spend worrying about their looks. And two, to build other tributaries for self esteem because, you know, even if they're good looking, like, whatever, it's going to fade.

[A]

I love those other tributaries. That's just such an analogy. That always works all the time. I love that one.

[B]

Love it.

[A]

Lisa, before we go, I want to ask you, what if these suggestive selfies, if she's actually going ahead and posting them, is there anything parents should be concerned about with that?

[B]

Yeah, we don't love that. Right. I mean, if, if I or you, right, like, saw that, like, I think we might be a little uneasy about it. I think that's a conversation that needs to be had. I think that it may be very normed, right. Any kid who's doing this, right. Whether it's a girl posting suggestive selfies or frankly, a boy posting a photo of his six pack that he took a photo of in the mirror in his bathroom, right? Like, it may be very, very normed for them to do it. What it reminds me of, actually, REENA, is the four Rs that we were talking about with regard to, like, kids not scrolling while studying. I think if we don't want kids doing this, we have to go Back to the four Rs of, like, how you change behavior in teenagers. So number one, start with respect. So we might say Look, I know you're seeing a lot of kids doing this. I get why it feels like it's an okay thing to do. So that's respect then. Rationale. That's the rationale for why we don't want them to do that. Okay. That may be very specific to your family. That may be specific to something. You know, you might say, this is really how we present ourselves. Or, this doesn't feel okay. Like, you need a rationale that you can justify and explain to your kid. And so then you can make a rule. Like, I don't want you putting up photos that are about displaying your body or displaying your appearance. Like, if you want to put up photos of your game, fine. But ones that are entirely focused on, like, a look at me. Aren't I cute or fit? Like, that's not how we roll. And then four, number four, expect some resistance. Like, ugh, the kid's, you know, going to be grumpy about it. That's fine. As long as they can comply to the rule, they can be grumpy about the rule. So I think that may be a way to wade into this question of kids posting photos that adults just kind of. That don't sit right with us.

[A]

Yeah, I know you talk about healthy tension, but this is a tension that I feel I do not like, no,

[B]

it's not that fun.

[A]

So, Lisa, what do you have for us for parenting to go?

[B]

So I remember I was thinking about the part of the letter where the parent mentions that the parents also getting feedback on this child being very attractive. And it reminds me of something I came up with when my daughters were little. And I just want people to have it. Should it be handy. So when my daughters were little, sometimes when we'd be out and about, people are like, oh, my God, she's so cute. Or, oh, my God, she's so adorable. Right? And I was always kind of torn, right? Because, like, I thought so too. And also, I don't want to right in front of my kid be like, why, yes, she is right. You know, like, I didn't know what to say. And so then finally one day I struck upon saying, and she's great on the inside too, is how I started responding. So I just want to offer that to families because it felt like it kind of threaded the needle of not wanting to be make the moment weird, but also not wanting to double down on this being the most important thing about my kids. So for what it's worth, that's how I ended up solving that problem.

[A]

That's a great way to solve it because you also remind people of what really matters. And sometimes we need a little reminding on that. It's really great advice.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Well, thank you, Lisa. And next week we have a bit of a special. We're going to have the Best of Episodes, all the hidden gems and wisdom of Lisa from a bunch of different episodes. And it'll focus on episodes on friendship, breakups and conflict. I'll see you next week.

[B]

I'll see you next week.

[A]

Thanks for joining us. Be sure to subscribe to the Ask Lisa podcast so you get the episodes just as soon as they drop. And send us your questions to ask [e-mail] and now a word from our lawyers. The advice provided on this podcast does not constitute or serve as a substitute for professional psychological treatment, therapy or other types of professional advice or intervention. If you have concerns about your child's well being, consult a physician or mental health professional. If you're looking for additional resources, check out Lisa's [e-mail].