Raising Kids with Positive Self Image

Today I wanted to talk about being a woman, being a mom, and eating well, taking care of your body in the presence of children.  This comes up when we want to transform their lives, want to transform their bodies and help and are concerned about their children and how they will perceive it.  As a mom we want to know how to teach our children healthy habits and how to intervene in non-healthy habits without giving their children body image trauma. 

And I have a lot of experience with this. So one of the wonderful things about having so many children, and I have seven of them, is it teaches you a lot and it shows you a lot and it challenges you a lot and it makes you do work arounds. And so I wanted to share with you from my own personal life how to approach this, how I think about it, how I do this, how it works with my own children

Transcript

Hi everyone. This is the Jolie Life Podcast welcome, where we discuss things related to health, wellness, food, nutrition, and living a fabulous life. My name is Julia. I'm the founder of Jolie, and today I wanted to talk about being a woman, being a mom, and eating well, taking care of your body in the presence of children. And I want to talk about this because it comes up a lot with clients of mine who want to transform their lives, want to transform their bodies and help and are concerned about their children and how they will perceive it. Also, our other clients that want to make changes but struggle to make the changes because of the responsibilities they have in terms of feeding and food, prepping for their children. In addition, there's another set of clients who want to know how to teach their children healthy habits and how to intervene in non-healthy habits without giving their children body image trauma. 

And I have a lot of experience with this. So one of the wonderful things about having so many children, and I have seven of them, is it teaches you a lot and it shows you a lot and it challenges you a lot and it makes you do work arounds. And so I wanted to share with you from my own personal life how to approach this, how I think about it, how I do this, how it works with my own children. And just so you know, I have three girls and I have four boys. My oldest girl is 25 and my youngest girl is 14. The girls are like 14, 21 and 25. And my boys are 23, 19, 15 and 12, although they're all shifting this year. But I have the gamut just so you have a little bit of background. So for starters, as a mom, how do you teach your children what it means to care for yourself and what it means to care for yourself in a positive way, which is what I've dealt with. 

Because my girls, I've always wanted them to feel that they were absolutely beautiful and they were absolutely perfect no matter what their bodies looked like. And at the same time, I am vehemently in the school of health and I myself have struggled with weight. And I know what it's like to be overweight. I know what it's like to be obese, and I know what it's like to not be overweight and to not be obese. And I always, always, always want the best for my kids, and I want the best for myself. And so much of what you are teaching your children is what you demonstrate. It's the energy with which you do things more than the words that you say. Because kids are super smart and kids these days with all the outlets, all the social media, all the information are really, really savvy and they can see through your words. 

So don't worry about your words, worry about your actions, and worry about your attitude. Worry about how you look at yourself in the mirror because I guarantee you, your children are watching that worry about how you speak to yourself when you think no one is listening. We all speak out loud. Sometimes might be like, oh, I shouldn't do that. Or, oh, why did I do that? Look at those things because guess whose ears are always perked to what you're saying, even though they don't necessarily do what you ask them to do or you think they're not listening, it's your kids. So the first thing you need to do is to change and to look at and to examine your own energy around yourself because that is what you are teaching them. So if you look in the mirror and you don't like yourself because you're not how you want to be your children, they know that. 

And then when they look in the mirror and they aren't exactly how they want to be, they are going to not like themselves too, even though you've told them a million times, you're beautiful, you're wonderful, love yourself no matter what. Your words literally carry the weight of a feather. Where your actions are the weight of steel, your attitude is the weight of steel. Your energy is the weight of steel. So when you look in the mirror, and please look in the mirror, if you're one of those people that avoids the mirror, okay, that's step number one. Look in the mirror, you have to look in the mirror and it can be challenging, but look in the mirror, I need you to look in the mirror and to find things you like about yourself. And you might be at the place where you look in the mirror and you are in love with yourself, but you also might be in the place where you look in the mirror and you just see flaws. 

That's where more of us are. The practice is to begin to shift our own perception of ourselves. It is to be able to look in the mirror and love what we see. And so how do we get there? We start looking in the mirror, and then we start looking in the mirror and finding the one thing that we like and really just concentrating on that. And then we find the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. And it keeps going until one day we wake up and we like what we see. The other way that we change our perception is to realize that we are all works in progress. It's like your house. You're constantly having to take care of your house, you have to repaint it, you have to get it fixed, you have to repair it, you have to do this, you have to do that. 

Your body is no different than that, and your body even more. So we are here to have this beautiful journey of self-discovery and self-learning, which necessitates that we be not perfect. It necessitates that. So when you look in the mirror and you see something you don't like, it's just information like, oh, this is an area that I want to work on. It is not a judgment on who you are. It is not a judgment on your character, on your values, on whether you're a good person or a bad person. It's just like, gee, I want to work on that. And I go through different phases of working in different parts of me. So sometimes I'm like, this year I'm all about body, skin, all about body skin. So that's what I'm working on. And I look in the mirror and I'm like, okay, so I see this is doing well, or Oh, this area needs a little bit of help, but it's more like a project that I have and I'm enjoying. 

I don't say to myself, gee, this is terrible that I have stretch marks. I've had multiple pregnancies. Of course I have stretch marks, but my goal is just to really love up that part of me so it can tighten a little bit. The stretch marks can fade a little bit. I cannot like my stretch marks and still love myself. And that's where we're going to get to really look in the mirror and see the stretch marks and be like, okay, what can I do about it? Or to see the stretch marks and be like, gee, this is my badge of honor. I want to say this is what it means to have all these kids. But I will tell you that if I looked in the mirror and saw my stretch mark and be like, Ugh, that's ugly. My daughters would know that. They would see the expression on my face. 

And therefore when they got stretch marks, they would assume that they were ugly. Instead of saying, gee, my mom has stretch marks and it doesn't bother her, and she's willing to show her belly, and she kind of wears them with love. That's what I want for my kids. So we have to be aware of how we are relating to ourselves and how we are stepping into loving ourselves. The other part of this is the attitude you go into self-improvement with. So when I went on a big massive diet, I did not go into it with an attitude of self-hatred. I went into it with an attitude of self-love. I was doing this not because I hated my body, I was doing it because I loved my body. I was doing it because I had a desire to be thinner, and I love myself enough to go after the things I desire. 

And going after weight loss, a thing that I desired is the same as going after career of doing something you love. It is not less than it is the same. And if we look at weight loss, or let's say you're going to go to the gym and you're going to get fit, or you have eczema or psoriasis and you're beginning a new nutrition plan to treat that, to improve that, that's a desire you have. That's a want, that's a goal, that's an interest. Honor your interest. And so go with it with that. Don't go with it with the attitude of, oh, I hate this fat belly here. Instead go with it with the attitude of, I love myself enough that I'm willing to invest in the things that I want. And so I'm going on this diet and I'm losing this weight. I'm going on this diet and I'm getting rid of my breakouts. 

I'm going on this diet and I'm improving my skin health. And when you have that attitude of self-improvement of self-love, I love myself enough to do the things to accomplish my goals, my dreams, my desires, your children, they see that. They see that my mom is on this diet because she loves herself and wants even more for herself. And so when they're in a position where say they might say, gee, one of my daughters, I want to learn how to run mom. I want her to do that. And she does do that from a point of I want to experience something new, not from the point of view of, oh, I'm lazy and I need to move. No, want her to go with it with, I want to learn to run because I want to learn to run. I think it'll be fun. I think I should know how to run, is what she said. 

So go run, girl. That attitude comes from me constantly demonstrating that all the things that I do, I do them because I'm constantly seeking self-improvement. I'm constantly seeking to expand myself. I'm constantly seeking to test my limits, shall I say, in a very positive way. So how we go about it makes the biggest difference. I also want to talk about the feeling of deprivation. So sometimes when we go on an eating plan or food plan, we feel like, oh, well, I can't do this. I can't do that. I can't do this. Oh my gosh, I really wish I could have this, but oh my, I can't have it. No, no, no, no, no. We're telling our kids that the pursuit of health is torture. We're punishing ourselves because we are not where we need to be. This is not the lesson we want to give. 

Instead, we look at what this is allowing us to do. Like me not eating this right now is allowing me to get into that pair of pants that I want to get into or me not having. The fried food is allowing me to clear up my skin or me choosing olive oil over butter is allowing me to improve my cardiovascular health so I live longer and I can run better. So I always try to think about, there's a saying that my pastor in Boston used to say that freedom from something is slavery to something else, that we get to choose what we want to be free from and what we want to be enslaved to. And I'd rather be enslaved to feeling great than not to be free, to not feel great. And so I never look at the choices I'm making as deprivation. Instead, I look at them as upgrading my life. 

This is giving me a new opportunity, this is opening a door. This is getting me closer to who I want to be. And when we go with any dietary plan with that attitude, it shows to our kids, it shows to them that I don't need to think because I'm not doing something that I'm deprived. I don't need to think, since I'm not eating birthday cake, that I'm deprived. I can say to myself, I'm not eating birthday cake because my goals are more important than the birthday cake. And this translates into peer pressure. I am not doing this thing because my goals are more important than this thing. We constantly are teaching our kids. We are constantly modeling and our food choices, they model ideas and attitudes that go far beyond food. And so when we approach a diet, when we approach to lose 10 pounds, lose 20 pounds, when we approach to learn how to run, start going to the gym, it's essential that we approach it with a love for our body and B, a sense of opening a sense of we are expanding ourselves, a sense that we are allowing ourselves to experience something new. 

And when we do that, our kids will not see us as body shaming. Our kids will not see us as thinking ourselves fat. Our kids will not see us as thinking ourselves wrong. And the segue with that is they then will not see themselves as wrong. They then will not body shame themselves. They then will not feel that they're not enough. And so how do we deal with it on the other group of people where we want to teach our kids healthy habits or we're concerned about how they're developing? I'll tell you a story about one of my daughters who when she is now probably, I kind of wish she would put a little bit more meat on her bones, honestly. But when she was a teenager, I would say like 12, 13, 14, she definitely went through a period where she was putting on a lot of weight. 

And me as a mom, I was like, oh, I'm not too sure about this. I don't know if this is good. And I really was very much inside me concerned. But my guiding light is I always want my kids to feel perfect. I always want them. And I don't mean perfect better than everything. I mean perfect. You are perfectly imperfect. And I didn't want to body shame because I was, at least, I thought I was overweight when I was a teenager. And I only realized until when I went to college and I was a young adult that I wasn't overweight and I felt like I was because I was body shamed. I didn't want that for my girls. So when my daughter was kind of teetering into the space of, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know if this is too much weight or what, I kept my mouth shut. 

I literally kept my mouth shut because I'm like, let's say we're going to go in the wrong direction. I don't want her to feel bad, but let's say this is just part of growing up. I don't want to put in her mind that her body isn't functioning, her body is doing something wrong. And so I just kept my mouth shut and I kept eating well, and I kept exercising, and I kept doing all the things and give it time. And everything corrected itself. Everything corrected itself. And I will say that those teenage years are awkward. They are super awkward the way the body grows, awkward beyond awkward. And as a mom, we have to model and we have to trust to model and trust and to know that our kids are watching us more than they're listening to us. They're watching us, listening to us when we're talking to them, not listening to us. 

When we're talking to ourselves. They are perked up when we're talking to ourselves and when we're talking to our friends, they are listening. I guarantee that. But we want to be quiet during those times of their teenage years. We want to be quiet. We want to exercise a positive self-image. We want to demonstrate positive self-care. We want to be conscious of what we ourselves put in our mouths of how we ourselves treat our bodies, how we ourselves move our bodies. But we want to be quiet. And the only time to not be quiet is if there is a life-threatening problem. So let's say you're, you are suspecting bulimia or anorexia. That is not a time to be quiet. That is the time to be proactive. But for the regular ups and downs of the body of your child transitioning from child to adulthood, we want to be quiet and just model what's good and to always be there to talk, to, always be there to listen. 

I should say, I shouldn't even say talk to always be there to listen. You get so much more if you're just listening than if you're talking. So with the kids and when you're worried about, oh, are they getting too fat? Are they gaining too much weight? Are they too inactive? Just model and sit, quiet model and sit quiet and it works itself out. The other thing I'll say too is in terms of teaching with kids, honesty is the best policy. Honesty is the best policy and supporting them as much as you can. I am definitely very transparent with my kids about my story, about my body, about why I take care of myself. They know that I take care of myself because I want to be running around after grandchildren. I want to be playing tennis in my eighties. I want to travel. There's this one client who I absolutely adore. 

She's 83 and just went on by herself a three month international world tour. I want to be able to do that. And they know that I strongly believe that what I put in my mouth is going to determine if I can do that when I'm 83 years old. And so I'm very, very honest with them. I'm choosing this because this does this, this, and this for my body, and I want to be able to do these things when I'm old. And so I'm going skip the fried chicken. I'm going to skip the, they love these pretzel things. I'm going to skip those because it's not aligned with what I want for myself. And that's the kind of language I tell them. It's not aligned with what I want. It's not, oh, that's bad, or, oh, it'll make me fat, or, oh, this or that. It's not aligned with what I want for myself. 

Those are the words that I use. And so I'm transparent and I tell them, or sometimes I will eat something and they'll be surprised and I'll tell them, part of why I eat so clean is so when I really crave something, I can have it. And there's no worry that it will undercut the work that I've done because my body is strong and it knows how to, it can repair itself because what I do the majority of the time is more important than the occasional indulgence in a funnel cake. I do love funnel cakes. So I will usually, I don't know, maybe once a summer if that much, have a funnel cake. I love and adore them. I don't want to share them with anyone. I love them, but everything else is pretty much on point. And so it allows me to just be able to do that and not worry to not get to my goals. 

And I'm transparent with them about that. Why do I work out? I work out because I love it. Yes, I work out because I like how it looks, but I work out because I love it. Or maybe sometimes my daughter had backaches and I'm like, you need to do ab exercises. Because the reason I do ab exercises is in a couple of my pregnancies, I think it was my pregnancy with my middle daughter, my back kept going out. I'd bend over and suddenly I couldn't bend back up. And that was the most excruciating pain ever. And so I knew as soon as I had this child that I was going to work on my abs, because your abs keep your back strong. And I never wanted to be in that space. I didn't like it. Literally, you can't take care of your kids. You can't get in and out of your car. 

You literally can't do anything when your back is out until the conversation comes up. This is why I do ab exercises. You're 24 years old, you don't want your back to be messed up, do your ab exercises. And guess what? She didn't listen to begin with. But after one or two times of, oh, I can't move because of my back. She's doing her ab exercises and she feels good. So there is a space of honesty and transparency where you share your story, you share your background. Kids, young adults, adult children, they appreciate it when you are transparent, when you are honest with them. And they'll be like, mom, why were you like this when you were a kid? And I'll say, I was like this because I didn't know any better. I didn't know that ex ding dongs were not good for me. There was no concept in me that ding dongs were not good for me. 

Mom, why didn't you play a sport when you were a kid? I didn't. Didn't play sport because my family basically didn't allow me to. There was too much church going to play sports. But I also didn't know how important it was. No one told me how important it was. And my mind wasn't expanded enough to start looking into how important it was. Like, mom, why didn't you, why did you eat Pop-Tarts? Why did you have margarine when you were kid? We didn't know it was bad for us. So I am very transparent about them, about me, to them. And I think as a parent, as a mom, that transparency builds trust. And it builds vulnerability, which builds respect. And you can have more influence and more space with your child, more closeness with your child when you are in that space of being transparent, of being vulnerable, of being open with them, of explaining yourself in that kind of way. 

And so that's how I approach how I take care of myself and how I have done body transformation and cap an eye on keeping my girls self-image intact, keeping my boys their self-image intact, and keeping them in a space where they at least have the opportunity to grow in how they treat their body, and to make choices based on goodness instead of shame. And so that's it for today. All you parents out there, listen to it again, because I think being a parent to teenagers and young adults these days is really, really hard. And oftentimes we don't know what to do. We don't know what to say. It's different than when our parents were raising us. But I think it's more wonderful now, honestly, and having, I just think it's more wonderful. The relationship is just fabulous, but it's just honesty, it's transparency, and it really, really, really starts with you. 

It starts with how you feel about yourself, how you treat yourself, how you talk to yourself, how you talk about yourself. And the more positive you can be, even if you have to fake it till you make it, the more of a positive impact you will make with your children no matter what the issue is. I hope this helped. Share it with someone that might need it, that might need to hear it, share it with another mom and like us, like this podcast, please. And feel free to follow us on Instagram, the Jolie Life, check out the newsletter. I do share more about myself, health, food, family's, a lot of information there about family. I have a lot of information in me about family. Anyway, it have a beautiful day. Love you. I hope you enjoyed this podcast, the Jo Life Podcast. And if this podcast helped you in any way, I invite you to share it with your friends and your family and whoever you come across that you think might be helped by this podcast. I would love to hear your comments. And you can contact me at julia@thejolife.com. And please follow us on Instagram, the Jo Life. Our website is the jo life.com. And it would be lovely if you would subscribe and if you would rate this podcast and go back and share this with someone. Let the ripple effect happen. Let the joly life be the beautiful life that keeps on giving beauty. Lots of love.