Let your daughter know it’s okay to love her hair. I’ll share how in this post sponsored by Dove™.

I was fortunate to be a little girl who believed that my hair was beautiful. Long and thick, whenever I wore it out instead of my normal ponytails, people would comment on how pretty “that Jeter hair” was. As I got older and it became my responsibility for me to maintain my own hair, I started to feel less proud of it and more like it was a hassle.

Thick hair is like that. It can feel like a blessing and a curse.

As fate would have it, my own little girl has the same type of hair that I had, but Ayva’s is much more lovely than mine ever was. Golden brown with blonde highlights, crinkly when wet, and as soft as cotton, I can’t help telling her every day how much I adore it. I’m not just a hair fan, though. As Ayva’s mom, it’s also my job to make sure she grows up loving and appreciating the hair that she has.

I know it can seem shallow sometimes, all of this talk about hair, but there are so many factors that go into building a girl’s self-esteem. Letting her know that she’s smart and finding ways for her to be challenged and show her intelligence is important. Reminding her that she is worthy of love and respect, and then modeling what that looks like is important. It’s also important to let her know that she’s beautiful, and to teach her to look in the mirror and love what she sees.

Send your daughter an empowering message for free! 

Earlier this year, Dove™ Hair found that 8 in 10 women feel pressure to wear their hair a certain way. A recent Dove™ study also found that 82% of girls learn to care about themselves from their mother. What does that mean? Hair matters to girls, and so do their mothers. We have work to do, Mamas!

Once I took over doing my own hair, things didn’t go so great. I was always trying to wear my hair in ways that didn’t necessarily suit my texture in order to fit in. I ended up with a lot of damage trying to make my hair look good all because I didn’t realize how beautiful my hair was already. Whether it’s terrible haircuts or fried ends, I don’t want that for Ayva. I know that by encouraging her to love her hair now, she can probably skip a lot of the bad hair days that I had growing up.

Send Your Daughter a #LoveYourHair Message!

Every single day we have an opportunity to sow into our daughter’s self-esteem. The way we talk to her, the words we use, they are helping to mold her into the woman that she will one day be, and influencing how she feels about herself. Whenever you have a chance, tell your daughter her spirit, her personality, and her hair! Inspire her to do the same by creating and sharing a custom #LoveYourHair animated message with @Dove: http://bit.ly/2hBzJJs

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Dove™.