A recent Huffington Post article has stirred up a lot of controversy, angst, trolling, and snarkiness online. Personally, it puts me in the very odd position of feeling that the article isn't very good, but that its message is critical.
There are many things that might rub a reader the wrong way, here. The author's tone is relentlessly self-satisfied. And who wants to be told what to do by someone who sounds so smug? Nevertheless, she's right: we need to stop complimenting little girls on their appearance, and start finding ways to compliment their minds.
We spend a lot of time haranguing the media, the advertising world, the internet, the magazine industry for pointing fingers at girls' bodies. For turning our physical selves into a commodity. For drilling home the message that our appearance - our clothes and physical traits - are the only thing that matters. For inseparably tying together our looks and our self esteem.
But you know what? We are at fault for this, too. We have to shoulder some of the blame. It feels lousy, but that's okay - that's the first step towards turning things around.
The first problem with complimenting a little girl on her looks or her clothing is that, to a little kid, this says "I have parsed your entire selfhood, and here is what I think is valuable: that adorable dress you're wearing." And the second problem is that everybody does this. Not being a parent, I checked with some parents of young girls. They confirm it: their daughters' looks are 99.7% of what strangers talk to them about.
No small wonder that our daughters are becoming more self-conscious, more self-loathing, more inclined to diet and wear make-up and ask for plastic surgery and wear revealing clothing at younger and younger ages. When the race is won by appearance, only an idiot wouldn't strive to be pretty as hard as she could.
The author suggests asking little girls "What have you read lately?" She correctly points out that kids love reading (they haven't had that love drummed out of them by the relentless anti-intellectualism of society yet). This is a somewhat awkward question, the kind of thing we would never ask an adult. But hey, a little kid isn't going to know that.
This Metafilter thread has some great suggestions for other conversational openers, including "What have you been drawing lately?" and "What's your favorite animal? I like _____." Every kid loves animals, and drawing.
Make a difference in her life, however tiny: Ask her what she thinks about, and show her that thinking has value.