Raising a Body-Confident Child When You’re Still on the Path Yourself

If you’re a parent who wants to help your child build a healthy, trusting relationship with their body—but you’re still healing your own–this can be a daunting task. It’s easy to become hyper-aware of your every word or action, afraid of passing down your struggles. Add to that the emotional weight of being triggered by your child’s body image experiences, and it can feel overwhelming. 

In a culture where generations have grown up learning to distrust, ignore, or even hate their bodies, choosing a different path for your child is not just brave—it’s transformative. In my psychology practice I speak with many people who fear they need to be fully healed in order to help guide their children, and are terrified of perpetuating the disordered eating or body distrust they grew up with themselves. But while a positive relationship with your own body is ideal, it’s not always possible—or necessary—before you start this journey.  

In fact, raising a body-trusting child while healing yourself can be one of the most powerful forms of generational repair. Your growth doesn’t have to be complete to make an impact. The parallel journey of healing and modeling body respect, even imperfectly, is a tremendous gift. And if you’re overwhelmed, take a breath. You’re not alone. And you’re already doing something deeply powerful by simply exploring this concept.

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The Beautiful Opportunity—and Responsibility—We Have

Parents don’t need another pressure to be perfect. But as adults, we do have to reckon with a simple truth: children learn from how we move through the world. That doesn’t mean we need to have it all figured out. It means that bringing awareness to our own body relationship can help us parent with intention.

You can tell your child to love their body—but if they watch you speak critically about your own, the words won’t land. You can tell them to set boundaries, but if they watch you cross your own, they are likely to embody that later. Children absorb what we do far more than what we say.

Yes, this can feel like a lot. But it’s also where our power lives. Every time you speak to yourself with compassion instead of criticism… choose nourishment over punishment… honor your body’s needs instead of overriding them—you’re breaking a cycle.

Helping your child develop body trust isn’t about perfection. It’s about intention. It’s about being aware of the patterns we inherited and deciding—imperfectly, compassionately, courageously—not to pass them on.

The work of breaking generations of body distrust is big. To make this process more approachable, I’m breaking it into two key steps—each with its own blog post.  First, we’ll focus on your relationship with your own body: the beliefs you’ve inherited, the patterns you’re unlearning, and how you can begin to model body trust, even as you heal. In Part Two, we’ll explore how you relate to and engage with your child’s body—through conscious language, boundaries, and everyday interactions.

Let’s start with the foundation: your own embodied experience.

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Step 1: Understanding Where Body Stories Begin

You began forming beliefs about your body incredibly early—possibly before you were even able to speak. These beliefs didn’t just come from words; they were shaped by what you saw, heard, and felt in the world around you. And as a child, most likely your family was your first exposure to body attitudes. While our culture and media play a huge role, a family’s behaviors, attitudes, and language become the first lens through which kids learn to view themselves.

• When a parent sighs at their reflection in the mirror, a child receives a message.
  
• When mealtimes become tense negotiations rather than joyful connections, a child receives a message.
  
• When movement is treated as punishment instead of play, a child receives a message.
  
• When an adult treats their own body with tenderness and says, “I’m listening to what my body needs,” a child learns something powerful: their own body is worthy of being listened to, too.
  

So if you’re trying to build a new foundation for your child, start by looking back at the foundation that was built for you. You were a child once, too.

• What messages did you grow up hearing?
  
• What did you observe in your parents or community around food, weight, exercise, and boundaries?
  
• Were you encouraged to honor your hunger, or expected to clean your plate?
  
• Were you taught to love your body—or to fix it?
• Did your comfort, joy, and boundaries get to matter as much as others’ around you?

Your current relationship with your body didn’t form overnight, and it wasn’t your fault. Understanding where it came from helps you approach yourself with compassion—and gives you clarity on which patterns to unlearn so you can raise a child who trusts their body instead of battling it.

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Step 2: Treat Yourself How You Want Others to Treat Your Child

Once you understand how you came to relate to your body as you do, and how the ways in which you treat your body (and all bodies) inform your child, the next step is to work to treat yourself in the way you wish to model. But how do you do this, when there have been so many years of abuse or confusing messages? As you start this work, the relationship you have with your own body and your love for your child can actually work symbiotically. You can start by letting your child—even if they haven’t been born yet—serve as a compass. Use the care and compassion you want for them to guide how you treat yourself. Then over time, your relationship with your body becomes a model they can look to for guidance.

Still, as you work to heal your relationship with your body, it’s completely normal to feel confused about what treating it with care actually looks like.  A healthy relationship with your body includes both accepting it as it is and learning to care for it with love, not punishment, but many of us don’t know how to do this. And our culture perpetuates messages that can make being kind to your body and taking care of it seem at odds. 

When we’re doing this work, often it’s not enough to ask ourselves, “ Am I treating myself the way I’d want my child to treat themselves?” The answer may be jumbled with confusing diet culture ideas like, “Well, I want her to be healthy, so then shouldn’t she work out more and avoid sweets?” Or “I don’t want her to get teased, maybe she shouldn’t wear that.” If you’re in that place of confusion, step back. A more powerful question until your own healed voice resonates loud and clear may be:  

How would I want someone else to treat my child?

• Would you want them to respect your child’s cues if they said, “I’m tired” or “I’m still hungry”?
  
• Would you want them to support joyful movement, not treat exercise as a punishment?
  
• Would you want someone to criticize your child’s appearance, or tell them they can’t wear something because of their body size?
  

If you wouldn’t tolerate a stranger treating your child with criticism, pressure, or disregard, then you shouldn’t accept that treatment from yourself either. This isn’t limited to food or exercise—think also about boundaries, consent, and rest. Would you want your child to feel empowered to say no to touch they don’t want, or to decline plans when they’re overwhelmed? 

Use this question to begin practicing true care with yourself, even if it feels unfamiliar. Do this for two reasons: because you deserve the same respect and agency you wish for your child, and because your child is absorbing this. And if it’s hard to figure out how to live that way safely and sustainably, you’re not alone—this is a really tough shift to make. There are therapists and dietitians who specialize in this work who can walk alongside you, and there is no shame in asking for support.

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Step 3: Working with Self-Compassion

You may not have had role models who showed you how to trust your body. You may not know what modeling good behavior looks like. Maybe you’re still unlearning shame, restriction, or comparison. That’s okay. You don’t need to be fully healed to be a healing presence.

What matters most is that you approach yourself with the same compassion you want to extend to your child. So as you work with making changes, remember: 

• When old patterns resurface, notice them without judgment.
  
• When you feel the urge to say something unkind about your body, pause and offer yourself grace.
  
• When you feel like you’re “messing it up,” remind yourself: your awareness is the shift.
  

This work isn’t about control—it’s about connection. And your connection to your own body–and your own grace in the healing process– sets the tone for how your child connects to theirs.

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A Gentle Reminder: You Are Enough

It’s easy to get caught in the trap of wanting to protect your child from everything you’ve struggled with. But remember—your child doesn’t need a perfect parent. They need a present one. They need someone who is willing to model curiosity over control, compassion over criticism, and honesty over performance.

You’re doing the hard work. You’re also human. Be gentle with yourself. But stay committed to your values. If you’ve looked at your child and thought, “I want something better for them,” that’s not a sign of failure, or another demand for perfection. It’s a reminder of your love, your power, and your devotion to generational healing. And you’ve already given your child a great gift by your willingness to believe there is more for them.

In my next post, we’ll get into how to work with your relationship with your child’s body, not just your own.