If you play video games, you know the value of a good “cheat code.” They help the player advance to a new level or gain a special power. They help the gamer obtain a special tool or weapon needed to succeed in the game.

If you’re a Dad of daughters, you may feel as though you need a “cheat code.” You may want inside information to help you move toward an advanced level of understanding in relation to your daughter. You probably desire a “cheat code” that will open a gateway to the special power of influencing your daughter toward maturity.  If so, I have just what you’re looking for: “cheat codes” for dads raising daughters.

Previous “cheat codes” discussed included:

• Spending Time with Your Daughter.
• Showing Confidence in Your Daughter’s Ability.
• Giving Healthy Physical Affection

Now it’s time for another “cheat code:” Acknowledge and Protect Your Daughter’s Beauty.

The Cheat Code: Acknowledge and Protect Your Daughter’s Beauty.

Purpose: When you Acknowledge and Protect Your Daughter’s Beauty, youwill…

1. Increase your daughter’s confidence in her appearance and her overall self.
2. Help your daughter develop positive boundaries for romantic relationships.
3. Increase the chances that your daughter will wait to become sexually active.
4. Increase your daughter’s modesty and appropriate self-protective behavior.

Value: Our daughters receive conflicting messages about beauty, romance, and how to “use” their body. In many ways, I think our society encourages a love/hate relationship with the body. The media teaches girls to use their bodies to get what they want while teaching them to hate that others give them what they want in response to their appearance. However, as a father you can help change this for your daughter. By Acknowledging and Protecting Your Daughter’s Beauty you teach her the true value of her body.  You teach her to value her body as a gift. As you do, you increase her overall confidence and her willingness to establish appropriate boundaries of modesty.

Instructions: Acknowledging and Protecting Your Daughter’s Beauty involves…

1. Giving healthy hugs and affection. Share healthy physical affection every day with your daughter.
2. Acknowledge her beauty. Tell her she is beautiful. Acknowledge times when she looks especially nice.
3. Talk about what she wants in a romantic partner. Rather than asking, “Do you love him?” talk about what she wants in a relationship. What traits does she want her romantic partner to possess? How does she expect her romantic partner to treat her?
4. Be a champion for modesty. Right or wrong, the way a person dresses impacts how people think of them. In a manner of speaking, a person’s style of dress becomes the packaging that advertises the content inside. Fathers can help their daughters think through what they want to say through their dress. How can their dress reveal the true nature of the content inside?
5. Teach our daughters that the deeper value of the body is not based on external beauty but on the character they develop. The body allows us a tangible way to live out our character. The body allows us to serve, care for, and comfort as well as rejoice with, celebrate, and connect with others. 
6. Encourage involvement in sports. This can help a girl learn the joys of a body that is active and healthy.
7. Practice gratitude for all our body allows us to do. (Read Thank You, Body with your daughter. Print it out & give her a copy so she can read to herself as often as she wants to.)