It seems very flattering, doesn’t it? Calling your little girl a princess. In your eyes, she is your little princess! It makes sense. Everyone does it! With all the Disney Movie fads, all the princess costumes on Halloween... However, have you ever thought about the psychology of how calling her a princess might affect her later on?
While she might be 3 and cute as can be, do you want her to act like a princess when she’s an adult?
By standard review, a princess is someone who is brought up by royalty, who lives in a fancy castle she didn’t buy and eats fancy meals she didn’t cook and wears dresses she didn’t sew. She sits up there, looking pretty, as a damsel, waiting for her Prince Charming to come and save her.
Is she being set up for success with this mindset? Certainly not. The real world isn’t like a Disney movie. If your daughter grows up believing she is a princess, and that she will only have to sit back and have ice cream fed to her by her prince charming, she will have a much more difficult time in life because she won’t think that she has to work for what she has.
She won’t learn the importance of working for herself and being independent.
So, perhaps instead of calling your daughter “beautiful,” and a “princess.” Maybe we could comment on her brilliant mind, or her potential to save the world?
