Self-Esteem and a toddler

My bloggy friend, Diane, recently posted an entry about how she was seeing her own negative self-talk popping up in her 14 year old daughter. I adore Diane, she is wonderfully caring and insightful, a great writer and a kick ass single mom. If you don't read her blog, you most certainly should.

Her post got me thinking though. At 2, my daughter imitates everything I do. I have really bad allergies, so every time she sees a box of kleenex, she pulls one out, pretends to blow her nose, crumples it up, throws it down, takes out another one, pretends to blow her nose, crumples it up, and adds it to the pile. If I let out a loud belly laugh, she laughs the same way, even though it isn't her laugh. If I brush my hair, she immediately grabs her brush and brushes her hair. When I brush my teeth, she comes running towards me going "teef!!! teefff!!!" and stands next to me, waiting on her toothbrush. If I go outside, she wants to go to, even if I'm only carrying things out to the car.

If she picks up on the minuscule things I do, what about the rest of the things?

When I get frustrated and yell? Or how about when I sit and eat chips instead of dinner? Or when I step over things on the floor when I should be picking them up? Or when I rude to my husband when I'm mad at him? Or when I'm mean to myself?

She's going to copy those things too. I'm not perfect, none of us are, but I can do better than I'm doing. I have to strive to live the life I want her to live, because she'll learn how to live by watching me.