Have we gone mad?!  I recently read an article on the increasing number of tweens and teens hiring image consultants.  http://bit.ly/J7iX7 From makeup, to clothing, to overall style, tweens (or more accurately, their parents) are paying a ‘professional’ to tell them how to look.

 As I remember it, adolescence was a time of experimentation with personal style.  It’s a right of passage, and an essential developmental phase, to spend many hours and many hard-earned dollars on clothing and hair products, only to discard them in frustration because they didn’t work for you.  ‘Finding’ yourself is a reward reserved for those well past childhood who have done their time in the trenches – not those who’ve had their trenches dug by someone else.

Young girls typically try on many versions of themselves before settling in to themselves.  I’m not implying that exploration or even advice in this regard is wrong.  But I wonder how  a girl can feel confident in herself if she adopts a style that is chosen for her instead of by her.

Part of self-esteem is about feeling capable – capable to make choices for oneself, capable to act on one’s own behalf, and capable to respond to one’s own mistakes.  Hiring an image consultant for an adolescent is sure to rob her of the essential process of self-discovery.