Reply to 4 year old DD obsessed with being beautiful

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[quote=Anonymous]I'll start by saying that I completely get that this is developmentally normal.  But I am a bit perplexed how best to respond.  My DD is a pretty girl (I think she's drop-dead gorgeous, but may be a bit biased) and she has gotten a fair number of comments from strangers her entire life, especially on her curly hair.  Thus far she hasn't seemed to care much, but in the last month or so, so is obsessed with wanting her clothes, hair, shoes, nails, etc. to be "beautiful."

Now, some of this is asserting independence, which I get.  She wants to choose dresses a lot and I told her she has to dress right for he weather, so if will wear leggings and long-sleeved shirt underneath on cold days, then she can wear a dress every day for all I care.  She wants to choose her hairstyle, which is fine provided it keeps her hair out of her face and stays that way.  She wants to wear fancy shoes daily, and she has one pair that are good-quality, fit well, and stay on, so I told her she can wear those.  This is all fine.

The real issue is that once she has chosen these fancy clothes, she then takes it upon herself to maintain them.  She is opting out of activities that I know she loves to maintain her appearance (e.g., won't paint because it might ruin her dress, won't do dress-up because it will mess up her hair, and so on).  Her explanation is that if she gets dirty then "People will think that I am ugly." On days when she is wearing "ugly clothes," this is not an issue.

So my quandary is: do I take away the fancy clothes so that she will go back to being a kid and not a fashion plate, or do I respect her choice?  So far, I have been letting her choose her clothes (so long as appropriate) and telling her when she doesn't want to try something that I would rather she be ugly if it meant she was having fun.  Thoughts?[/quote]

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