Beautiful Brainwash

My friend's 16-year-old son wowed to his mother last week after a meeting with us: "How could anyone expect an ugly baby turned into such a beautiful girl?" My initial reaction was, "Why would anybody think Sienna was an ugly baby?" My friend told me she always reminded her daughter that she was beautiful. Through reinforcement, the girl would grow up thinking she is beautiful, no doubt about it. If later somebody tells her that she is not so perfect here and there, she would have already been brainwashed and would give it right back, like, "Who is perfect? I am enough beautiful for my own sake. "

At the dinner table tonight, I kind of watched this reinforcement process taking place unintentionally.
Daddy: You are beautiful and smart.
Sienna: I know that.
Daddy: Do you want to be beautiful or smart?
Sienna: I want to be beautiful and smart.
Daddy: You can only pick one.
Sienna: Please, please, I want to pick both.
Daddy: If you have to pick one first, which one you would pick?
Sienna: Beautiful!
Daddy: Now you can be beautiful and smart.
… ...
I guess we are on the right track.