Q. My daughter is hypersensitive to insult and criticism. How to make her feel confident?

Hi doctor,

My daughter is 13 years old. For the medical record, she is yet to experience menarche. She is intelligent, cheerful, very creative, bubbly and incredibly empathetic child. I believe she is the best thing ever happened to us. I have a concern about her. She is very sensitive and cries at the first instance of disappointment. Even as a baby, she has always been a cry baby and I thought this would change as she grows. Now that she is in her teens, she is becoming hypersensitive to criticisms, insults and even when her friends make fun of her. She yearns for attention. She is slightly on the plumper side, so she is very conscious when someone comments about her body and cries for hours, especially when her friends or boys do it. She has also got on to the habit of blaming others for every failure of hers. Initially, I attributed the entire thing to hormonal changes and adolescence. But, this is affecting her too much. I cannot see her losing confidence. My fear is if she continues like this, she might lose confidence and added to it, might never be an independent and confident woman. I have seen this trait of being hypersensitive to anything in my mother. Initially, I thought she had taken it from my mom. But now, I feel I have to step in and change course for her good. I am spending more time with her. She is pretty open to me to the extent even about the boy who has a crush on her or even her physical changes, despite me being her father. I am trying to find a way to make her more confident, take comments or bullying or criticism in the correct perspective, to make her bold to face the world all alone. Can you please help me?