SUFFOLK, Va. — Just before 5-year-old Noah Lloyd went into kindergarten last year, her dad, Jordan, wanted to prepare her tender heart for what may lie ahead. So he sat her down for a chat while mom recorded the conversation.
“What do you think is happening to your skin?" Jordan asked his daughter, to which Noah responded, "My skin? I don’t know."
In preschool, this precious tot started showing signs of vitiligo, a chronic skin condition that results in a loss of pigment.
Jordan can be heard in the video sharing the following advice with his daughter: “When you go to school, people may look at you differently because you don’t have skin like them. They could say nice things, or they could say mean things. If they say mean things, you just tell the teacher."
“I was nervous for her to go to kindergarten. To go from a class of six or seven kids to a class of 25, I was nervous for her,” said Noah's mom, Amber Lloyd.
The Lloyd’s Instagram feed is filled with lighthearted family fun. More than 13,000 people follow the family of five, but this video was a little more serious than the others.
“This is the most important thing to Daddy for you: Never, ever, ever think you're not beautiful," said her dad in the video.
But little Noah, wise beyond her years, surprised her dad with her response.
"I know I'm beautiful," said Noah in the video.
“I thought I was encouraging her, but she was encouraging me that she was going to be okay,” her dad told me when I interviewed them at their Suffolk home.
The sweet dad-daughter video went viral with 2.4 million views on TikTok and 70,000 on Instagram.
Comments of praise for dad's parenting style poured in. Many people, including those with vitiligo, commented about how impressed they were by Noah's confidence.
The 5-year-old told me that her first year of kindergarten went great and she says she made a lot of friends.
Noah Lloyd and her family are charming and inspiring, and they are positively Hampton Roads. You can follow them on Instagram and TikTok.
