@drashleysoderlund

5 Tips When Your Child is Too Hard on Themselves: Handling Negative Self-Talk

Empathize With Their Struggle

The first step is to let our kids know we hear them, we acknowledge the hard time they are having.

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“So often, children are punished for being human. They are not allowed to have grumpy moods, bad days, disrespectful tones, or bad attitudes. Yet, we adults have them all the time. None of us are perfect. We must stop holding our children to a higher standard of perfection than we can attain ourselves.”

Normalize 'Bad Days'

Children's ability to take another person's perspective and empathy is still developing. They don't realize other people feel this way too.

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Normalize 'Bad Days'

Often children think they are the only one to feel nervous about the first day of school, the only one who thinks the math homework is hard, and the only one who stubbed their toe and split the milk.

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Model Optimistic Thinking

– The tendency to explain challenges or difficult things as internal/personal (I do not have a talent for sports), pervasive (I am bad at all sports), and permanent (I always lose games) is related to a pessimistic attributional style.

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Model Optimistic Thinking

– In contrast, the tendency to explain challenges or difficult things as external (that was a really hard soccer game), specific (I’m disappointed I missed one goal at today’s game), and temporary (I’ll do better at the next game) is related to an optimistic explanatory style.

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Counteract the Brain's Negativity Bias

Our brains naturally focus on 'threats' in our environment. Help your child also focus on the good.

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Counteract the Brain's Negativity Bias

Being aware of this tendency to focus on the bad can help us teach our children optimistic explanatory styles of thinking and counterbalance the brain’s negativity bias.

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@drashleysoderlund

5 Tips When Your Child is Too Hard on Themselves: Handling Negative Self-Talk