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Further
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Teens: 5 Ways to Make Sure You Get Rich
How would you like to remove the barriers that could be holding you back from getting and staying rich for the rest of your life?
First, you should change your relationship to money from the negative to the positive before you can turn your...
Family Matters
Since the escalation of international terrorist activity a few years ago, many of us have had an opportunity to re-evaluate relationships and reflect upon our lives. This can be a very difficult, and sometimes wrenching thing to do, but a...
Baby Strollers - On A Budget
Since you got the news, you have begun gather the things your new bundle of joy will be
needing. If this is your first baby you may be overwhelmed by all the decisions at first.
The type of stroller you will use for your baby is one of the...
Making the Holidays More Meaningful
Have the holidays become too commercial for you? Are you feeling empty and unfulfilled during this time of the year? This year by making some simple changes you and your children can truly make the holidays more meaningful. Teach gratitude...
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5 Steps To Raising Optimistic Children
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Written By:
Tony Fiore
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I had just completed a session with 17-year old Julie who suffered from severe depression. Julie believed she was a total failure and would never be able to change anything in her life. Julie also felt all her shortcomings were her own fault.
Where, I ask myself, did such a young person acquire this negative and fatalistic thinking?
The answer soon became apparent when I invited her parents into the session. They began discussing numerous life events and explaining them in ways that their children were learning. The car, for example, got dented because you can’t trust anybody these days; Mom yelled at brother because she was in a bad mood; you can’t get ahead in this world unless you know somebody, etc.
As a parent, your own thinking style is always on display and your children are listening intently!
The Importance of Optimism
Why should you want your child to be an optimist? Because, as Dr. Martin Seligman explains: “Pessimism (the opposite of optimism) is an entrenched habit of mind that has sweeping and disastrous consequences: depressed mood, resignation, underachievement and even unexpectedly poor physical health.”
Children with optimistic thinking skills are better able to interpret failure, have a stronger sense of personal mastery and are better able to bounce back when things go wrong in their lives.
Because parents are a major contributor to the thinking styles of their children’s developing minds, it is important to adhere to the following five steps to ensure healthy mental habits in your children.
How Parents Can Help
Step 1: Learn to think optimistically yourself. What children see and hear indirectly from you as you lead your life and interact with others influences them much more than what you try to ‘teach’ them.
You can model optimism for your child by incorporating optimistic mental skills into your own way of thinking. This is not easy and does not occur over night. But with practice, almost everyone can learn to think differently about life’s events – even parents!
Step 2: Teach your child that there is a connection between how they think and how they feel. You can do this most easily by saying aloud how your own thoughts about adversity create negative feelings in you.
For example, if you are driving your child to school and a driver cuts you off, verbalize the link between your thoughts and feelings by saying something like “I wonder why I’m - continued below ...
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feeling so angry; I guess I was saying to myself: ‘Now I’m going to be late because the guy in front of me is going so darn slow. If he is going to drive like that he shouldn’t drive during rush hour. How rude.’”
Step 3: Create a game called ‘thought catching.’ This helps your child learn to identify the thoughts that flit across his or her mind at the times they feel worst. These thoughts, although barely noticeable, greatly affect mood and behavior.
For instance, if your child received a poor grade, ask: “When you got your grade, what did you say to yourself?”
Step 4: Teach your child how to evaluate automatic thoughts. This means acknowledging that they things you say to yourself are not necessarily accurate.
For instance, after receiving the poor grade your child may be telling himself he is a failure, he is not as smart as other kids; he will never be able to succeed in school, etc. Many of these self-statements may not be accurate, but they are ‘automatic’ in that situation.
Step 5: Instruct your child on how to generate more accurate explanations (to themselves) when bad things happen and use them to challenge your child’s automatic but inaccurate thoughts. Part of this process involves looking for evidence to the contrary (good grades in the past, success in other life areas, etc).
Another skill to teach your child to help him or her think optimistically is to ‘decatastrophize’ the situation – that is – help your child see that the bad event may not be as bad or will not have the adverse consequences imagined. Few things in life are as devastating as we fear, yet we blow them up in our minds.
Parents can influence the thinking styles of their children by modeling the principals of optimistic thinking.
2005 © Dr. Tony Fiore All rights reserved.
About the Author: Dr. Tony Fiore (http://www.angercoach.com) is a So. California licensed psychologist, and anger management trainer. His company, The Anger Coach, provides anger and stress management programs, training and products to individuals, couples, and the workplace. Sign up for his free monthly newsletter "Taming The Anger Bee" at http://www.angercoach.com
Source: www.isnare.com
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| _Additional Resources ... |
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History of the Baby Shower
Although the exact history of baby showers is unknown, what we do know is that they are all special and the ideal way to celebrate new life. Historians have not been able to pinpoint the exact beginning of this custom but evidence has been...
Advocating for Your Child with LD
Advocate: you've probably heard the term before. But what does it mean to you? Advocating happens when you speak on behalf of someone else. You say for them what they can't say for themselves. When you have a child who has been diagnosed with a...
The History of Bracelets
Bracelet popularity dates back to the Roman times and continues today. Roman bracelets shared many of the design patterns of necklaces and earrings from that era. The ever popular ball earrings from that era were nicely matched with a ball style...
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