Preventing Negative Self-Talk for a Healthy
Self-Esteem

At one point or another, every person on the planet has probably said to his or herself, “Wow, that was really stupid.”  However, some people are more inclined to speak negatively about themselves than others and psychologists agree that this negative self-talk is a leading contributor to depression and anxiety.  Is your child or children suffering from negative self-talk?  We’re going to talk about some tips that can help break your child of this habit!

Negative Self-Talk Directly Relates to a Person’s Self-Esteem
Self-Talk is described as the conscious thoughts that human beings have on a daily basis and negative self-talk is when those thoughts are negative thoughts and feelings a person has about his or herself. If you tell your brain negative things about yourself by either saying or thinking it to yourself those negative things will have a very bad impact on your self-esteem! If your child is engaging in negative self-talk, it is crushing his or her self-esteem!  In fact, negative self-talk not only affects a person’s self-esteem, it has negative influences on outlook, energy level, performance, and relationships with others! 

Thinking about negative and positive things, which do you think will give you and your child more motivation to maintain healthy habits?  It is possible to change negative self-talk to positive self-talk with awareness and practice.  Helping your children and teenagers practice positive self-talk is important to their happiness and success, as well as, building confidence and improving self-esteem.  A healthy self-esteem is a major key to success in life!
Does your child spend a lot of time focusing on the negative things about him or herself rather than more positive things?  Do you?  If you do, the following tips will help you as well!


TIP: When you feel good about your child, mention it to him or her.
Parents often are quick to express negative feelings to children, but not so quick with the positive feelings.  Children have a great memory and they will remember your positive statements!  In fact, they’ll store them in their brain database and “replay” these statements to themselves.  If you’re constantly focusing on the negative, their brain will be replaying those negative statements and effectively encouraging their negative self-talk.

TIP: Replace the negative thoughts with positive thoughts.
Take the focusing, catastrophizing, expecting the worst, “shoulds”, thinking in absolutes, negative labels, blaming, “yes, but” arguments and turn them into positives!  Here’s how:

• Focusing only on problems: Your child is dwelling on a problem, in essence, complaining. 
  Teach your child to assume that most problems have solutions and help them come up with those solutions.  Encourage them to start this behavior on their own by asking themselves “how do I want this situation to be different”.
  
  
• Catastrophizing: Everything bad is a horrible disaster.  Help your children to make a realistic assessment of the problem.
  
  
• Expecting the worst: Expecting the worst promotes anxiety.  When your child is expecting the worst, for example, they are wondering what if the other students in the class don’t like him or her on the first day of school, help your child presuppose positive outcomes by formulating plans for making a positive impression on the first day.
  
  
• “Shoulds”: Your child says, “I should have done it this way.”  Help your children learn how to stay in the present by getting them to realize what they COULD do rather than what they should do.
  
  
• Thinking in absolutes: Your child says, “I’ll never get it right.”  He or she is exaggerating reality.  Teach them to replace exaggerations with words that more reflect reality, such as, “If I try a few more things, I can get this right.”
  
  
• Negative labels: Negative labels lower self-esteem in your kids and teach them to lower the self-esteem of others.  Parents need to be very careful that they don’t unknowingly influence this behavior by using labels around children!  Teach your children to remember that all people, including themselves, are not their faults or shortcomings.  For example, a person may engage in stupid behavior occasionally, but that doesn’t necessarily make a person stupid.
  
  
• Blaming: No one wants to accept the responsibility for a wrong-doing and by blaming others we feel vindicated.  Instead of blaming others, help your children come up with solutions that they can be involved in to solve the problem.
  
  
• “Yes, but…” Arguments: Teach your children about the value of getting advice from other people.  If someone offers a possible solution, they need to really listen and give it a fair trial because honestly considering other possibilities is a positive way to go about solving a problem and the advice might surprise them!

By setting a good example and by working with your children to help them work out different solutions, your children can defeat their negative self-talk habit and be on their way to developing healthy self-esteem!

How BoostKids Can Help:
BoostKids is a program that can help increase a child’s confidence by teaching social skills to children and building their character.  BoostKids has been and is currently being taught in schools, non-profit organizations, and after-school programs.  The program is now available as an at-home training program for children and their parents.  The key training tool of the BoostKids program is an interactive CD-ROM that shows kids the right-way and the wrong-way to handle social situations.  They learn from real kid actors in real-life scenarios! 

For more information about what’s included in BoostKids, click here. 

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