Skip to main content

5 Steps to Raising an Optimistic Child

Like This Site?

Title : 5 Steps to Raising an Optimistic Child
Author : Dr. Tony Fiore
Keywords : Teaching, Psychology, Optimistic, Child



5 Steps to Raising an Optimistic Child - www.digitalenquirer.blogspot.com
5 Steps to Raising
an Optimistic Child
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 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.

Dr. Tony Fiore is a California licensed psychologist (PSY 6670), marital and relationship therapist with advanced training from the Gottman Institute in Seattle, Washington, and a certified anger management trainer (by Anderson and Anderson, Los Angeles). In addition to regularly facilitating anger management classes for adults, couples, and the workplace in Southern California, readers can subscribe to his free monthly newsletter titled "Taming The Anger Bee," by visiting www.drfiore.com.***

Like This Page?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Changing Instructional Practice: The Impact of Technology Integration on Students, Parents, and School Personnel

Jennifer A. Alexiou-Ray Elizabeth Wilson Vivian H. Wright & Ann-Marie Peirano University of Alabama Abstract Attitudes of students, school personnel, and parents toward technology use within schools are an important and often overlooked component of successful curriculum integration of technology. Due to negative responses toward increased technology use in her classroom, one teacher engaged in an action research study to explore why students, parents, and other school personnel were resistant to technology integration. Students, once accustomed to the changed classroom environment, were excited to be engaged in new types of learning experiences. School personnel were pleased with the accessibility of classroom information and support services technology provided. Lastly, parents noted that though the style of teaching was different, it offered many new possibilities for their children. From the results of the surveys, it appears that much of the initial resistance to technology in

The Digital Enquirer in Blogger's Blogspot

Now The Digital Enquirer is appear on Blogger's Blogspot. Though it's still in construction stage for the moment now. The mission is to post tips and articles about computing and living digitally. Best Regards, Hikmat Surya Permana The Digital Enquirer