![]() Instead when you ask your child these sorts of questions you help them to come up with other ways of thinking that may be helpful.Īnother way to assess and change thinking is to evaluate an event and the associated thoughts and feelings, to see if changing perspective on the event will help. Have them ask themselves, “What am I saying to myself about this? How true is it? Is it helpful to think this way? Where will it get me? What else can I think instead? It is important not to contradict your child. Once we separate negative thoughts from the child, they can do some reality checking of their thoughts. You can talk back to Mean Brain.” Your child can then ask themselves if that thought is true or false. That sounds like a Worried Weatherman thought. This lets you say, “Sounds like Stormin’ Stu is making you feel angry and left out. Your child can come up with labels for these patterns of thinking to be able to externalize, observe, and choose to reject the negative thoughts. We can help a child separate negative thoughts from themselves, or to externalize the thoughts, by labeling them or giving them a name, such as the Inner Critic, Mean Brain, Stormin’ Stu, or the Worried Weatherman. From this list they can come up with ways to change these types of thoughts. ![]() But there are many others that I can do.”Ĭhildren can create a short list of the types of negative thoughts, or ANTS, they often have. For example, “I stink at math” could become “some parts of math are hard for me. Then we can help them evaluate these thoughts and consider how they might reshape them into something more accurate and helpful. We can help them identify their ANTS and then add some new, positive and more balanced thoughts to take hold of instead. This may be where a child’s mind tends to go first. These are sometimes called automatic negative thoughts, or ANTS. Trauma, depression and anxiety can cause patterns of negative thinking to take hold in children. They are not necessarily good or bad, but we can choose which ones are helpful and good to focus on, and which thoughts we can let float by without paying more attention to them. One way to picture this is to think of thoughts like leaves floating along a river. Then we can figure things out.” Observing ThoughtsĪnother skill is to teach about observing thoughts. Let’s take a few deep breaths and try to relax for a few moments. For example, we can say, “Your mind is full right now. Teaching a way to stop and relax as a first step is important. When children are emotionally upset, their thoughts can be unclear, confusing or overwhelming. It must have been upsetting that…” “You seem frustrated about that.” “That sounds annoying.” “That must have been hard to handle.” “It sounds like you’re really upset.” “You look really sad. When a child is negative, we can help by recognizing the feelings. It is always important to first empathize and help a child understand their feelings. Practicing new ways of thinking creates new pathways in the brain, and new thinking takes hold to become more automatic. The concept of thoughts can be abstract for children, so we can make the concepts concrete and give them opportunities to practice and break down the skills they need to observe, understand and change unhelpful thinking. If you are looking for other Cognitive Behavioral Therapy tools, you may also enjoy our Feelings, Thoughts, and Actions poster or CBT Think-Feel-Do Card Game.By Wendy Witham, LMFT Talking with our KidsĪlong with nurturing attachment and validating emotions, talking with our kids about their thoughts can help them develop self-awareness and connect thoughts, feelings and behaviors, to manage them in a more regulated way. ![]() What would the people who care about you say?.Can you be 100% sure that this is true?.If the worst really did happen, what could you do to deal with it? Who could help you?.If your friend had thought this, what would you tell them?.When these types of thoughts pop up, you can help young people challenge them by asking questions such as: Ways to Challenge Automatic Negative Thoughts Some common automatic negative thoughts that kids have are: Perfect for school counselors and/or therapists who enjoy using cognitive behavioral therapy with children and teens. In addition to a strong internal locus of control. ![]() Description A FREE COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPY WORKSHEETĭownload our free ways to challenge automatic negative thoughts pdf to help young people develop resilience.
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