Comments on: One Powerful Word That Will Inspire a Child Who Says, ‘I Can’t’ https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/ Mon, 31 Jul 2023 14:11:21 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 By: Janet https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/#comment-47417 https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/?p=11309#comment-47417 Great advice. My Granddaughter (6) often says “I can’t” and I think this may be a great move to help her. My Grandson (8) has recently started saying “I’m so dumb”. What can I say to help, instead of “no you’re not”. ?

]]> By: Debby https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/#comment-42260 https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/?p=11309#comment-42260 In reply to MM.

Who might she be getting this from? Pre-school, TV, friends? It’s important to know the influence and deal with that part of the equation, and then counter with the truth that that’s a wrong idea and replace it with the truth.

]]> By: MM https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/#comment-39920 https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/?p=11309#comment-39920 What if the child says, “I’m a bad sister”? We never tell our children that they are “bad” or even that what they did was “bad”, but my highly sensitive 4 year old sometimes will say that she is “bad”. It seems to me that she feels bad about something she did and she is over-generalizing. I don’t know how to explain to a 4-year-old that she is not bad. Any suggestions welcome!

]]> By: Catherine https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/#comment-16663 https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/?p=11309#comment-16663 Thanks for this. I think I was on the right track. When my daughter said she couldn’t do this or was hopeless at that, I’d say ‘you’re only 6/ 10/ 15 (whatever age), you haven’t had any practice, no one would expect you to be able to do it’. So it is similar but ‘yet’ is much simpler and quicker.

]]> By: Elizabeth https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/#comment-8401 https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/?p=11309#comment-8401 Insted of fixing and offering solutions, suggest an alternative view. A choice – ‘I wonder if there is something different we can do with those thoughts’? The goal of this step is to simply help kids recognize that some thoughts, while perfectly normal, can cause frustration, sadness and a general “not good” feeling. It also creates a problem solving mindset. To deepen this skill, you should start to play chess together! Chess provides ample mental exercise to both the parts of the brain which aggravates thinking and memory. It is also said to improve concentration and focus. A study of Pennsylvania sixth-graders found that students who had never before played chess improved their memories and verbal skills after playing. Chess diagrams are always a great idea to practice strategy moves or solve movement problems and better memorize. Book by Maksim Aksanov is a great choice (net-bossorg/chess-puzzles-for-kids-by-maksim-aksanov). Of course it’s avaliable in electronic format, so you can have it on your phone or tablet.

]]> By: Tere https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/#comment-8256 https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/?p=11309#comment-8256 I LOVE this article…

I wonder, my 4 year old is saying a lot of “I can’t do it” and “I don’t know how to do it” as an excuse to not pick up his toys or do soemthing he feels is tedious and will stop him from playing.

I don’t want to encourage this kind of thinking, so I always explain: “This is something I’ve seen you do before, so I know you know how to do this. Is it that you can’t, or you won’t?”

I was wondering if you have any advice. With the pandemic and all, we moved to a small town, he’s changing schools so I know it’s a difficult time for him, but I don’t wnat him to convince himself he can’t do stuff.

Thank you so much for this!

]]> By: Kristin https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/#comment-8135 https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/?p=11309#comment-8135 Literally 15 minutes ago, my 6 year old son was telling me he couldn’t do his math. I knew he could, so I said-You totally can! You’re great at math! He pouted in return, obviously frustrated. 5 minutes after that, while doing art, he told me-You know what [art teacher] says when we can’t draw something? She says we can’t do it, YET!
I thought how wonderful his teacher was. Then I read this and realized that HE was teaching me and I didn’t even realize it! Wow.

]]> By: Andy https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/#comment-8134 https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/?p=11309#comment-8134 This was a great take on how to turn this around — I deal with this a lot at home, and I just want to help. So much patience is needed, and this can help move the conversation along in a positive direction

]]> By: Jinny https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/#comment-8107 https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/?p=11309#comment-8107 This is beautiful and just what I needed to hear. I have a 6 year old who has a lot of big changes right now. She is learning to read and is starting to tumble in her cheer group. I constantly hear “I can’t “, before she even tries. I understood that she was overwhelmed, but I would immediately say, “you can do this”. She would start crying at that point. Now I understand why. Thank you for putting it in perspective.

]]> By: Pamela https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/#comment-7368 https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/?p=11309#comment-7368 I stumbled across your post and loved it! I am a Mimi of a two-year-old and a one-month-old and I want to be a Mimi that is encouraging, loving and fun. My Littles live five hours away so I don’t see them all the time, but when I do I’m fully immersed. I haven’t run across this situation yet but I’m very thankful to have read your post and have tucked it away to use when I need it.

]]> By: Lujain alzaid https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/#comment-7356 https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/?p=11309#comment-7356 Hi, I loved this so so so much and here is
why, I’m 22 years old and have a younger brother who is about 9. My mom is very intelligent patient kind hearted mom, however she is very busy. So the job of caring for my brother fall most times on me. My mother has recently started asking me to involve my brother in more household shores.being the youngest and last of the family he was not or rarely participating. However now I’m often left alone to face his outburst whenever I give him any small task, I sometime get him to do the job even when he is frustrated however sometimes I can never do that , reading your post I noticed that the times I got him to do work the conversation was more along the lines of:
“ I can’t do this”
“ let me teach you how”
“I still can’t do this”
“ some day you will be able to”
“ but I can’t do it now !”
“ how do you want to do it now?”
Funny enough the answer was “ use a knife” ? but that’s a story for another day.
Bottom line I frequently get so frustrated with him and hold my self strongly form lashing out and sometimes he magically does the work quietly. And I think I know why now! , thank you so much for this post it was such an eye opener.
Plus whenever I personally screw some thing up my mom’s reply is always:” your still learning “ , or after she corrects me she says:”now you know”.moms are such amazing creatures ?

Sorry for such a long replay

]]> By: Vicki https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/#comment-6353 https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/?p=11309#comment-6353 Thank you Kelly :) because I love my son so much, this is going to help so much for him to continue to grow and become more confident……..simple yet for me life changing.

Thank you for sharing :)

]]> By: barb https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/#comment-6279 https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/?p=11309#comment-6279 Kelly that is perfect. I love it. Thank you.

]]> By: Anonymous https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/#comment-6276 https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/?p=11309#comment-6276 In reply to April.

Maybe by responding with “…yet/not yet.” the rest of the time, it will decrease how often you’re child feels that way?

Something that helps my kids (in general, maybe not specifically when they’re feeling negative) is when we point out when they learn something new or can reach something that used to be too high. “I remember when you couldn’t do that, and now you can!”. We celebrate those moments and it helps them see themselves progress.

]]> By: Liz https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/#comment-6268 https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/?p=11309#comment-6268 Great post! At least I know I’m not the only one who has handed a vegetable peeler over to a preschooler. I however failed to include the safety talk and mine sliced a good portion of his thumb right off… Mom fail!

]]> By: Liz https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/#comment-6267 https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/?p=11309#comment-6267 Great post! At least I know I’m not the only parent who has handed a vegetable peeler over to a preschooler…unfortunately I missed the safety talk and mine sliced a decent chunk of his thumb right off… Mom fail!

]]> By: Tiffany https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/#comment-6266 https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/?p=11309#comment-6266 I needed this so much. Thank you! I fell into all the same positive encouragement traps too and kept getting frustrated because it made it worse. This is going to help so much. :)

To go along with the positive posters…. a phrase we changed in our house is “Practice makes Progress” that way my daughter wouldn’t get the misconception that she’ll be perfect if she practices. She’s in soccer and it was important to me that she wouldn’t think she wasn’t “perfect” because she didn’t get a goal that day. As long as she played her best and was a good team player and made “progress” in her skills that was more important to me. :)

I often (very often) struggle with the right words to say, so I am LOVING these emails. It’s really helping me stay calm when we have a situation that needs delicate care. Thank you so much!

]]> By: Danielle https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/#comment-6265 https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/?p=11309#comment-6265 Got your email about this topic today and it could not have come at a better time. This is exactly what I am struggling with at the moment! Thank you for the helpful tips :)

]]> By: A Turrentine https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/#comment-6253 https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/?p=11309#comment-6253 Yet …such good advice!

]]> By: Jaime Wilson https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/negative-self-talk-in-children/#comment-6234 https://happyyouhappyfamily.com/?p=11309#comment-6234 You should make these posters into a children’s book. It would be a very touching story of these posters put in action. I would be first in line.

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