Aug 8, 2016 | Nurture
How do you explain why something good or bad happens in your life? To what do you attribute your successes and/or failures? Our self-talk generally gravitates toward holding ourselves responsible or charging others. But sometimes it is jumbled up.
Listen for how children attribute the good and the bad in life.
Certain children tend to put the responsibility for all failures on their own flaws and weaknesses: “I failed the test because I’m so dumb.”
On the other hand, they attribute all successes to fate, a bizarre circumstance, or someone else’s charity. “I got an A on the test because the teacher made the test too easy.”
Some children tend to attribute all their successes to their own ingenuity, good looks and great ability. Success is because of ME, even if there were others involved: “The play was a success because I had the lead (never mind the efforts of everyone else in it!)”
On the other side of the coin, they attribute all failures to everyone else’s ineptness and/or circumstances beyond their control. “I failed that test because the teacher made it so hard no one could pass (even though more than half the class did).”
“Poor me” or “Lucky me”
Hear the patterns in how children report life events, such as their school day or their recent soccer game. Sometimes these spoken statements become their self-talk and sometimes their self-talk surfaces in their spoken words.
The self-talk of children who blame themselves goes something like this: “Life doesn’t have many good things for me.” Or “If I fail, I will lose my value and I cannot let myself risk it.” Self-talk of kids who blame others can sound like, “I have nothing to apologize for.” Or “Life owes me happiness and success.” Or “Why am I in trouble for fighting? Joe hit me first so it’s his fault I was fighting.”
Our actions can help them find balance. Conversation Starters —
- “Whose responsibility is it really?”This week, call attention to times the children are either not taking responsibility for their behavior or assuming responsibility for something that’s not their fault. When this happens, ask them to “say what is true” about whose fault it is.
- “Brainstorm your evidence.” Guide the children to stop and be mindful about their self-talk, rather than continue on autopilot. Reject the faulty self-talk by brainstorming with the child all the reasons why he or she knows it is not true: “Dad breaks promises to lots of people, not just me; there’s nothing I can do about the fact he goes out with his friend lots of Saturdays,” and so on.
Game: Make-A-Monster Scavenger Hunt
Illustrate that the lies we tell ourselves can add up to a monster voice living in our heads. Send the kids outside to find junk materials to build a monster: dead sticks and leaves, old cans, stones and other “junk.” This monster is the lies we tell ourselves. Have a variety of miscellaneous materials they can also use, such as yarn, markers, glue sticks, tape, buttons, etc. Let them create the biggest monster they can. [With younger kids, you could keep it for a week and, each time they correct their self-talk, unattach one monster section and trash it.]
Tweetable: Conversation starters and a scavenger hunt illustrate for children how to overlay new, positive self-talk statements. Click to Tweet
Jul 18, 2016 | Nurture
Whether it’s “I’m the stupidest kid in my whole math class” or “Okay, I can do this,” we’re familiar with the collection of messages children play in their heads. Self-talk is everything a child believes to be true ….
- …. about the way things work in the world
- …. about themselves in relationship to the world
- …. about a higher power, and that being’s impact on their lives
Self-talk statements usually go unchallenged
Self-talk messages are powerful because kids believe them to be true and consequently, act as if they are true. However, their interpretations can be wrong, causing them to accept as truth conclusions that are actually myths.
For years, I’ve been teaching this in support groups for children, using curriculum by Linda Sibley, who has given permission to share these solutions. I’ve seen firsthand how they work.
Over the next several weeks we will dig into our role in helping children challenge their developing self-talk so they learn to evaluate whether what they are saying to themselves is accurate. Conversation starters and games will give you moments to build on in the years to come.
But first, reflect on your own self-talk as you respond to your life experiences.
You may want to increase self-awareness by answering some of following questions as they relate to your growing-up years:
- What were the verbal messages given to you? (take care of yourself; you’re clumsy; you can do no wrong; get lost)
- Was it okay to be good in some school subjects, but not in others?
- Were you teased by your peers for anything?
- Were you part of the in-crowd – or the out-crowd?
- What did you learn from media about money, violence and sex and the part they play in life?
- Did you measure yourself by rich, famous or beautiful people?
- Was your church or temple accepting and empowering? Judgmental and strict?
- Were you ever shamed, embarrassed or put down by clergy or a self-proclaimed religious person?
What wisdom did you gain from the above life lessons and personal experiences? How did you learn to change your negative self-talk to positive?
Tweetable:
- Kids believe self-talk is true causing them to accept as truth conclusions that are actually myths. Click to Tweet
- You can do something to quiet the negative, critical voice in a child’s inner speech. Click to Tweet
Jun 27, 2016 | Uncategorized
Set aside the natural tendency to lecture or say “I told you so” when a child makes a choice and finds out afterwards it wasn’t such a great one. Thinking about how the choices they make turn out in the end is an important part of decision-making.
Evaluating the results means that after all is said and done, kids stop and think about their choice:
- Was it a good one?
- Am I happy with the results?
- Would I do the same thing again in a similar situation?
Their answers to the questions above will direct us toward our next move:
- Celebrate the wise choices they made OR
- Learn good things from the unwise ones
Celebrate wise choices
Making wise choices is hard work, and children deserve to celebrate when they make one. They can:
- Tell someone in the family or text their best friend.
- Put a sign on their dog and parade him around the neighborhood.
- Write about it in their diary or journal.
- Hug somebody.
It’s especially important to celebrate when they chose to do something risky or new and it turned out well. Even if it was a little thing like cleaning their room without being told or not getting mad when they lost a game… don’t forget to celebrate!
Learn good things from unwise choices
Sometimes children realize they made a mistake. Making mistakes does not feel very comfortable, so they want to blame someone, throw a tantrum, withdraw and feel too ashamed to talk to anyone, or try to hide it by lying about it.
It is OK to say they made an unwise choice!
We can offer them the opportunity to talk about their choice and guide them to identify a more helpful choice for future situations. We’re looking to strengthen responses like these in the child:
- I didn’t make a very good choice that time. I’ll choose something different next time.
- Everyone makes mistakes once in a while.
- When you’re growing up, it takes time to learn how to make good decisions.
- Sometimes the only way we really learn is by making a choice and then finding out it wasn’t such a great one after all.
- I can ask for help because talking about my mistakes is the best way to learn from them.
These are grace-giving responses, and grace is a spiritual quality.
One of the greatest gifts we can give children is permission to make mistakes with the full assurance that we will not “go away” physically or emotionally. Grace is God’s way of giving us room to grow. It is the assurance that no matter what happens, all our imperfections are accepted. Grace is the antidote to shame, enabling us to see mistakes as opportunities to grow rather than opportunities for self-criticism.
The choices we make from day to day set the direction our lives will take.
The C.H.O.O.S.E. tool takes time and practice to become a skill. The steps will feel awkward and uncomfortable at first. But as you work through each step with the child, identifying options and choosing from among them becomes an automatic response to the situations they face each day.
Relax with it and have a good time together as you learn to C.H.O.O.S.E.!
(The CHOOSE tool was developed by my friend Linda Sibley, who is happy to share it.)
Tweetable:
- A great opportunity to help kids make wise choices happens after the choice has been made. Here’s why. Click to Tweet
- The choices we make from day to day set the direction our lives will take. A simple teaching tool here. Click to Tweet
Jun 20, 2016 | Direction
Celebrate when children make a realistic plan and act on one of their choices! (They are succeeding at a skill more than a few adults have not mastered.) It may not be perfect. They may have overlooked some important criteria. Maybe they need to move on to one of their other options. Yet with each new venture they learn valuable lessons about seeing things through.
See it through — act on the choice
The first four steps of the C.H.O.O.S.E. tool teach children to think about the wisest choice they can make. Now they take action.
The best choices are not necessarily the easiest!
In order to “see it through” children learn to do things that are wise but feel scary or difficult—taking a risk. They don’t know how risks will turn out. But they only develop new skills by taking risks.
A child’s follow-through increases significantly when they ask for and receive help.
It’s okay to make mistakes or forget sometimes. The point is to keep talking about it and working at it until the child accomplishes the goal.
Conversation starter: A girl is learning to see it through
Shiloh, Melissa’s preteen daughter, made a choice that looked great on paper. She chose to talk to someone when she felt hurt instead of eating to cover up her feelings—and it’s proving to be a struggle to keep her commitment.
Shiloh walked into the house hoping no one was home.
She didn’t feel like talking to anyone. She was in luck—nobody was home. Without even realizing what she was doing, she put her books on the table and went immediately to the kitchen and grabbed the package of Oreos. How lucky can you get! She took a fistful and started twisting them open so she could scrape the creamy middle off with her teeth before crunching into the chocolate wafers.
Somewhere in the distance she heard a car door slam. At the moment, however, chocolate wafers and creamy middles were all she cared about.
“Shiloh, where are you?” her mom yelled as she stumbled through the back door, her arms overstuffed with grocery bags. “I need some help with —” she stopped in mid-sentence when she saw the cookie package clutched tightly in her daughter’s arms. “Uh, I take it things didn’t go very well today.”
Shiloh looked up, surprised by her mother’s words. “Why do you say that?”
“You’re eating cookies as if your life depended on it.”
“I know you. Whenever you get upset, you eat. Are you going to get a part in the school play?”
“I don’t know yet,” Shiloh said with her mouth full of cookies. “The list gets posted next week.”
“Shiloh, stop it!” Her mom said, prying the cookie package out of her daughter’s hands. “What happened to the list of things you could do instead of eating when you feel anxious? You decided you wouldn’t do this anymore—eat to cover up your feelings. We’ve talked this through a million times.”
“It was a dumb decision. It’s too hard, Mom. I can’t do it!”
Her mom sighed and said, “Yes, you can! And I will help if you’ll let me.” When Shiloh nodded, her mother continued, “Great! I remember your decision was to tell someone what happened and how you are really feeling. Do you want to talk about it?”
Be aware of opportunities for follow-through on choices made by children this week. Praise them when they do well carrying out a choice. Be aware of their need for help. If the child did not follow through with a choice, make time to talk about it.
(Linda Sibley developed the C.H.O.O.S.E. tool and shared Shiloh’s story with us.)
Tweetable: It’s not enough to know what to do, a kid has to see it through and do it.How we can help them succeed. Click to Tweet
Jun 16, 2016 | Direction
We’re at the midway point of the C.H.O.O.S.E tool, which builds willpower and gives children a sound decision-making process they can carry throughout their lifetime.
Deciding what to do–one choice to TRY
This is the point at which the child settles on one good option to TRY in the situation.
After working through the previous steps of the C.H.O.O.S.E. tool, the only options on the child’s list are the wise ones. Sometimes the best option emerges very quickly, and other times it takes a while and the child may have to try a few different options before one works.
At times, children may not want to try any of their options. Why not?
- Fear of failure
- Need for approval from parents or others (e.g. people-pleasing)
- Disconnection from their source of guidance
For example, if you believe they are afraid to fail, see if they want to revisit the brainstorming process until the child convinces himself he does indeed have enough information to make a choice.
Maybe the child can’t decide because she wants to choose an option she thinks will not please you. You can assure her you see her point of view and you are supportive of her choice no matter what the outcome.
Remember, the list contains only positive choices in the sense that unsafe choices or those with consequences that can’t be undone have already been deleted. Furthermore, you will be there to help the kids identify what they are learning from the choice and what they might want to do differently next time. This builds willpower.
Getting it right is not the point.
Rather, by taking time with the child to carefully think about each possibility, children can be increasingly confident of making the best choice they can–and move on.
The goal is the child’s growth in the ability to make a good choice based on careful evaluation of all the options.
Tweetable:
- When a child is confused about making an important choice, take a closer look at these 3 hindrances. Click to Tweet
- Here’s some practical guidance when a child procrastinates in making a decision. Click to Tweet
