Positive Self Talk can change your mood

IMPORTANCE OF Positive SELF-TALK IN KIDS

reposted from Heartofdeborah.com  

As a school psychologist I always enjoyed teaching my students about self-talk. As parents and educators we want to build our children’s emotional intelligence and learning positive self-talk is a great first step! Around preschool age, kids start to engage in simple self-talk. (As parents, we can teach our children how to shift the negative thinking that automatically occurs in their brains into encouraging thoughts that can help them tap into their higher order thinking and creative problem solving mode.) 

WHAT IS SELF-TALK?

Self-talk is what you say to yourself in your head or what you say out loud. Basically what you say to yourself. It can be negative or positive. You may not even realize you have a nonstop inner dialogue going on until you stop and think about it.  We constantly make quick judgments, encourage ourselves and/or complain throughout the day.  

Do you encourage yourself throughout the day? Do you complain a lot in your head?

Start thinking about what you are thinking! Many times the things we think have a great impact on our words, feelings and actions.   ( We can learn how to change how we feel by changing how we think-- consciously substituting positive self talk for the pessimistic ideas in our heads.)

HOW TO MODEL SELF-TALK

As parents we can model positive self-talk to our kids on a daily basis. It may seem silly at first, but it’s great for kids to hear your thought process. I know many pediatricians tell parents to talk about what they are doing because it’s great for language development. I’d encourage you to take it a step further. 

Modeling self-talk is more than just saying what you are doing. It is revealing your feelings in the process. Here is an example. I am making dinner and I am flustered because I don’t have a lot of time. I can model self-talk by saying “I am feeling flustered. I have so much to do! Breathe Lauren. It will be okay. I need to take one step at a time. With a little bit of work I will get everything done.” Kids can benefit from hearing our problem solving and expression of feelings. This is all part of building emotional intelligence.

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GO FURTHER WITH SELF-TALK IN KIDS

Encourage deeper thought in your kids by asking questions. For example, “At first you were frustrated, but then you stuck with it and did it. How did you keep going even when it was hard?”  Even with young children you can talk about feelings and see the skill of self-talk in kids slowly emerge. Teach children coping skills when they are dealing with difficult situations. Talk to them about things they can do to calm themselves down and remind them they can’t always choose what happens to them, but they can choose how they react to it.

Last week, students at NES practiced using Positive Self Talk when they were anxious or frustrated.  Children who are taking standardized testing over the course of the next several weeks can be encouraged to give themselves a positive pep talk before or during the exams.  This practice can send calming messages to their amygdala/Lizard Brain and allow their pre-frontal cortex/Wizard Brain to think through the questions on the exam.