A child with a negative attitude is a bore. They are a bore because when they say “I’m such a loser” you’re completely clueless about what to answer other than “no you’re not!”
Worse, you know that your answer won’t help one iota. They are a bore because when they ask “What’s the point?” you think you have the right words in your head but as they come out of your mouth, you can tell from looking at your child’s face that those words are completely meaningless.
A child with a negative attitude is a bore. I know because I’ve had to raise one.
It seems relatively safe to say that every parent encounters, has encountered or will encounter a pessimistic streak in their children.
Children with negative attitudes give up when they should keep going. They dwell on the negative and overlook all their awesomeness. They stay down when they should get back up. Children with negative attitudes are a bore because they break your heart.
In his book The Optimistic Child
, Martin Seligman describes pessimism as “an entrenched habit of mind that has sweeping and disastrous consequences: depressed mood, resignation, underachievement and even unexpectedly poor physical health.”
Seligman provides strong evidence to support the notion that there is a strong relationship between pessimism and negative outcomes.
Being a child with a negative attitude is a boring thing to be because these kids are crippled by powerlessness. But there is hope yet: children are not born with negative attitudes.
In his book Learned Optimism
, Seligman shows that pessimism (and thus optimism) is more a learned skill than an inherited one.
In other words, optimism is about what you do rather than what you are. Thus defined, optimism may not be an effortless affair but it can be learned.
Dealing with a child with negative attitude
It is difficult to talk about optimism without mentioning two of the world’s most incurable optimists.
The first is Viktor Frankl. After being freed from a concentration camp, Viktor would later write in his book Man’s Search for Meaning
that the only thing that cannot be taken from a man is his ability to choose his attitude, no matter the circumstances.
Viktor introduced the concept of tragic optimism which is defined as the ability to remain optimistic in spite of tragic experiences.
The second is Thomas Alva Edison. Edison is best known for his most famous invention: the light bulb. It is said that he only managed to perfect it after 1000 attempts.
Legend has it that when a reporter asked him how it had felt to fail 999 times, he replied “I have not failed 999 times, I have simply found 999 ways how not to create a light bulb”.
Optimism is about expecting the best possible outcome. It is about seeing the bottle as half full, rather than half empty.
Baudjuin once said that “No matter how hard you work for success, if your thought is saturated with the fear of failure, it will kill your efforts, neutralise your endeavours and make success impossible”.
Optimism is about trusting that things will get better even as the sky falls.
How to raise a child with negative attitude
Raising an optimistic child is really about making your child less pessimistic. From their youngest age, the way children think about failure is critical in determining the person they grow up to become.
Martin Seligman has conducted multiple studies in which he discusses how children can be helped to reduce pessimistic mindsets. The program he proposes in The Optimistic Child has been replicated with largely positive results.
Seligman teaches that, to learn and grow, children must encounter obstacles because it is through failure that they learn to bolster their self-esteem.
He says that children need to experience sorrow, anxiety and anger because negative emotions are part of life. Rather than soften the blows, children should be taught to develop healthy responses that make it easier for them to achieve mastery.
Helping a child with a negative attitude to be less pessimistic means many things.
• It means teaching them to be more reflexive.
• It means teaching them about the power of extraordinary persistence.
• It means teaching them to take responsibility for their actions.
• It means teaching them to believe that things will get better
• It means teaching them that they can make things better.
So what can you do? Here are six things you can do if you’re raising a child with negative attitude
Six tips to help a child with a negative attitude
1) Analyze your child’s explanatory style
Seligman and his colleagues describe explanatory styles as the patterns of how people explain events to themselves and to others: “An optimistic explanatory style stops helplessness, whereas a pessimistic explanatory style spreads helplessness”.
While optimists see negative events as temporary, specific and impersonal, pessimists see them as permanent, pervasive and personal.
What can you do? It is important for children to know that they have control over their destiny. Talk to your child with a negative attitude about his perception of difficult situations.
Explain to him that he is responsible for outcomes; help him get into the habit of looking for the root of the problem. For example, if he has poor reading skills, he needs to see how a reading schedule will help.
Adopting mindset parenting can help your child adopt a more optimistic outlook to the events in his life.
2) Analyse your explanatory style
Parents are children’s greatest role models. Analyse your own explanatory style. Do you use an optimistic or pessimistic explanatory style? Children often reproduce what they hear.
What can you do? Curb your pessimistic tendencies. The world is filled with optimistic stories; share them.
3) Avoid false praise
According to Seligman, the more a child perceives praise as false, the more likely he/she is to be depressed. He argues that it is only through repeated failure that a child can experience ultimate success.
Other studies, such as those conducted by Mueller & Dweck, those conducted by Meyer, and those conducted by Grusec, have also shown that praising children without thought can have adverse consequences:
• It can affect their mindset and reduce their interest in taking on challenges.
• It can lead them to associate praise with failure.
• It can lead them to develop immunity to praise.
What can you do? Praise genuine effort, and if you must praise, be sincere.
Also remember to use words that increase your child’s sense of self-esteem. Here is FREE COPY of words that every kid needs to hear.
4) Teach your kids to refute self-defeating views
“Whether you think you can, or think you can’t – you’re right” Henry Ford.
The things children say to themselves – silently or out loud – have power over what they become. What you say to your children – silently or out loud – has power over what they become.
What can you do? Teach your child with negative attitude the power of positive affirmations but remember that how you phrase affirmations plays a role in ensuring their success or failure.
If your children have ver negative attitudes, show them just how pessimistic they are by keeping track of their negative comments for a period of time. Come up with a secret code (such as touching your nose) for every time they make pessimistic comments, and ask them to make an alternative – not optimistic – comment on the same situation.
Resources such as “This is what it takes to raise a happy and confident adult” propose numerous tools and resources to help your child develop a more optimistic outlook to their life.
5) Teach your kids to be grateful
A number of researchers have found that gratitude is associated with more frequent positive emotions. Yet another study has found that gratitude and wellbeing are connected. Teaching kids to adopt a habit of gratitude decreases pessimism.
What can you do? Make gratitude a ritual in your home. Pick a specific moment each day – for example during meals – where each family member nominates one thing they’re grateful for.
6) Help your child develop explanatory flexibility
In the same way that unrealistic positive affirmations do not work, blindly optimistic self-explanatory styles are also ineffective.
Explanatory flexibility is the ability to be flexible in the manner in which you assign causes to negative life events. It is the ability to develop multiple solutions. It is the ability to abandon optimistic views in the light of information that contradicts these views.
A study conducted at the Kent State University observed a drop in pessimism among subjects who repeatedly provided alternative (not more optimistic) explanations for events.
What can you do? Ask your kids to repeatedly write down alternative solutions to a situation that they are experiencing.
The This is what it takes to raise a happy and confident adult workbook is filled with practical tools and resources to help your child with a negative attitude develop positive traits such as growth mindset, an optimist outlook and a grateful disposition.
Scientific references
https://studysites.sagepub.com/eis2study/articles/Budd%20Rowe.pdf
http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ391019
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/pdfs/GratitudePDFs/7McCullough-GratefulDisposition.pdf
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/pdfs/GratitudePDFs/6Emmons-BlessingsBurdens.pdf
http://www.personal.kent.edu/~dfresco/Fresco_Papers/Fresco_et_al_SOT_Paper.pdf
Modified on 19/10/2022
