Raising Optimistic Children May Not be Tough

Anger management was not easy.

I got the answer when I met her parents in a session, as they discussed many events in life which explained what the children learnt. Like when the car got a dent as you can’t trust anyone, Mom shouted at someone as her mood was bad or you will not be able to move on in life except if you know someone. Anger management was a problem in the family. Your way of thinking is seen and heard by the children carefully.

How important is optimism?

There is a reason why we want our kids to be optimist. Dr. Martin Seligman believes that Pessimism is an ingrained mental habit which can have catastrophic and far-reaching consequences, such as underachievement, depression, resignation, bad health or even anger management. Children who have an optimistic way of thinking can manage failure better and also have more control. They can come back to normal life faster when things don’t work their way. Parents contribute mostly to the way children think it is vital to follow the mentioned five steps to make sure that kids have healthy mental habits.

Ways parents can assist:

Step 1: Be an optimist as children imitate your behavior and interact with these influences, more than what is taught to them. Anger management is also a part of the way you think.  You can’t change in a day but with practice, you can start thinking differently about the events of life. 

Step 2: educate children to link between the way they think and feel. This can be done simply by saying your thoughts aloud and how adverse ones develop a negative approach inside you.

Step 3: Develop a game known as ‘thought catching’ as this will aid the child to learn ways to recognize the feelings which come in their mind when they are feeling low. Such thoughts May not be obvious, but have a big affect on the mood and the way one behaves.

Step 4: The child should be taught to assess regular thoughts. This is basically accepting that the things you talk to yourself about may not always be exact.

Step 5: train your kids on ways to engender more correct explanations for themselves, when there are unhappy events which can be used to challenge the child’s regular but sometimes incorrect feelings. A section of this procedure requires finding evidence which are different like having got good grades earlier, being successful in other areas of life.

The child should also be taught skills which will assist him to think positively which will ‘decatastrophize’ the condition and allow the child see that any bad event is not as bad as they think and will not have such negative consequences. With positive thinking parents can change the thinking style of their children. These will also help the child with anger management.

For more useful information, please visit our website: THE KNOWLEDGE BASE, and look for the FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS section.