My 4 year old is generally pretty nice to herself but can be a bit self critical at times. My husband has really pushed hard on the importance of honesty so she will sometimes come up to me and almost whisper, “Mommy, I lied.” And I will say, “About what, baby?” And usually it’s like I lied and said that there wasn’t any pee on the floor (she sometimes waits until that last minute and it can kind of go all over the place), or I lied, I didn’t nap at school really- I was just laying there pretending. I obviously want her to be honest, but I don’t want her to feel super guilty about it because these are quite small lies in the scheme and seemed to be rooted in a desire to please us with her ability to do “the right thing.” I am a people pleaser, but I don’t necessarily want her to be like me in that way!
Awww.... Well I'm guessing that that your measured, reassuring reactions to her "lies" are helping her realize that she doesn't need to feel so much shame.
My kid is very hard on herself and I have definitely responded in unhelpful ways in the not-so-distant past. Two strategies that I have found helpful: 1. Modeling positive self-talk and making my thinking visible when I'm frustrated/disappointed with myself to explain where that frustration is coming from (this is really challenging and humbling as heck; after all that negative self-talk doesn't come out of nowhere); and 2. I've heard my kid say, "I'm dumb" (so painful to hear) in response to a low grade, and I've asked why she thinks that, and its led us to talk about the root concern: aspiring to perfection and being afraid to fail. And finally, its a day-by-day process of training her and myself to look for the good. Not easy at all. Thanks for this question, Melinda!
My son is VERY hard on himself and it is so hard to hear. He's only 6! And I hear him say he isn't good at sports or writing or any one of the things that he is, in fact, quite good at on a near-daily basis. We've got him an appointment with one of his school social work interns and I hope he is able to talk some of it out. This is all very relatable on my part and I worry so much about him developing similar levels of anxiety.
It's been interesting watching my kid on this process. She's 11 now and I think she's overall in a good place. She was very overconfident when she was younger--being an early reader at school kinda gave her the impression that she would be instantly good at everything without work and so when she encountered situations in which she would need more practice to build those skills, she sometimes would lose interest or sometimes feel defeated and hard on herself. We talked a lot about growth mindset and I think it's good that both my husband and I try to model that at home--showing that we get frustrated with ourselves too but then we come back and try again and learn from mistakes. I've coached her through building skills and I really try to emphasize, hey, it's okay you don't know how to do this yet, you're not supposed to. It's a skill that has to be learned and practiced--and that's for everything from time management to phone etiquette as well as math problems and essays. I think she's sometimes a little TOO blasé about her mistakes and so I worry she's not learning from them but I actually think that's more about me than about her. I think overall she treats herself with compassion and she's great at showing that same compassion to her friends.
She does try to label herself sometimes in a way that I don't think is helpful. If she decides something isn't her thing, she treats it like it's fixed (she used to feel that way about writing, she hated it, and this year she discovered she actually likes it.) She's into musical theater so this year she has been very focused on saying things "well, I can't sing that, I'm an alto" or "that's not a good part for me because that's for a soprano" even though she's 11 and her voice has lots of room to change and grow over time. What I realize is that even though she doesn't seem to believe me when I say that to her, I'll overhear her repeat a version of it when she's talking to her friends, like "I'm don't have a high range yet, but I'm working on it" or "I'm an alto now but who knows what will happen in a few years." So, I think it's gradually sinking in.
I hear this same language from my 12-year-old, who also was also an advanced reader at a young age. I have a theory that those early successes can serve to feed a fixed mindset in kids, such that these kids often struggle more with growth mindset and frustration tolerance. It's so interesting.
Yes, I totally agree! I was actually pretty concerned about this with my kiddo--I could see it coming early on. I remember reading about the effect that telling kids they are smart has from the book Nurtureshock, and was aware of not emphasizing it at home, but once she was at school, of course she's going to observe that she's good at something that is emphasized at school with little effort on her part and internalize it. We definitely tried to do a few things to combat that. I tried to make sure she had outside activities that she wasn't automatically amazing at--ice skating and flute both were those for her. And while coaching her through wanting to give up and on the necessity of practice for improving was a lot of work, I think it was helpful eventually, slowly building her ability to tolerate frustration and practice growth mindset. I remember telling her that it's easy to have a growth mindset when you feel successful at something, it's much harder when you are struggling with something! She's got a pretty healthy attitude about theater now--she doesn't expect to always get a good part and she's happy to work hard at and learn for whatever part she does get and cheer on the folks with bigger parts. She came up with a goal for herself for this new year about practicing voice exercises 4x a week to keep improving and I was proud of her for that.
We also made the decision to skip her from TK (California has what's called Transitional Kindergarten for kids whose birthdays would otherwise make them the youngest in their year, at her time it was kids who turn 5 between 9/2 and 12/1) directly to 1st grade , skipping kindergarten, so she was with peers who would also be at her level. I know having kids skip grades is controversial but we had a lot of factors that went into this decision for us and it was definitely the right decision for her. So for 5th and now 6th grade we've been emphasizing that grades are going to reflect more of her effort going forward. And she's seeing the truth to that so I think it's paying off. She has a good balance between wanting to do well in school and not over anxious about her performance at school or beating herself up for mistakes. We will see as she continues to grow and mature.
My daughter is only 3 so we have a long way to go with this, but so far she is her own little hype man. It’s super cute. She celebrates when she gets something (I.e. zipping up a coat) and is pretty determined to keep trying for a while before asking for help. The things she will say out loud if she makes a mistake are usually “that happens” or “I made a mistake” or “silly [kiddo name]!” I’m pretty proud of the last one because I have worked really hard on my self talk to try and model a positive way to deal with mistakes. So I decided a few years ago to say “silly mommy!” Instead of something like “ugh I’m an idiot” or “I’m the worst” which is more like what I used to do.
Modeling for her and working on how I speak with her in general has really impacted how I talk to myself. 😁
My kids treat themselves with compassion, and this is something I hadn't really reflect on to be grateful for until now. My mom, who lives with us, however, berates herself, and I am always pushing back against that, for her and for my kids. I think it's a link of trauma from her childhood that I have worked to break.
Most of the time my 4 yo thinks she's awesome. She does have a little negative self talk. We try to focus on her not being able to do something *yet*, and pointing out things she used to not be able to do but that she can do now.
With 4 kids, you get a very interesting study of their different personalities. I will say that they all have different areas that are hard on themselves about. I will never forget though when one of my children and I were discussing a mistake he made on homework and then he told "well making mistakes is basically learning. So that's okay." This blew me away, it's not that he isn't hard on himself in other ways but he does have that perspective about school.
I'm so glad to hear your book will cover this as it has been a huge issue with our 8-year-old and it's surprisingly hard to find advice about!! Like you, I have a very negative reaction to hearing my kid say "I'm the worst" and similar things. I try hard to respond with equanimity and understanding but it is hard not to snap "don't talk to yourself that way! Be kind to yourself!" In practice I know that giving oxygen and attention to these words tends to make my kid say them more often so we try to reframe "I hear you that you're not feeling good about yourself right now" and move on. Perhaps I will try being more intentional about the modeling some of the other commenters have mentioned!
We are about to go to family therapy so this will be top of mind. My 8 year old with ADHD does do negative self talk a bit and it can be hard to tell what he really thinks vs. is a pity party. I try to toe the line. No I don't think you're an idiot and I don't like hearing you talk about that. But yes sometimes when we are very tired and it's been a long day and you do X Y Z we do get a little tired of it.
It's been a hard re-entry week for a lot of us--I hope next week is easier on you!
Such a great topic to ask about. As a naturally pessimistic and critical person, definitely perfectionistic, I tried hard to not unload criticisms on my children. Two anecdotes: 1) I told my highest-strung daughter while she was in college, “Just do your best” and she heard, “be the best.” She ended up with a 4.0 and went on to enter medical school, where she dropped out early because of severe anxiety. A few years later, she became a stellar pediatric ICU nurse, and now is studying to become a nurse practitioner. 2) I heard my son tell my youngest daughter, who is free spirited and less motivated than her sister, “You know mom and dad both expect us to get graduate degrees.” My husband is also a physician. We never said that out loud, but apparently they heard it.
Oh wow. I've seen research suggesting that kids often hear (and internalize) things that we don't actually say, especially when it comes to our expectations for their achievement. It suggests to me that we have to be SO explicit and repeat ourselves over and over again to make sure our actual expectations sink in. Parenting is so hard!!!
Oh, that's so interesting! I once worked with an anxious kiddo and this was the same issue for her! "Do your best" was interpreted as putting in max effort all the time. Like, if she reviewed her paper 7 times before she turned it in, that wasn't her best because technically, she had time to review it an 8th time and a 9th time. So 7 times wasn't her best. If she studied 3 hours for her test, "do you best" meant she should study for 4 or 5 hours because technically she could study more. There was no resting point to "best." Her parents meant, of course, that she should work hard and put in REASONABLE effort. But that's not what she internalized. It was so hard for both her to put down that interpretation and for her mom to stop saying it as a way to reassure her! We don't have another good phrase though. Maybe we should say "I just want to see that you're learning" but I think for anxious, high achievers, we shouldn't even say that! Just, "I love you and your achievements are not who you are."
Thank you for this question. My almost 10 year old has been struggling recently, and literally just opened up to my husband tonight about how she feels like she is bad at everything and different than others. She does have many anxieties and struggles, but she is a fantastic kid. So my heart is kind of broken right now, but I’m glad I’m/we’re not alone. I like what people are saying about modeling self compassion (NOT my strong suit) and acknowledging the feelings while also trying to dissuade her from them.
One big (and often forgotten) piece of self-compassion is the understanding that you're not alone in having such struggles. So I would emphasize that to your daughter, too — that her feelings and struggles sound really hard, and that it's also normal for her to feel that way, and that everyone struggles like this. The tricky part is not to make that sound dismissive...
This is an issue for us right now. Our 12-year old puts himself down constantly. To the extent that friends have expressed concern to adults. But the unexpected twist is that he insists it’s the socially proper thing to do. It’s like he took the idea that bragging is bad and self-deprecation is good (which I don’t entirely agree with but understand how he picked it up) and just took it to the extreme. We’re working on it.
Oh that's so interesting!! I wonder how much his outward displays of self-deprecation reflect his internal beliefs about himself versus being a kind of social performance. If the latter, the behavior may not be so worrisome, you know?
I've been thinking about this a lot. My 7 year old was just diagnosed with ADHD and it has been amazing to see his view of himself change almost overnight. He has always been bright and curious and creative. He wonders big questions about the world and loves learning. He is great at reading and math and tried so hard to be helpful and follow rules, but emotional regulation was a struggle. He cares deeply about what's "fair," everything from Dad got a bigger dessert than him to wanting to save animals from cruelty and extinction! But when he got upset about something being unfair or if something hurt his feelings (mostly normal kid teasing or someone not wanting to play with him) he couldn't problem solve. He'd push, throw things at someone, chase them, etc. and if you tried to stop him it might turn into a huge tantrum and then a big meltdown afterwards with guilt and negative self-talk. He would say that he was a "bad kid" and that he couldn't stop his brain from making him do things : (
But as soon as we started to read and talk about ADHD, so much changed for him, before we ever even tried medication. It seemed to be a relief for him. Now he'll talk about his ADHD and his racecar brain and how to manage them. He gets excited to hear about other people with ADHD. This makes me so happy because the whole reason we sought a diagnosis and treatment was because I didn't want him to develop a negative self-view and a bad "reputation" at school that would affect academics and socialization.
Also, he has always been hard on himself about behavior, but simultaneously so proud of himself in other ways. He's very proud of his math and reading skills and probably overconfident about skiing and soccer. I once asked him what he wanted to work on for soccer practice and he told me, "well, I'm really good at everything, so just staying good?" : )
I'm a therapist and work with a lot of ADHD kids and weirdly, this is almost a universally true experience! Parents worry that the label will be bad for the kids but it's such a relief for most kids to understand this about themselves and feel better about themselves.
My 4 year old is generally pretty nice to herself but can be a bit self critical at times. My husband has really pushed hard on the importance of honesty so she will sometimes come up to me and almost whisper, “Mommy, I lied.” And I will say, “About what, baby?” And usually it’s like I lied and said that there wasn’t any pee on the floor (she sometimes waits until that last minute and it can kind of go all over the place), or I lied, I didn’t nap at school really- I was just laying there pretending. I obviously want her to be honest, but I don’t want her to feel super guilty about it because these are quite small lies in the scheme and seemed to be rooted in a desire to please us with her ability to do “the right thing.” I am a people pleaser, but I don’t necessarily want her to be like me in that way!
Awww.... Well I'm guessing that that your measured, reassuring reactions to her "lies" are helping her realize that she doesn't need to feel so much shame.
Oof. That is a lot, Melinda. Hopefully you get a breather now.
My twins are quite young, so we haven't gotten into much self-talk yet,
My kid is very hard on herself and I have definitely responded in unhelpful ways in the not-so-distant past. Two strategies that I have found helpful: 1. Modeling positive self-talk and making my thinking visible when I'm frustrated/disappointed with myself to explain where that frustration is coming from (this is really challenging and humbling as heck; after all that negative self-talk doesn't come out of nowhere); and 2. I've heard my kid say, "I'm dumb" (so painful to hear) in response to a low grade, and I've asked why she thinks that, and its led us to talk about the root concern: aspiring to perfection and being afraid to fail. And finally, its a day-by-day process of training her and myself to look for the good. Not easy at all. Thanks for this question, Melinda!
I love this! Thank you for sharing, Lili!
My son is VERY hard on himself and it is so hard to hear. He's only 6! And I hear him say he isn't good at sports or writing or any one of the things that he is, in fact, quite good at on a near-daily basis. We've got him an appointment with one of his school social work interns and I hope he is able to talk some of it out. This is all very relatable on my part and I worry so much about him developing similar levels of anxiety.
It's so hard to observe as a parent. I think it's great that you're getting him some outside support!
It's been interesting watching my kid on this process. She's 11 now and I think she's overall in a good place. She was very overconfident when she was younger--being an early reader at school kinda gave her the impression that she would be instantly good at everything without work and so when she encountered situations in which she would need more practice to build those skills, she sometimes would lose interest or sometimes feel defeated and hard on herself. We talked a lot about growth mindset and I think it's good that both my husband and I try to model that at home--showing that we get frustrated with ourselves too but then we come back and try again and learn from mistakes. I've coached her through building skills and I really try to emphasize, hey, it's okay you don't know how to do this yet, you're not supposed to. It's a skill that has to be learned and practiced--and that's for everything from time management to phone etiquette as well as math problems and essays. I think she's sometimes a little TOO blasé about her mistakes and so I worry she's not learning from them but I actually think that's more about me than about her. I think overall she treats herself with compassion and she's great at showing that same compassion to her friends.
She does try to label herself sometimes in a way that I don't think is helpful. If she decides something isn't her thing, she treats it like it's fixed (she used to feel that way about writing, she hated it, and this year she discovered she actually likes it.) She's into musical theater so this year she has been very focused on saying things "well, I can't sing that, I'm an alto" or "that's not a good part for me because that's for a soprano" even though she's 11 and her voice has lots of room to change and grow over time. What I realize is that even though she doesn't seem to believe me when I say that to her, I'll overhear her repeat a version of it when she's talking to her friends, like "I'm don't have a high range yet, but I'm working on it" or "I'm an alto now but who knows what will happen in a few years." So, I think it's gradually sinking in.
I hear this same language from my 12-year-old, who also was also an advanced reader at a young age. I have a theory that those early successes can serve to feed a fixed mindset in kids, such that these kids often struggle more with growth mindset and frustration tolerance. It's so interesting.
Yes, I totally agree! I was actually pretty concerned about this with my kiddo--I could see it coming early on. I remember reading about the effect that telling kids they are smart has from the book Nurtureshock, and was aware of not emphasizing it at home, but once she was at school, of course she's going to observe that she's good at something that is emphasized at school with little effort on her part and internalize it. We definitely tried to do a few things to combat that. I tried to make sure she had outside activities that she wasn't automatically amazing at--ice skating and flute both were those for her. And while coaching her through wanting to give up and on the necessity of practice for improving was a lot of work, I think it was helpful eventually, slowly building her ability to tolerate frustration and practice growth mindset. I remember telling her that it's easy to have a growth mindset when you feel successful at something, it's much harder when you are struggling with something! She's got a pretty healthy attitude about theater now--she doesn't expect to always get a good part and she's happy to work hard at and learn for whatever part she does get and cheer on the folks with bigger parts. She came up with a goal for herself for this new year about practicing voice exercises 4x a week to keep improving and I was proud of her for that.
We also made the decision to skip her from TK (California has what's called Transitional Kindergarten for kids whose birthdays would otherwise make them the youngest in their year, at her time it was kids who turn 5 between 9/2 and 12/1) directly to 1st grade , skipping kindergarten, so she was with peers who would also be at her level. I know having kids skip grades is controversial but we had a lot of factors that went into this decision for us and it was definitely the right decision for her. So for 5th and now 6th grade we've been emphasizing that grades are going to reflect more of her effort going forward. And she's seeing the truth to that so I think it's paying off. She has a good balance between wanting to do well in school and not over anxious about her performance at school or beating herself up for mistakes. We will see as she continues to grow and mature.
My daughter is only 3 so we have a long way to go with this, but so far she is her own little hype man. It’s super cute. She celebrates when she gets something (I.e. zipping up a coat) and is pretty determined to keep trying for a while before asking for help. The things she will say out loud if she makes a mistake are usually “that happens” or “I made a mistake” or “silly [kiddo name]!” I’m pretty proud of the last one because I have worked really hard on my self talk to try and model a positive way to deal with mistakes. So I decided a few years ago to say “silly mommy!” Instead of something like “ugh I’m an idiot” or “I’m the worst” which is more like what I used to do.
Modeling for her and working on how I speak with her in general has really impacted how I talk to myself. 😁
I love this so much!!! Healthy modeling is SO important!
My kids treat themselves with compassion, and this is something I hadn't really reflect on to be grateful for until now. My mom, who lives with us, however, berates herself, and I am always pushing back against that, for her and for my kids. I think it's a link of trauma from her childhood that I have worked to break.
Most of the time my 4 yo thinks she's awesome. She does have a little negative self talk. We try to focus on her not being able to do something *yet*, and pointing out things she used to not be able to do but that she can do now.
Yes - I love the word "yet"! It's so powerful.
I feel you, its has been quite a week for us too!
With 4 kids, you get a very interesting study of their different personalities. I will say that they all have different areas that are hard on themselves about. I will never forget though when one of my children and I were discussing a mistake he made on homework and then he told "well making mistakes is basically learning. So that's okay." This blew me away, it's not that he isn't hard on himself in other ways but he does have that perspective about school.
So awesome!
Oh my gosh YES, that's such wonderful framing!
I'm so glad to hear your book will cover this as it has been a huge issue with our 8-year-old and it's surprisingly hard to find advice about!! Like you, I have a very negative reaction to hearing my kid say "I'm the worst" and similar things. I try hard to respond with equanimity and understanding but it is hard not to snap "don't talk to yourself that way! Be kind to yourself!" In practice I know that giving oxygen and attention to these words tends to make my kid say them more often so we try to reframe "I hear you that you're not feeling good about yourself right now" and move on. Perhaps I will try being more intentional about the modeling some of the other commenters have mentioned!
We are about to go to family therapy so this will be top of mind. My 8 year old with ADHD does do negative self talk a bit and it can be hard to tell what he really thinks vs. is a pity party. I try to toe the line. No I don't think you're an idiot and I don't like hearing you talk about that. But yes sometimes when we are very tired and it's been a long day and you do X Y Z we do get a little tired of it.
It's been a hard re-entry week for a lot of us--I hope next week is easier on you!
Such a great topic to ask about. As a naturally pessimistic and critical person, definitely perfectionistic, I tried hard to not unload criticisms on my children. Two anecdotes: 1) I told my highest-strung daughter while she was in college, “Just do your best” and she heard, “be the best.” She ended up with a 4.0 and went on to enter medical school, where she dropped out early because of severe anxiety. A few years later, she became a stellar pediatric ICU nurse, and now is studying to become a nurse practitioner. 2) I heard my son tell my youngest daughter, who is free spirited and less motivated than her sister, “You know mom and dad both expect us to get graduate degrees.” My husband is also a physician. We never said that out loud, but apparently they heard it.
Oh wow. I've seen research suggesting that kids often hear (and internalize) things that we don't actually say, especially when it comes to our expectations for their achievement. It suggests to me that we have to be SO explicit and repeat ourselves over and over again to make sure our actual expectations sink in. Parenting is so hard!!!
You’ve got that right. My three are all grown, and I still struggle!
Oh, that's so interesting! I once worked with an anxious kiddo and this was the same issue for her! "Do your best" was interpreted as putting in max effort all the time. Like, if she reviewed her paper 7 times before she turned it in, that wasn't her best because technically, she had time to review it an 8th time and a 9th time. So 7 times wasn't her best. If she studied 3 hours for her test, "do you best" meant she should study for 4 or 5 hours because technically she could study more. There was no resting point to "best." Her parents meant, of course, that she should work hard and put in REASONABLE effort. But that's not what she internalized. It was so hard for both her to put down that interpretation and for her mom to stop saying it as a way to reassure her! We don't have another good phrase though. Maybe we should say "I just want to see that you're learning" but I think for anxious, high achievers, we shouldn't even say that! Just, "I love you and your achievements are not who you are."
Thank you for this question. My almost 10 year old has been struggling recently, and literally just opened up to my husband tonight about how she feels like she is bad at everything and different than others. She does have many anxieties and struggles, but she is a fantastic kid. So my heart is kind of broken right now, but I’m glad I’m/we’re not alone. I like what people are saying about modeling self compassion (NOT my strong suit) and acknowledging the feelings while also trying to dissuade her from them.
One big (and often forgotten) piece of self-compassion is the understanding that you're not alone in having such struggles. So I would emphasize that to your daughter, too — that her feelings and struggles sound really hard, and that it's also normal for her to feel that way, and that everyone struggles like this. The tricky part is not to make that sound dismissive...
This is an issue for us right now. Our 12-year old puts himself down constantly. To the extent that friends have expressed concern to adults. But the unexpected twist is that he insists it’s the socially proper thing to do. It’s like he took the idea that bragging is bad and self-deprecation is good (which I don’t entirely agree with but understand how he picked it up) and just took it to the extreme. We’re working on it.
Oh that's so interesting!! I wonder how much his outward displays of self-deprecation reflect his internal beliefs about himself versus being a kind of social performance. If the latter, the behavior may not be so worrisome, you know?
I've been thinking about this a lot. My 7 year old was just diagnosed with ADHD and it has been amazing to see his view of himself change almost overnight. He has always been bright and curious and creative. He wonders big questions about the world and loves learning. He is great at reading and math and tried so hard to be helpful and follow rules, but emotional regulation was a struggle. He cares deeply about what's "fair," everything from Dad got a bigger dessert than him to wanting to save animals from cruelty and extinction! But when he got upset about something being unfair or if something hurt his feelings (mostly normal kid teasing or someone not wanting to play with him) he couldn't problem solve. He'd push, throw things at someone, chase them, etc. and if you tried to stop him it might turn into a huge tantrum and then a big meltdown afterwards with guilt and negative self-talk. He would say that he was a "bad kid" and that he couldn't stop his brain from making him do things : (
But as soon as we started to read and talk about ADHD, so much changed for him, before we ever even tried medication. It seemed to be a relief for him. Now he'll talk about his ADHD and his racecar brain and how to manage them. He gets excited to hear about other people with ADHD. This makes me so happy because the whole reason we sought a diagnosis and treatment was because I didn't want him to develop a negative self-view and a bad "reputation" at school that would affect academics and socialization.
Also, he has always been hard on himself about behavior, but simultaneously so proud of himself in other ways. He's very proud of his math and reading skills and probably overconfident about skiing and soccer. I once asked him what he wanted to work on for soccer practice and he told me, "well, I'm really good at everything, so just staying good?" : )
I'm a therapist and work with a lot of ADHD kids and weirdly, this is almost a universally true experience! Parents worry that the label will be bad for the kids but it's such a relief for most kids to understand this about themselves and feel better about themselves.
I love this. Thank you for sharing!