Kid Stuck in Negative Thinking? Do this Today.

  Welcome to the Connected and Capable podcast. You’re here with Alisha Grogan and I am an occupational therapist. I am also a mom to three kids. One of my kiddos has ADHD. We’ve also had struggles with some of my other kids with significant anxiety. And all kinds of different motor challenges and stuff too.

So as a parent, I’ve really seen a wide spectrum of what it’s like to live this in real life. So my hope is that when you are here, that you’re getting my OT expertise, but the real life, what you can do, how to, why it’s important to understand your kid and what is practical in in everyday life.

Because I know, that there is definitely a difference when I had to do this as a mom, as, uh, and what that really looked like for me to use the strategies to feel dysregulated myself in the moments I was often trying to help my kids or feeling frustrated or too busy. And so I really love answering, questions from you. All this, this question is. What we’re gonna be talking about on this episode, and it is from one of our newsletter subscribers, she wrote in and asked, I would love to get your take on negative self-talk, or the black and white thinking of I did something poorly, therefore I’m bad on the whole.

That’s one thing our ADHD kiddo struggles with, and we are in desperate need for resources to handle that in an impactful way. This is such a good and thoughtful question, and I just wanna give you, props for just naming the challenges. So, well, I think sometimes when our kids are struggling with these kind of challenges, like stuff like this is coming up on a regular basis. Like every day this negative self-talk, black and white thinking, you know, and it, it really can feel like a grind when we’re dealing it with it every day.

And it can even be kind of hard to name and not just be like, oh, you frustrate me so much, or You’re so negative. And so really, really good job in just naming what is going on here. Uh, there are a couple of different things that I wanna make sure that we hit on today as we answer this question. First, I wanna talk about how negative thinking, uh, black and white thinking and this kind of notion that there’s like, I did something wrong, something’s wrong with me.

How these things are all related actually, and what they are related to. And then I wanna talk through a couple of strategies. To help get you started as a pathway forward for your kiddo that is struggling with this. And again, I know you’re not alone, which is why we’re talking about today. It’s such a good question. So let’s first talk about what do these things have in common?

Well, they are all rooted in anxiety. Okay. So. It’s or worry, you know, and please hear me. I’m not saying that your child has an anxiety diagnosis, but even just worry. Okay. Like we can even just name it that way. And this really can stem from a couple of different places. First of all, kids with ADHD in general tend to have challenges with emotional regulation.

That is not always the case for sure. Emotional regulation is one of many executive functioning skills. Also, you know, attention and following directions and doing hard things. Those are executive functioning skills. That emotional regulation piece is one of them. So we do commonly see that kids struggle to regulate their emotions. What happens when our emotions, like our frustration, our worry, and sometimes even anger, get really, uh, high, very dysregulated, and they start to feel out of control.

The brain looks for a way to control it because it’s feeling like it’s spinning out of control. And so all three of these things will happen as a result. And again, very, I would say even more common if you know that a child has an anxiety diagnosis, and again, not all kids with anxiety diagnosis do this, but it is a protective response. That comes when the brain is kind of being challenged on a regular basis, either because they’re feeling emotionally dysregulated, they’re feeling very anxious, which of course feels emotionally dysregulating anxiety is not a, uh, soothing or comforting feeling that that’s pretty dysregulating, uh, when a child is very worried or very anxious about something.

And so these patterns of thinking are often rooted in that. As a way to protect itself. And it, it can kind of seem, you know, like it’s the opposite. Like why, why would a kid be even more negative if they’re already worried? But it’s, here’s the thing. If, and, and, and also as I say kid, I can’t help but mention that we of course, do this as adults too.

So you may see yourself in this as well, and it. I’ll be fully transparent. This is not something that my son with ADHD has struggled with. Another one of my kiddos that just has emotional regulation struggles and has no diagnosis struggles with this. I have also struggled with this because I have, I have wrestled with anxiety for many, many years of my life, and so I know that there’s a real tendency sometimes, or I’ve had really long periods of my life where.

I could lean into negative thinking and black and white thinking in particular as a way of my brain saying if I can protect or predict. If I can predict and just automatically say the worst thing, then I can prepare myself for it now, and I don’t have to let myself be vulnerable in being hurt when I’m disappointed because that thing doesn’t happen. Okay.

It’s the unknown of what is gonna happen that the negative thinking is a result of, okay, the brain is literally just saying, I’m gonna take that, that kind of gap in not knowing what’s gonna happen and the risk that I’m gonna get hurt or be disappointed. And I’m just gonna, I’m gonna put a full prediction on there and keep myself safe and say, no, no, that’s, that’s, uh, that things never work for me. Why does this always happen to me? Things never go my way.

Okay. And it’s, it’s really interesting. You may notice now over time, sometimes kids, adults, this becomes such a way of life for them, this negative thinking, even when they are not dysregulated, they have sort of learned, their brain has wired itself to just think this way now. So we all know negative people in our life where every single thing is negative. That is often after years of thinking, you know, thinking this way in a dysregulated state, and it boiling down to their literal everyday life.

And so that might be the case with your son. It might be that he is already at a place. You didn’t tell me how old he was, so I’m not sure if he’s, if. You know, knowing that he has an ADHD diagnosis, I’m assuming he’s five or over, you know, sometimes we see kids get a younger diagnosis, but usually it’s at the earliest around five or six.

And so if, you know, if he has been having repeated struggles for years and even, you know, he could be 11, he, you know, potentially could just be now wired his brain to think negatively. Okay. That’s the same thing, a very similar idea with the black and white thinking. It takes more capacity from our executive functioning. Like that takes problem solving.

That takes, critical thinking. It takes a level of self-awareness to say, oh yeah, I kind of messed that up, but I was trying my best instead of. That didn’t turn out right. I’m bad. You know, this kind of, uh, doom that comes with something did not go as expected. It makes it very difficult for there to be any room to have a more. Should we say gray response and be able to kind of see the pros and the cons of a situation or the varying factors that are happening there.

Now again, part of that is happening when you see that really strong black and white thinking is particularly when kids are dysregulated, so, so again, this is this kind of protective thing of I. I can’t allow there to be any other explanation because I don’t wanna get my hopes up. I don’t want any expectations from anybody else. And then there’s also a very real challenge with the fact that when a child is really dysregulated, they are not able to use those executive functioning skills. Okay?

Like they’re, they’re going dark in the brain. The anxiety, the fight or flight is raging, and it is saying, I’m in control. And so. A child may, is most likely not gonna be able to access that kind of reasoning from their executive functioning skills. Now you may see this, and I certainly see this with, with my son that has had struggles with emotional regulation where he tends to have negative thinking, black and white thinking. He will make these, these large statements when he gets really frustrated of just like.

This always happens to me or nothing ever goes my way or I’m the only one that ever doesn’t get to pick the movie, which is completely not true, which is like when a, a movie is happening now, in that moment when he is super dysregulated. If I try to reason with him, even show him examples that, you know, the last time we picked a family movie together, we picked his movie, he will not even hear me because.

That fight or flight center, which is, remember back in our amygdala, back in the far part of our brain, not, not up here in our frontal lobe where all of our reasoning and problem solving is, and that is dark. He’s very reactive like that. I, I know now that we, I have to let him calm down first before we can begin to reason. Okay. And that, that black and white thinking in his case. Only comes up when I see him really dysregulated or these like strong negative thoughts.

Other times I don’t see him doing that at all. Okay. But it is something we’re working on because I know, like I said, that if we aren’t being intentional about a building regulation skills so that he has strategies when he is feeling really frustrated, which in his case is his trigger, usually sometimes anxiety, but more often frustration. And, uh, I’m not, you know, that is, that may be a case for your kiddo. Two again, ADHD kids often struggle with frustration tolerance. Because they, they can’t do something.

Things are often harder for them than other kids. And they may notice that, they may be aware of that. And so their frustration tolerance, you know, is not, it’s just not very high. And so they’re getting frustrated more easily, more often, they get pushed into that dysregulated state, and then we see this negative thinking. So with, with all of this. It is so important that we’re thinking through what are the tools I’m using to help them regulate first? And of course there’s lots of ways to do that. We’ve talked about that in many podcast episodes.

Those of you in the connection hive, you know that we have a ton of resources and I’ll link up a printable, that gives you some starting regulation tools to start using also, you can grab that in the show notes, but think. Think about first, okay, how do we get my kid regulated? Like now is probably not the moment to teach unless your child has developed kind of this habit and you know that they’re not even dysregulated. It’s like this is just what rolls off their tongue all of the time now because, you know, they have, they have gotten to the point, point where their brain was wired to think this. Now please don’t hear me and think that, oh my gosh, well. They’ve already wired their brain to think this. There’s no hope.

That is completely not the case, especially with kids. But I truly believe for anybody at any age, our brain always has the ability to make new connections and to build new pathways. That takes time. But step number one is starting with regulation. Whether we’re doing some breathing exercises, whether we’re snuggling together, whether we’re getting up and doing an obstacle course, or movements, or some reflex exercises in even just 30 seconds.

To help start the brain there and to bring that executive functioning back online and basically to be telling that fight or flight amygdala, Hey, it’s time to quiet down. Okay. We don’t need your help here. I’m safe. You are safe. And we can even say that to our kids, especially when they’re struggling with, with anxiety. Okay, so when we’re, when we’re looking at this negative thinking, this black and white thinking, it’s. It’s important to start with that regulation, but then we can go a little further once our kids are regulated and sometimes that is like, oh, let’s just go outside and get a fresh, some fresh air. We’re gonna go on a walk, we’re gonna play outside for a little bit, throw a ball back and forth, catch whatever.

Then we can come back when our kids regulated. I will say that for most kids, and the younger they are, the sooner this conversation needs to happen. But generally within 24 hours, even for kids that are up to teens for my teenager, uh, he’s a young teenager. That has ADHD. If I don’t have this conversation within 24 hours, I mean, he will literally say to me, I don’t re I, I don’t even really remember. Like he can’t, he does not have the ability to kind of reflect back that far. And so again, the younger your child is, the sooner you’re gonna wanna have this just couple of minute conversation, which is going to start building the actual skill. Of having, uh, more positive thinking, which is, uh, really stopping the negative thinking.

Okay. So kind of getting out of that rut, out of that pattern, out of that all or nothing mindset. So the, you know, when we’re doing that post, like you, you saw them just flip out. You saw these negative thoughts come streaming out. It’s, let’s get regulated. Okay, we’re regulated. It’s a couple hours later. It’s a couple minutes later, whatever that is. Because sometimes logistically you just can’t do it a couple of minutes later. I mean, hopefully you’re doing some things to help your child get regulated because as you help them regulate, they’re learning that still skill through that co-regulation, and they are going to ultimately learn how to do that themselves.

Once you do that, uh, you can then take that moment to have the conversation right then. But again, circumstances may not allow that. So hopefully within a couple of hours we’re gonna say, Hey, remember when you were doing your homework, uh, tell me what was going on. You know, you got, you said this. Okay. Remind them of just something you said. You don’t have to hash it all back up, that you may see them start to kind of get upset again. Even just thinking about it. Uh, and in that case, you know, kind of take that as information.

It might be a clue that your kid needs a little bit more time to process before you have this conversation, even if you’ve done some regulation to help them calm down. But what we’re thinking now about is just having an awareness of it. Okay. And then asking them what if, what if we said this instead? How does that feel? So like, let’s say for instance. Your kid is struggling to do their homework, they’re getting frustrated and the negative talk comes out and they say, I, I never get this right. Okay. So that’s kind of the phrase, you know, probably, they probably say a bunch of things, but like, let’s say that’s the phrase we’re gonna hone in on. When you have that conversation later, when you’re having that conversation later, you’re gonna say, Hey, I remember you saying I never get this right.

Give them a chance to talk about why they feel that way. It’s important to acknowledge and hear their feelings. We don’t wanna dismiss them and then say, I can understand how it feels that way, but I also wanna tell you about sometimes that I think that you get it right in and then name specific examples and, and then say. Yeah. Do you think it might be helpful to say sometimes this feels so hard. Okay. It’s that really word always, or the word never that really push it into that black and white thinking That doesn’t allow any room for coping skills in the moment. And so we really wanna teach kids to start working towards things.

Sometimes this is going to happen through these conversations. This also can happen through dedicated time where you just kind of talk through scenarios. Maybe you’re driving in the car, maybe you saw somebody else get frustrated and say, what would you, what would you tell them? Or what would you think as practice opportunities to start thinking through having a more varied. More accurate response that isn’t positioning them. Because what, what this mom asked, okay, she didn’t actually say this, but what she, what’s really hidden underneath her question when she says, I would love to get your take on negative self-talk.

That’s one thing our kiddo really struggles with. Okay. So she’s recognizing like this negative self-talk has a consequence. This consequence is that he is likely going to continue to struggle, continue to feel like his capacity is low, and a really, really big consequence of this is likely lower self-esteem, which a lot of ADHD kids struggle with because they are constantly being corrected. They are often aware that they are not doing things or tracking things. In the same way that their peers are. So they may be just self comparing, but even if they’re needing corrected and it’s like, Hey Logan, you need to sit down. Hey Logan, you need to be reading your paper.

Hey, Logan, that’s not what we’re supposed to be doing now, Logan, what was the second thing I told you to do? Logan, how many times did I ask you to put your shoes away? And if they have siblings, if they have other classmates and they know they’re not hearing their name all the time in the same way, they on a subconscious level are having this sense of I am always messing up. And here’s the thing, our ADHD kids often need those supports. They need those reminders.

That’s why the tone matters, and it’s also why I believe a diagnosis matters because we then understand, oh wow. They, they literally, that part of their brain, there’s executive functioning skills is impaired in a way that in typically developing kids is not, I’m literally asking them to do something that is not possible without some supports. At least most of the time isn’t possible. Now that please hear me, that does not mean that these skills can’t be built. In fact, what we’re talking about here is of course, building these skills.

Their brains are very capable of strengthening these skills, but they are predisposed to be in this place with these challenges, and so that’s why we lean into using things like. Checklists and visual schedules, and we watch our tone and we also, and this is what I wanna end on as the last, as the last suggestion for anybody listening and maybe your kid has a diagnosis, maybe they don’t, maybe they have some of these struggles and you feel like you have to give them correction all the time. That’s hard. It’s very frustrating for us. I cannot recommend strongly enough that to try to change your perspective from my kid is not doing X, Y, or Z. Okay? Like my kid is not doing their homework, they’re not cleaning up their stuff to my kid is having a hard time.

Instead of saying, my kid is messing this up or not doing this thing, they are having a hard time with this. So even if they’re like dancing around and being super goofy and you’ve asked them to do something three times, we have to recognize they are struggling with following these multiple step directions. Okay. Now the other piece of that is, so we’re changing our mindset, but the other piece of that, when we change our mindset, it allows us to start to see the things that they are doing well. And this can be extremely, extremely easy to miss when it feels like we’re always having to correct them for 200 other things. Now, please hear me.

To the mom that wrote this in, this may not at all be a dynamic in your home, but I would feel totally remiss in not in not sharing it. It is such a common dynamic. It has been in my own home. Even though as an ot I know what’s happening as a mom and all of the things that I’m doing. I forget sometimes in my own busyness, in my own frustration, in my own tiredness. I forget sometimes, and I, and I say something in a tone that is not helpful and sounds condescending, or I yell something across the room instead of going to him or I repeat it a hundred times instead of using a better support for him.

And so what we wanna think about doing then is looking for the ways. That they are doing something well. But again, we have to be aware of those struggles. So that’s gonna start to look like, okay. I normally have to, I normally have to get the checklist. I didn’t have to get the checklist today and she did the first two things without me. I actually have to telling her. Yeah, there were three more steps on there, uh, that she normally does with the checklist, but that was actually a really good start. She started that initiation.

I need to acknowledge that. I need to say, Hey, I love that you got the first two steps down. I see you already started your screen time. I brought the checklist over. When you’re done, let’s finish up these first three things, or we’re gonna need to take a break in a minute or two when you’re at a good place to pause, and we’re gonna go finish these, these other three. But I love that you got those first two things done. Okay. It’s also, there’s just so many opportunities for other strengths that they have in being kind and compassionate and creative. We wanna make sure that we are always looking for those things and for as many times as we are kind of giving a correction that we’re, we’re seeking,

I’m not saying we’re gonna get there, but we’re seeking to give twice as many times that we’re just pointing out like, Hey, that was, that was great. Like I saw that you did that. Hey, I’m not saying you to throw a party every time. You don’t need to like, you know, give a prize or make a huge deal of it, but we wanna make sure that we’re speaking into that as well. And guess what that does? That builds regulation, which will help indirectly decrease the negative thinking and that black and white thinking.

It’s so important to think about building that self-esteem in our kiddos that have these uniquely wired challenges. Alright, friends with that, I hope that you feel encouraged. I feel that you, I hope that you feel you have a couple of steps that you can take. I want you to just take a deep breath. Know that you don’t have to be perfect. It’s just about taking the next small step forward.

If you want some more resources, we have regulation tools in our 5, 5, 5 regulation skills printable. We actually give you five and uh, you can print that out, you can download it, you can grab that in our show notes for free. And if you want to go deeper. Work on the retained reflexes. You want to go deeper on the regulation, the support. Join me inside of the connection hive, and if you’re a therapist, you can check out our therapist membership. It’s been so good to be with you here. All of those links are in the show notes. I’ll see you next time.