Negativity

The following is a selection from the book Raising Children Who Think For Themselves by Dr. Eisa Medhus. From the chapter titled "Specific Child Rearing Challenges - How to Handle Them to Encourage Self-Direction", the following introduction is offered.

"The best way to make children good is to make them happy." - Oscar Wilde

Here are some inner-directed suggestions that will help with some of the most trying child-rearing difficulties we may stumble upon. All of these approaches are designed to preserve your children's ability to rely on internal dialogue instead of external influences to assess and correct their behavior. Using this section as a ready reference will help you raise a self-directed child, even if it means carrying the book, tattered and tear-stained, to the market, in the car, or at home. There are some challenges that, I hope you will never have to face, but others will be as inevitable as a pimple on prom night.

To get to self-direction, there are a few universal caveats for every one of the situations that follow. First, our children need to understand and agree with both the need for the furl and the consequence for breaking it. Only when they come to agree with our rules, through their own internal dialogue, will they become self-directed. Second, look to your own parenting strategy as the possible source of some of the problem. Are you over-controlling or over-protective? Either trait can elicit an externally directed response, as your children react to an unhealthy situation. Third, remember for all these parenting challenges how important it is for you as parents, to model the right behavior. If you're expecting your children to act one way and you act another, the double standard will throw a monkey wrench into their whole internal dialogue machinery.

And lastly, don't forget to laugh.

Why they do it

Some children are just negative by nature. Some learn it from negative and cynical role models. Some actually think their negativity makes them look tough or cool! Some children act negatively because they're stressed, sleep-deprived, depressed, or under-confident. And some are negative, because they don't feel special within the family.

Logical consequences

If your children seem to habitually voice negativity and pessimism for no good reason, tell them to leave the room and return only when they have something positive and uplifting to say.

Solutions toward self-direction

Tell your children that you're willing to hear their gripes, but you need to hear the positive things going on in their lives from time to time, too. Teach them that life doesn't always deliver everything they expect, but how they handle what life delivers can make all the difference in the world.

Never rush to fix the problems about which your children are negative, just in case their dissenting remarks are ploys to get you to come to their rescue.

See to it that all of your children have meaningful roles within the family. They need a strong sense of self in order to have a positive outlook on life.

Ask your children to experiment with the feelings an optimistic outlook creates by going through the next couple of hours trying to see the good in people and in situations around them. This strategy might be just what they need to get them out of their pessimistic slump, and over time they may very well internalize this attitude.

Never nag your children to be more positive. It doesn't work. Sometimes you just need to leave them alone. Try choices: "When you feel like talking about what's bothering you, then I'll be here to listen."

Use questioning: "You're feeling pretty negative about things. What do you think made you bring this attitude on?" (See how this question makes creating this attitude her responsibility?) "How do you feel when you think this way?" "How do you feel when you're more positive?"