Helping Your Child Cope with Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTS)

Children who have a tendency toward automatic negative thoughts often live in a negative world. Even a small disappointment will ruin everything they do for days at a time. It is extremely important that parents learn about the connection between child anxiety and automatic negative thoughts in order to help them learn how to cope with life in general.

Children who experience automatic negative thoughts are often perfectionists, and they have a tendency to underestimate their own strengths and abilities. These children are known to give up and quit in a difficult situation rather than using it as an opportunity for growth. They are normally afraid to try anything new because they think they will fail. Their number one characteristic is that they see the flaws and difficulties in every situation, and they seldom look at the positive side.

One of the problems these children have is that they have very strong expectations. As a result, they are often unable or unwilling to accept the disappointment of not receiving what they were expecting. This is one of the main things that causes anxiety in children.

In order to help your child cope with automatic negative thoughts (ANTS), it is necessary to understand the seriousness of the problem as he sees it. Ask your child how serious it is to them on a scale from 1 to 10. Once you understand how they see the problem, it is easier to help them understand their reaction.

Tamar Chansky, Ph.D, says in her book, Freeing Your Child From Negative Thinking, that parents should put a time limit on the amount of time the child is allowed to vent their feelings over a disappointment. However, the blame should be placed on Disappointment Guy instead of on the child. For example, ask your child how long they want to allow Disappointment Guy to ruin their day.

Children with anxiety have a tendency to only think of themselves and what they want. Parents can help tremendously by helping them realize that other people are also affected by the disappointment. Point out to your child how the other people have already let the disappointment go, and they are happy and content while they are still choosing to miserable and that they have another choice - to let the disappointment go.

Child anxiety is nearly always produced by the child's attitude and habitual thought patterns. There is an old adage that says, "Attitude is a little thing that makes a BIG difference. If you can help your child understand that principle, you will begin to see a change in their reaction to their expectations.

In her book, Tamar Chansky also suggests that parents teach their child alternative things to say in order to counter their disappointment. For example, "I wasn't expecting this. Change is hard for me, but it's OK" or "This isn't what I wanted, but I can handle it." This helps them to stop and assess the situation and look at it from a different angle.

Rich Presta, author of a popular self-help program for helping children with anxiety recommends teaching your child to use specific rational logic to counter thoughts that may not be fully grounded in reality. For instance, if your child is afraid of being in a accident while taking the bus to school, help them understand how many separate things would need to go wrong in order for them to be in an accident that hurt them. This understanding and ability to have "mental ammunition" against their irrational thoughts can help being peace.

Interestingly, the website drbeckham.com tells us that negative thoughts usually fall into three areas: view of self, view of the world and view of the future. A negative view of oneself can lead to feelings of guilt, worthlessness and helplessness, while a negative view of the world often leads to distrust, alienation and cynicism. A child who has a negative view of the future will feel like there is nothing to look forward to and will be filled with despair and feel like giving up.

It is very important to help your child look for positive things in every situation. For example, if circumstances prevent you from leaving when you planned for an activity, making it impossible for you to arrive on time, don't allow your child to vent on the negative. Encourage them to look for possible positive reasons why you weren't able to leave on time.

Children with anxiety that is produced by negative thinking need to foster being thankful. Whenever your child starts to think negatively, have them sit down with you, and ask them to tell you things that he can be thankful for in what has happened. This may be very difficult for them in the beginning, but as you work with them and give them ideas, they will be able to find things to be grateful for on thier own.

Negative thinking children have a tendency to think according to how they are feeling at the moment instead of how things really are. As a result, they are often like a yo-yo, depending on how they feel. Once again, the parents have the responsibility to talk them through the moment with the goal of helping them face reality based on facts instead of feelings.

Freeingyourchild.com gives parents six strategies that they can use in order to help their child gain victory over their negative thoughts and reactions. The first one is to empathize with them in an effort to gain their confidence so that they will feel free to share with you what they are feeling. This does not mean that you have to agree with them.

The second step is to help your child figure out what the one problem was that caused his negative reaction. Little things often appear as mountains to children with anxiety problems. It will be your responsibility to help him narrow the problem down to one thing.

Thirdly, help your child recognize that not everyone sees the situation in a negative light. Ask him to verbalize how his best friend or his favorite athlete would see what has happened. Explain to him that it is easy to see something from a negative point of view, but that we experience more joy when we look for the positive aspects.

Once your child has calmed down and is listening, the fourth step is to help him analyze the problem. Ask him what he could do differently the next time this happens. Help him to learn to talk with himself and calm himself down when changes happen.

The fifth step is to help them recognize that new things take time to learn and that it is normal for everyone. Help them to realize that when something goes wrong they have a choice to make: they can fix it the best way possible or go to pieces. The sixth step is to make sure that you are minimizing problems in your own life instead of maximizing them. Major on the positive.

Child anxiety is produced by automatically thinking negative thoughts when something does not go the way the child expects it to go, when he is not thankful and when he has strong expectations. Parents have the responsibility to attempt to understand how he is feeling and then help him work through the problem in a positive way. By doing this, a child can learn to control his negative thoughts and see things in a different perspective.