Hate Me Now, Thank Me Later: How to raise your kid with love and limits by Berman Dr. Robin

Author:Berman, Dr. Robin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2014-04-08T16:00:00+00:00

Your Thoughts are the Final Frontier

Try to be as compassionate with yourself as you would be with your children. Positive self-talk—and limiting negative self-talk—are critical to mental health.

A patient once said, “I knew that I had to change, because I would never let someone else talk to me the way I was talking to myself.”

If you continually talk to yourself with fear statements, you may get anxious; if you talk to yourself with self-critical statements, you can become depressed. I’m oversimplifying, but neuroscience backs this up. We know that positive thoughts carry positive neurochemistry, while negative thoughts are depleting. Good thoughts can actually raise your serotonin, which makes you calmer and happier.

“One of the most significant findings in psychology research in the last twenty years is that individuals can choose the way they think.”

—Martin Seligman, PhD, founder of positive psychology

Teach your kids to program a kinder, gentler narration into their heads, and how to change the channel when the conversation turns negative. You would jump on your children if they called their friends stupid; be as vigilant when they call themselves stupid or other derogatory terms.

In one great teacher’s class, the rule is “You can’t say, ‘I don’t get this.’ You can say, ‘I don’t get this YET.’ ‘I don’t get this YET’ is the difference between giving up and believing in yourself. I insist on this small change, as it represents a big change in the psychology of how you see yourself. It helps to write a different story.”

“Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think.”

—Buddha

A high school basketball player felt like his performance was letting his team down. He became more stressed-out and frustrated with each move. The more he criticized himself, the worse his game got. After halftime, he did a 180, and his basketball followed his attitude. When his dad asked how he did it, he said, “When I kept telling myself that I was playing badly, it made me more tense and I played worse. I decided to be gentle with the mental. Instead of beating myself up, I cut myself some mental slack. I told myself, ‘Move on, next ball, no worries.’ ”

Limiting negative narration is always a game changer, in sports or in life.

There is a whole psychology field, called cognitive behavioral therapy, devoted to this very thing. Change your thoughts and you can change your feelings and your behavior. Thoughts vibrate with energy, good or bad. Therefore, how we talk to ourselves influences much of our mental health.

So go ahead, push delete on the negative internal chatter. Replace critical thoughts with more loving ones. This requires practice. But the payoff is huge. When you rehearse these skills, your brain function actually improves and you boost your happiness. Teach yourself loving, compassionate self-talk and then pass it on to your kids.

A Cherokee legend tells of a grandfather teaching his grandson by the fire.

“ ‘Inside me, there is a fight raging between two wolves. One wolf is anger, bitterness, self-pity, jealousy, and sorrow.

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