All children have a streak
of negativity from time to time. There
are children that have more of a bent toward it. A friend recently mentioned that it seems
that many children with neurological challenges have greater negativity than
other children.
I’ve only raised one child
with neurological differences but that has been my experience. He wasn’t as good as his sisters at certain
childhood activities. He had weak fine
and gross motor skills which affected most of his child’s early learning. He also was a perfectionist and didn’t have
any room for being less than the best.
His weaknesses and
perfectionism worked together and he became very negative. His thinking became very rigid and it was
almost impossible to breqk this negative streak by the middle of elementary
school. He lacked confidence in some of
his weak areas and had convinced himself that his negative thoughts were
justified.
His school counselor and I
worked together and picked out 3 negative phrases we wanted him to quit
saying. There was a consequence each
time he said one. Many times it was just doing a little task or he was asked
for a more appropriate alternative phrase that we had discussed. Eventually he retrained himself that those
negative phrases were “out” and the alternative more positive phrases were
“in.”
This was a process and it
took a lot of people reinforcing our son to help him retrain himself. He still falls back into this from time to
time but becomes more positive when we hold him accountable to encouraging
comments.
