If you’ve looked into evidence-based psychology in the past few years, you’ve likely heard a lot about CBT, or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Child and Teen Psychologists in Littleton are well-versed with the ways in which our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors interact—and the fact that our thoughts are the most amenable to change. Psychologists have been teaching people about Automatic Negative Thoughts for many years, and helping them to understand the ways that negative, derailing, detracting thoughts can have a major effect on our behavior. It can help to think of these as “ants,” pesky little things that crawl in when nobody is looking, interrupting fun, and often bringing friends! Keep reading to find out how ANTs try to invade your child’s brain and you and your child can learn ways to fight them off!
Automatic Thoughts Show Up Uninvited
The important thing about automatic thoughts is that they are automatic, all-encompassing, and a lot more than needed! For very young children with small vocabularies, the little word “all” can be a good substitute. Who wants “all negative thoughts?!” ANTs aren’t just bad evaluations of a situation, like your child saying “yuck, the cafeteria has my least favorite food today!”, they are intrusive, annoying, unwanted thoughts, like “the cafeteria lady must hate me because she made my least favorite lunch!” or “I’ll never have anything good at school!” There are about a dozen of different ANTs, ranging from “black and white” thinking, to “blaming” others for our feelings, to assigning labels and negative thoughts to ourselves. If your child sees a psychologist in Littleton to help with anxiety or frustrations, you may meet all the ANTs! ANTs take a real downside of life and blow it up to the point that it takes over! In therapy, psychologists in Littleton will help your child to review their thoughts to notice these ANTs.
Negative Thinking Changes Your Worldview
Human brains are wired to pay attention to bad things. Teen psychologists in Littleton spend a lot of time talking about how our human survival instincts developed to help keep us safe in very dangerous situations, like falling off cliffs, being eaten by lions, or accidentally consuming poisonous wildlife. If we lived in the wild like that, it would be vital to latch onto every bad thing that ever happened to avoid a dire fate! However, we’re in the 21st century and are at more risk from sitting around all day, lost in negative thoughts. Your child needs to find ways to recognize “valid” threats and differentiate them from ANTs. In child psychotherapy sessions, we work with children to help “question” or “challenge” the ANT. For kids and adults alike, using tools of personification (i.e., imagining a negative thought as a pesky ant crawling up your arm) can help to take power away from that thought, create a realistic sense of distance, and often introduce some humor. For example, if a child is stuck with a negative thought like “I’m just no good at math. I’m going to fail my test and never get anywhere in life,” one might ask “do you need a lot of math for that career in journalism you always wanted?” or “I thought you got an A on your last test? Can someone who’s just no good at math get an A like that?” The goal is not to tell the child or teen that they are “wrong,” but rather to question the “ANT.” Externalizing these thoughts allows higher-level reasoning and reality to kick back in.
Thinking Positively, Logically, or in a Neutral Way Battles the ANTs!
Once your child has identified and questioned those ants, it’s time to stop them! Littleton child psychologists like to say that questioning or challenging the ANT makes it freeze—fighting back with positivity or reality “swats” the ANT and sends it back to its anthill! Help your child reframe negativity to a neutral or positive stance, such as “the cafeteria has my least favorite lunch today, but the backup lunch is okay. I can eat that and have a big snack when I get home!” Reminding your teen of her power, strength, or capabilities can also help to fight back against the ANTs—such as thinking things like “math isn’t my strongest subject, but when I went for extra tutoring and studied with my friend last time, I got a good enough grade.” Never underestimate the value of “neutral”—sometimes things aren’t good, there isn’t an upside, and nothing is positive about it, but it doesn’t have to be all bad, either. This is especially important for teens, who often lead into the dramatic, all-or-nothing thinking.
When a person learns to control their thoughts, realistically evaluate situations, and fight back against all the negative thoughts, they don’t change reality, but they do change their own worldview, leading to positive change. For more details on ANTs and how to fight them, or to help your child by working on ANTS through play therapy or teen talk therapy, contact a trusted psychologist in Littleton.
