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 Does your child have optimistic or pessimistic tendencies?
Simply listening for your child to use positive phrases cannot alone help you
determine optimism. Identifying optimistic tendencies requires that you begin by
investigating the way your child thinks about the causes to both positive
and negative events.
All children develop habits in how they think about causes: the reasons
particularly good or bad things happen to them. These habits develop in early
childhood and may not be easy to alter without significant intervention
according to Martin E. P. Seligman, Ph.D., author of The Optimistic Child.
One way to begin to investigate your child's tendencies is to listen carefully
to the words she chooses when talking about disappointing situations including
failures, challenges, or rejections. Determine if your child sees these negative
situations as permanent or temporary. Listen for them to use the words "always,"
"never," or "sometimes." The pessimistic child thinks about disappointing
situations in terms of "always" and "never." While the optimistic child thinks
about bad events in that they are temporary and changeable with time or effort.
The reverse is true for good situations. Optimistic children see the causes of
positive situations as lasting or permanent. While children with pessimistic
tendencies think in terms of transient causes and they tend to qualify
successes. You may hear a child with a more pessimistic perspective use words
like "this time" or "today" to show the temporary reasons for a positive event.
For example, "I got a good score this time."
It probably will come as no surprise that parents have an overwhelming influence
on a child's optimistic or pessimistic tendencies; so begin to also pay
attention to the way you think about the causes of positive and negative
events in your life.
Coaching Inquiries: How do you see your glass, as half empty or half full? What
are your habits and your child's habits of thinking about causes? What would it
be like for you to adopt an optimistic perspective about a negative situation?
Is your child likely to see "silver linings" in bad situations?
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Email Christina.
May you be filled with goodness, peace, and joy.
Christina Lombardo Ray, PCC, CPCC (Christina@LifeTrekCoaching.com)
LifeTrek Coaching International
Columbus, OH
U.S.A.
Telephone: 614-332-9747
Fax: 415-634-2301
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