“I am stupid.” “I am lazy.” “I am not good enough.”  “People will judge me.” “I am not lovable.”

Ever noticed a voice in your head that speaks to you?  Neuroscientists say that on average, a person can have as many as 50,000 thoughts per day and 70-80% of those are negative.

When people struggle with feelings of sadness, anger and worry, they are often laden with ANTS — Automatic Negative Thoughts.

ANTS are limiting beliefs that automatically creep into your mind and have a direct impact on your self-esteem, relationships and ability to enjoy life.

The origin of ANTS is closely linked to people’s interaction with their caregivers and environment growing up.  Repeated experiences of failure, poor treatment from others, overhearing what others say about oneself and repeated exposure of negative self-talk from caregivers can all contribute to the development of ANTS.  In addition, young children often have limited capacity to fully understand and interpret situations accurately.  When they try to make sense of situations that are confusing to them such as parental separation, children can sometimes develop unhealthy and inaccurate thoughts that way.  Stood uncorrected, ANTS will follow them into adulthood.

When you think sad or angry thoughts, your brain releases a set of chemical that automatically makes you feel terrible. When you have positive and happy thoughts, your brain releases a whole different type of chemical that makes you feel calm and happy.  The effect is almost immediate.

Every time we have a negative thought, we dysregulate our nervous system. According to Dr. Joe Dispenza, a researcher and author that combines the field of neuroscience, quantum physics and mind-body medicine claims that we, as human beings are the only animal that can turn on our body’s stress response by thoughts alone.  Our stress response can keep going on forever as long as we have those negative thoughts.   When our body is in a chronic state of stress, it impacts the development of many mental health illnesses and physical diseases.

Thoughts are like plants -  those that are attended to will grow in your brain. If we give positive thoughts more love and attention, they will outgrow negative thoughts. ANTS, like weeds are opportunistic.  Left unchecked, they can spread like a disease and monopolize your garden.  Just because we have thoughts DOES NOT mean we have to believe them – especially the negative ones. THOUGHTS CAN LIE and you can decide which thoughts you want to attend to.

Help your child kill ANTS…

Just like adults, when children are feeling nervous, sad, worried and out of control, a simple way to help them feel better is to CHALLENGE their negative thoughts.

For an example:

Child: “The whole class will laugh at me!”  (ANT)

Parent: “Is that true?”

Child: “Yes, I will mess up on my presentation and they will make fun of me.” (ANT)

Parent: “Can you be absolutely sure that this will happen? Like 110% sure?” (Challenge ANT)

Child: “Well, I am not 100% sure that this will happen.” (ANT has less power)

Parent: “How does it feel when you believe that you will mess up and kids will laugh at you?” (Bringing awareness of his ANTs and their impact)

Child: “Scared and worried?”  (Awareness)

Parent: “If you didn’t have that thought, how would you feel going into your presentation?” (Bringing awareness and shifting attention to new possibilities)

Child: “I would be more..relaxed?” (Self-reflection and imagined positive outcome)

Parent: “What is something you can tell yourself that will help you feel good about presenting tomorrow?” (practice positive thought – attending to the sunflower seeds)

Child: “Well…maybe kids might like my presentation?” (Shifted to a positive thought)

Parent: “Yes! That’s definitely a possibility!”

What are your ANTS? Your child’s ANTS? Do they sound familiar? Helping your child grow their positive thoughts start with YOU.

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