Negative Self-Talk: Why it happens and what you can do
Every week I have consults with parents who report that their child is engaging in negative self talk which is, understandably, very upsetting. Common exclamations include:
“I am so stupid.”
“Nobody likes me.”
“You don’t love me. You don’t want me in this family.”
“You love (insert sibling) more than me.”
Kids are usually in a highly charged state when they make these pronouncements. They are flooded with big emotions that are difficult for them to experience and process. What they are actually struggling with—the meaning behind the words—may not be readily apparent to you or them. We can't be in our children's brains and know exactly why they are saying something so alarming: what they are experiencing and trying to communicate.
That’s exactly what I’m helping parents do in our consults: to understand the meaning of these proclamations and what their child needs from them to work through the underlying issues they are struggling with.
In this blog, I share insights from this detective work that I engage in with families because it turns out that kids don’t always mean exactly what they say. Reacting to their words at face value can sometimes backfire and not be responsive to the real issues and feelings that trigger their negative statements. I hope these stories and insights will help you figure out the meaning of your own child’s negative self talk and how to respond in a way that is most supportive.
The Many Meanings Behind the Negative Self-Talk
Here are some of the common, underlying factors at play when kids are making self-deprecating or worrying statements.
The child is experiencing big feelings that they can’t process or manage effectively. Sammy (6) has just started first grade at a new school. Getting dressed in the morning has become a huge battle. When her parents, Erin and Jack, put pressure on her to decide, she blurts out, “I wish I wasn’t alive.”
Erin and Jack, alarmed and worried, tell Sammy that she shouldn’t say things like that. This revs Samantha up further, accusing them of not understanding her. Feeling incredibly guilty, Erin and Jack tell her how much they care about her feelings, and dive into long conversations in the mornings about how hard change can be. But that results in Sammy just “looping” as her parents describe it. She gets more dysregulated and there are days when she doesn’t go to school at all or that she’s late. Their separations are very fraught, with everyone feeling awful.
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Millie (4) blurts out “Why do you hate me?” when her mom explains that she can’t read a book to her at that moment because she has to feed the baby. Her mom is so worried about Millie feeling this way that she finds herself in conflict over whether to let the baby cry and prove her love to Millie, or risk Millie feeling unloved and meet the needs of the baby.
The child is perfectionistic and goes directly to shame when they don’t do something exactly the way they want or expect. “I am the worst athlete. I shouldn’t be on this travel soccer team. Everyone thinks I suck.” This was blurted out by Theo (8), who can’t tolerate it when he doesn’t score and he’s not the best, #1 player. He feels slighted when others do better than him. The more his dad tries to convince Theo that of course he should be on the team—he’s still a good player even if he doesn’t get a goal—the more Theo doubles-down on his self-flagellating assertions. His dad is very worried about this mindset and desperately wants to change it.
Indeed, these kinds of reactions are quite common in kids who have a more negative mindset. They can have the best day with so much joy and success. Then one difficult thing happens and everything is horrible. They make a goal three games in a row. In the fourth game they don’t score and they are the worst player ever.
A child is doing great at learning to read. They get one word wrong and they are so stupid.
The child doesn’t like a limit you’re setting. I’ve heard countless stories and seen hours of video of kids making accusations that their moms and dads don't love them; they're being mean, or somehow wronging them when they are unhappy about a limit their parents are setting.
When his mom won’t make the pancakes he is demanding (on a busy school morning!), Ben (8) proclaims: “You obviously don’t care about me. How does it feel to be a bad mom?” His mom is totally perplexed because she feels like all she does is bend over backwards to make Ben happy. She is constantly telling him how much she loves him. In fact, she feels guilty about how much more time she and his dad spend with him—meeting his demands for attention—than they do with Ben’s easier-going younger brother. So her reaction when Ben makes these accusations is to get defensive and also outraged that he could dare accuse her of not caring about him. Escalation.
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It’s time for lights-out. Logan (6) is mad that his dad, Peter, won’t tell him one more story. Logan accuses Peter of not loving him, saying things like, “Mom loves me more. You don’t even want me to be in this family! You just want Zelda (his sister.)” This results in Peter staying longer and longer to appease Logan and prove his love. Bedtime is extending way too long. Peter feels manipulated and resentful. The loving bedtime routine turns into a tense, unloving encounter.
The fact is that children don’t love limits. Their distress at not getting what they want puts them into “downstairs” reactive-brain mode. Their proclamations/accusations in those moments are often irrational.
They will also employ any strategies that work to derail parents from making corrections or implementing limits because they are strategic (not manipulative.) One sure way to accomplish this is to call into question their parents’ love or to make a self-deprecating statement like: “You just hate me” or “I can’t do anything right!” Kids today are keyed into how important it is to their parents that they (their kids) know how much their moms and dads love them. They know if they voice these kinds of feelings, their parents will do an about-face and back off to disprove their child’s accusations.
Of course, there are times when your child does mean exactly what they say. They really don’t think anyone likes them. They don’t feel they are good at anything. That’s why it’s important that they are heard and that their emotions are validated, not judged. Accepting their feelings and seeking to understand them increases the likelihood that you will uncover and address the true issue at play and help them cope with it productively.
Insights About How to Respond in the Most Sensitive, Responsive Way
Avoid a big reaction. It can induce significant fear and anxiety when kids make these statements, which often leads to a big reaction that can overwhelm children and shut them down. They may worry about your worry and feel they can’t express themselves to you—that you can’t handle their difficult emotions.
Remind yourself that sharing their feelings is a sign that your child trusts you and feels safe to share their deepest emotions with you. This can help you stay calm and be present for your child in the way they need you to be, and to tune in to what they are communicating through these distressing statements, and makes it more likely that you can help your child work through these difficult feelings and experiences—the ultimate goal.
Always start by telling your child how glad you are that they’re sharing their feelings and show interest in learning more, even if you feel their statement is totally irrational or outrageous. “I’m so glad you’re telling me that you think I hate you when I have to feed the baby. I always want to know how you feel. Tell me more.” Or, “I’m so glad you’re telling me how hard it is when you’re not the best or the winner. Tell me more. I really want to understand what it’s like for you.”
Communicate validation. The default for most parents is to use logic to talk kids out of their feelings because it’s so uncomfortable and painful to think about their child having negative feelings about themselves. Common refrains include: “What are you talking about, silly, you are the smartest guy I know.” “That’s not true, everybody likes you.” “That’s crazy! We adore you and love you being part of the family.” “Don’t say you wish you weren’t alive. That’s terrible. You don’t mean that.”
While well-intended, minimizing or trying to talk kids out of their feelings doesn’t help them work through and learn to cope with them in healthy ways. So, if your child says they wish they weren’t alive, instead of, “Don’t say that! You don’t mean that!,” you might respond: "That's a really big feeling. I am so glad you are sharing it with me. Tell me more. I want to understand.”
Accepting and mirroring your child's feelings soothes their agitated nervous system and helps them get back to a calmer state. This opens up the possibility that they will be able to take a more objective look at their feelings and experiences.
When parents stop trying to minimize or talk their child out of their feelings, and, instead, accept and validate them, they often find that their child is satisfied and moves on. They have been heard. That was what they needed. This is not to say that your work is done. The underlying issues that are identified—whether it’s coping with jealousy toward a sibling, challenges with peers, or a lack of confidence and self-esteem—still need to be addressed. It just means that you can move beyond the alarming language and get to the heart of the issue.
Avoid getting defensive and proving how much you love your child. That just validates and gives oxygen to their accusations and is often a red herring. They know you love them. Reacting defensively validates that the issue is about love when it's actually about setting an important limit. We know that setting limits is loving. Kids just don't see limits that way. Trying to convince them otherwise is just more fodder for their false narrative.
When they accuse you of not loving them when you’re setting a limit, you might respond: “I know you don’t like having to stop playing to get ready for bed. I understand.” Then follow through with the limit.
Speak to the underlying feelings you think your child is trying to express. When your child says something negative about their skills or performance, you might respond: "You don’t like the way your picture looks. You had a different idea about how the rainbow should appear. It feels really uncomfortable and distressing to you when you can’t do something exactly the way you expect or want it to be. I understand.”
Help your child reflect on their feelings and experiences to gain new perspective. When you acknowledge and avoid judging or talking your child out of their feelings, they are more likely to be open to hearing your ideas and perspective: “I’m so glad you told me that you think we don’t want you in this family, and you think we love your brother more. I always want to hear about and understand your feelings. It gives me a chance to share how I really feel. I adore and love you deeply. I see that when I set a limit you don’t like, or when I can’t do something you want to do right away, you may be angry with me—that’s ok. I don’t expect you to like it. I love you AND need to set limits, and to take care of all the children in our family to be a good mom. That’s my job.”
“Sometimes feelings can be very painful. You want to make them go away. That turns into a wish that you would go away; that if you disappeared, maybe the feelings will disappear. I understand. Sitting with difficult feelings is hard but I can help you do that. I am here for you.”
Helping your child develop self-awareness—to gain insight into what makes them tick—is what makes it possible for them to ultimately rethink their perspective and self-assessment.
The Course Corrections
Sammy: When I meet with Erin and Jack to discuss the dressing disaster, we start with grounding ourselves in what we know about Sammy: that she is always very anxious about anything new and that starting at a new school is a biggie. We suspect that what she means when she says she wishes she wasn’t alive is that she wishes she didn’t have to do something that feels so hard and uncomfortable. She wants to make it go away. Erin and Jack also share that in most situations, once Sammy gets used to the new activity or experience, she thrives.
We decide it’s important to get some idea of how things are actually going at school, so Erin and Jack reach out to Sammy’s teacher. The teacher reports that Sammy started out reserved, but over the course of the first month she’s become more participatory and is making friends. She seems happy.
With this reassurance, Erin and Jack change tact. When Sammy makes statements about wishing she wasn’t alive, they don’t act with alarm and they stop telling her not to say those kinds of things. Instead, they acknowledge how hard it feels to start at a new school and that she wishes she didn’t have to go. They remind her of past experiences when she rejected a new activity that she ended up loving once it became more familiar.
They acknowledge that she can feel anxious about adapting to a new school and still go to school, and they will support her to do that. They get out of the power struggle by no longer trying to make her get dressed. They brainstorm ways to solve that problem. If it works, great; if not, they take her to school on time in what she’s wearing.
Within a week there were no more morning battles and no more alarming statements about not wanting to be alive.
What seemed loving, sensitive and “right” in theory—processing her feelings for long periods—was actually not what Sammy needed. It led to the “looping”—repetitively thinking about the same distressing thoughts without moving toward resolution. It was keeping her stuck in the feelings in a way that wasn’t healthy. By acknowledging her struggle, while at the same time supporting her toward adaptation, she was able to work through the discomfort and make a healthy transition.
Millie: When we take a step back and process this situation, Millie’s parents are pretty sure these proclamations aren’t accurate reflections of her true feelings. What she is expressing is jealousy of her new brother and the attention he is getting. These are very hard feelings for a young child to manage so they get expressed in extreme ways. Even if Millie is interpreting mom’s care of the baby as a rejection—since we can’t know for sure what is lurking in her brain—acquiescing to her demand to be read to immediately as proof of love would be reinforcing this false notion.
The effective response turns out to be: “I know it’s really hard when I can’t play with you because I need to feed Levon.” Full stop. The combination of no longer having a big defensive reaction plus the validation of Millie’s experience results in a significant reduction in her accusing her parents of hating her.
Theo: His dad stopped trying to talk him out of his feelings and instead showed total understanding: “I know it feels really bad to you when you don’t score and aren’t the best player during a game. And, that’s going to happen. I know from a lot of experience. I felt the way you did. But then sports weren’t fun because I was so worried about my performance. I also realized that no one is ever always the best and I learned to accept that, and to see that just because others did well, didn’t mean I wasn’t good too, or that my contribution wasn’t valuable. My parents helped me with this and I can help you too, if you want.” Dad also engaged Theo in watching lots of video of the athletes Theo idealizes (Messi, Brunson) having bad games, which he really enjoyed.
Theo continued to struggle with accepting that he could still be a good player while not always being the best. But once they stopped trying to get him to change his mind, and stopped cheerleading, they saw some incremental changes: his self-flagellation decreased and he was holding it together on the field, not crumpling to the ground (feigning injury) when he missed a play—a pretty major moving of the needle.
Logan: With the insight that Logan doesn’t mean exactly what he says—that bedtime is a difficult transition because he loves his dad and doesn't want their time together to end—Peter is able to be the rock Logan needs in these moments. He no longer engages in irrational debates over his love for Logan. He shows empathy for Logan’s experience and feelings and then holds the important limit that he can't expect Logan to like but is what he needs. It goes something like this:
Logan: You love Zelda (his sister) more than me! You just want to be in her room reading.
Peter: I know it’s hard to end our special time together. I love it too. It’s also my job to make sure you get to bed on time. (Then he leaves.)
Logan shouts all sorts of venom through his door. Peter doesn’t react. Within 10 minutes, Logan comes downstairs, asks his dad if he’ll come tuck him in, which Peter happily does.
Logan (as Peter is tucking him in): “I say that stuff when I’m mad. Sorry.”
Seeing the positive outcome of taking this approach, Peter is now applying it to many other similar situations. He is finding that Logan calms much more quickly, is showing much greater self-awareness.
When To Seek Professional Help
If your child persists in making self-flagellating statements or about threatening to harm themself, take it seriously. Let them know that your most important job is to keep them safe, which means seeing a professional who helps children learn to cope with difficult feelings and experiences. You can call this hotline for immediate help if you can’t quickly connect with a local therapist: National Parent Helpline:1-855-427-2736.
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