Video Gallery

Neutral Thoughts

Go to Video Gallery Added Mar 03, 2021 •

Copy this URL:
Embed code:	<iframe class="edlio-embed-player" type="text/html" width="640" height="360" src="//www.whiteriver.wednet.edu/apps/embed/?v=311331" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Change dimensions

Go HD

This 2-minute video for families features Mental Health Therapist Stephanie Dann talking about neutral thoughts. When we have negative thoughts often like, “I am so terrible at math,” this can turn into a firm belief about ourselves that is resistant to a positive perspective. Telling ourselves, “I am good at math!” doesn’t feel genuine and is easily dismissed. Try instead to replace negative thoughts with neutral thoughts like, “I’m learning math, this is hard because I am learning.” We often try to change negative thoughts into positive ones, but oftentimes that doesn’t work. Challenge: When your student voices a negative thought about themselves, try to resist the urge to tell them the opposite positive thought. Experiment with helping them have neutral thoughts about themselves or their abilities instead, as a first step to being open to positive thoughts in the future.

Show Transcript

Hi. My name is Stephanie Dann, and I'm a mental health therapist with White River School District. And today I wanted to talk to you about neutral thoughts. Have you ever been having a bad day and someone just tells you, look on the bright side. Just think positively. Trying to change your perspective and thinking a more positive way can be an effective strategy for changing negative thoughts but sometimes it's not. Sometimes just thinking or saying positive things can fall flat, or even feel really fake. This can happen when we're trying to encourage our kids. We say something positive to try to combat their negative thoughts. But the truth is those positive statements won't work if your kid doesn't believe them. So for instance if your child has been thinking a negative thought like, I'm so terrible at math, for a long time, chances are this has turned into a firm belief about themselves. They really do believe they're terrible at math. And when you ask them to repeat positive thought like, I'm good at math, their brain will just dismiss it. The brain will simply not believe new positive thoughts. And this affirmation will be really useless to them. So, what do we do instead? We can help our kids move from a negative thought to a neutral thought first. So moving from I'm so terrible at math, to I'm learning about math. This is hard because I'm learning. This validates their feelings that this is hard, without keeping them stuck in being terrible at math. If your kid repeats these neutral thoughts often, they can become their new automatic thoughts, replacing the negative ones. And then later, when our kids are in a more neutral mental space they're more open to positive thoughts.

Listed in COVID-19 Information

Video Gallery

Neutral Thoughts

Popular Videos