When I was a kid, my mom had a little needlepoint sign next to the kitchen telephone that read, "Call your mother. She worries." Now that I have a kid, I understand why she worried. But in today's anxious world, kids sometimes get too many messages about worry and negativity. To counter the effects, pick up a copy of Freeing Your Child from Negative Thinking: Powerful, Practical Strategies to Build a Lifetime of Resilience, Flexibility and Happiness, by psychologist Tamar Chansky, Ph.D.
The book takes on the often messy, typically heart-wrenching, and at times utterly frustrating issue of seeing a child struggle when his thinking style supersizes ordinary obstacles into impossible, insurmountable problems.
Chansky, an expert in children's OCD and anxiety, gives detailed instructions on how to talk a child through his negative thoughts; how to listen (and empathize with) his negative emotions; and how to help him out of the negative maze so that he can competently find happiness. In the process, parents may learn to untangle their own negative thinking, be good teachers, and perhaps feel better themselves.
Other books in the series include Freeing Your Child from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Freeing Your Child From Anxiety.
Freeing Your Child from Negative Thinking: Powerful, Practical Strategies to Build a Lifetime of Resilience, Flexibility and Happiness, $10.85 at Amazon.
