Wellbeing Resources

Getting stuck in the negative.

If I asked you to remember some positive experiences from your day and then think about negative happenings, you may be likely to remember many more negative events or interactions than positive ones.  Same with children…if you ask them about happenings during their day, more often than not they will tell you all the negative things that happened before they tell you one positive thing (if they tell you anything at all!).  This is because our brains are wired to remember negative experiences more easily than positive happenings.  Our brain is like velcro to negative and oil to positive - our negative thoughts stick and the positive slip away.

Did you know it can take five positive thoughts to outweigh and replace one negative thought.

Everyone has the tendency to become stuck in the negative and have difficulty shifting their thoughts.  This is called Negative Bias.  Negative Bias can be so powerful it can hijack our brain and thoughts, affecting our work, friendships, learning and even our health.

The good news is we can help our children (and ourselves) to shift attention to things that are going well.  With practice we can train our brains to be more self-encouraging automatically which will benefit us throughout our life and help us move through all of life’s ups and downs.

When you feel yourself or your child getting stuck and feeling discouraged, use the poster below to help find a more positive thought.

This is not to brush negative experiences aside and never have them…life happens and we need to recognise and accept all feelings.  It is what we do with the experiences that counts.  We can sit in the negative and feel stuck in a bad situation, or we can attempt to see a positive side and move through the ups and downs of life more easily.

Take care and stay safe 

Michelle

School Social Worker