You know that voice in your head that pipes up right before something hard? The one that says "you're going to stuff this up" or "everyone's going to laugh"?
Your child has one too. And it's running pretty much constantly.
That voice shapes everything. How they feel in their body. Whether they try something or back away. How long they stick at something when it gets difficult. Getting to know it, and learning to work with it, is honestly one of the most useful skills a child can develop.
Helpful and unhelpful, not good and bad
There's a well-researched area of psychology called cognitive behavioural therapy, CBT for short, built around a pretty simple but powerful idea: our thoughts, feelings, and actions are all connected. Shift the thought, and the feelings and actions tend to follow.
At Growing Minds Hub we don't talk about good thoughts and bad thoughts. We talk about helpful and unhelpful ones. And it's worth explaining why that distinction matters.
An unhelpful thought isn't a flaw. It's not something to be ashamed of or stamped out. It's the brain doing its job, trying to keep your child safe. The problem is the brain sometimes gets it wrong. It misreads the situation. It treats a hard maths problem like a genuine threat, or decides a new activity is dangerous before the child has even tried it.
The thought is unhelpful. But it makes complete sense that it's there.
The guard dog
Here's the way we explain this to children, and honestly it works just as well for adults.
Imagine there's a guard dog living in your brain. His whole job is to protect you. He barks whenever something feels unsafe or uncertain. Most of the time he's doing exactly what he should.
But sometimes he gets it wrong. He barks at things that aren't actually dangerous. He tells your child "you'll never be able to do this" when what he really means is "this feels unfamiliar and I don't like it." He's not trying to be mean. He's just a little overexcited.
The goal isn't to silence the guard dog. It's to notice when he's got it wrong, and teach him something more useful.
Try it with your child. When the unhelpful thought shows up, name it, then rewrite it together.
"I'll never be able to do this" becomes "I can try my best." "I always stuff this up" becomes "Mistakes help me learn." "Everyone will laugh at me" becomes "This is a time to be brave. I'll feel proud of myself afterwards." "These people are always mean to me" becomes "I can focus on the people who are kind."
This isn't about pretending everything is fine. It's about catching the thought before it makes the decision for them.
It's not just for kids
Here's the thing. This skill matters just as much for adults as it does for children.
Steven Adams, in what's been described as the most personal interview of his career, sat down with the Between Two Beers podcast and shared a technique he uses for dealing with self-doubt. He writes down his raw emotions, then reads them back and responds in a different colour. The raw emotion he imagines as ten-year-old Steven. The response comes from adult Steven, like giving advice to his younger self.
That's exactly the same move. Notice the unhelpful thought. Create a little distance from it. Respond from a calmer, wiser place.
One of New Zealand's most accomplished athletes, doing quietly what we're trying to teach children to do out loud. If that's not a reason to take this seriously, we don't know what is.
The full episode is two hours and genuinely worth every minute. Find it on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts by searching Steven Adams Between Two Beers.
Questions that help
Once your child can notice an unhelpful thought, these questions can help them work through it.
Has this actually happened before, or is my guard dog predicting something that might not come true?
What's another way of looking at this?
What would I say to a friend who was thinking this?
That last one is worth pausing on. Children are almost always kinder to their friends than they are to themselves. Asking them to apply that same voice inward can shift things pretty quickly.
Why it matters
A child who can catch an unhelpful thought and rewrite it is building something that stays with them. Not just confidence in the moment but a genuine sense that they have some influence over how they feel and what they do next.
That's resilience. Not toughness. Not pretending hard things aren't hard. The ability to notice what's happening, question it, and choose.
It takes practice. It helps enormously to have an adult in their corner who uses the same language, and maybe even admits that their own guard dog gets it wrong sometimes too.
Start small. Next time something feels hard, try: "What's your guard dog telling you right now?"
Growing Minds Hub is here to support children, families, and educators in Rotorua, through a one-day-a-week learning programme, individualised educational psychology support, and workshops for parents and teachers. Contact us if you want to learn more.
Want to read more? Martin Seligman's The Optimistic Child is one of the most practical books on building psychological resilience in children. Find it here.
Worth a listen. Steven Adams on Between Two Beers. In what's been described as the most personal interview of his career, he shares a technique he uses for dealing with self-doubt: write down the raw emotion, then read it back and respond in a different colour. The raw emotion is ten-year-old Steven. The response is adult Steven giving advice to his younger self. Simple, powerful, and something any of us can use. The whole two hours is worth it. Find it on YouTube here.
References
Beck, A.T. (1979). Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders. Penguin.
Seligman, M.E.P., Reivich, K., Jaycox, L., & Gillham, J. (1995). The Optimistic Child. Houghton Mifflin.
Stallard, P. (2002). Think Good, Feel Good: A Cognitive Behaviour Therapy Workbook for Children and Young People. Wiley.
Dweck, C.S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Random House.
