10 Sentences Every Child/Teen should know
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This week I've felt disappointed and worried about various situations. One of my kids was sick and I was worried about him. I had a disagreement with my partner and felt frustrated. I felt overwhelmed by my task list at work.
In other words, I'm a (fairly :)) normal human being who had a pretty normal week. As humans, we all experience difficult times - and negative emotions - most of us at least weekly, if not every day.
One of the strategies most adults instinctively use to cope with these negative emotions is to generate calm, reassuring and positive sentences to say to ourselves to give us another perspective on our situation. I've written about this before but as a reminder, I'm talking about sentences which provide an alternative perspective to our anxious thinking. For example, my sentences this week were:
My child will be okay because...
I can manage this work load today because...
This disagreement is not that big a deal because...
(I won't disclose the specific words at the ends of my sentences in order to spare you the details of my neuroses! :)) But the point is this: I used language to help me cope with difficult times.
As adults we do this all the time - we try to come up with calm, reassuring sentences to say to ourselves to coach us through tough situations. Using language in this way doesn't eliminate struggle from our lives, but often makes it more bearable and helps us see a way forward.
What about when kids and teens feel upset?
Children and teens - on a weekly basis, feel frustrated, disappointed and worried just as like adults do. They feel upset about losing a game, worried about something coming up at school, annoyed at a sibling, frustrated about having to do things they don't want to do.
Unfortunately, unlike adults, children often don't have the skills to call to mind calm, positive or reassuring sentences in the same way adults do.
I see this in children and teens all the time - they feel upset and overwhelmed and simply don't have the skills to use words to generate alternative perspectives. This makes it harder for them to reassure themselves and feel better. One of the important skills we can teach young people is to generate their own calm sentences.
As I've said, I've discussed this idea before in principle, and my last article on this topic provided questions to ask kids to help them come up with general calm sentences to use generally across situations. Today however, I'd like to give you a discussion based tool to help children generate specific calm sentences they can use in specific situations.
So below is set of 10 sentences starters to use to help young people generate calm thoughts about particular commonly encountered tough situations.
Here's how you can use these sentence starters:
Say to a child or teen:
"Hey, I've been reading an article about using calm sentences to cope with difficult times. It has some beginnings of sentences we can use to help us feel calmer in particular situations. Is it okay if we spend a couple of minutes brainstorming how you could complete these sentences in ways to help you feel better when you are upset?".
If they agree, say the first sentence starter below out loud and ask "how could you finish this sentence in a way which makes you feel a little more positive in that situation?". You might need to make some suggestions (say: "what would you say to your friend/younger child to make them feel better in this situation? also say: "you don't have to believe this, let's just come up with the sentence". For highly perfectionistic young people, you might also have to say: "There's no right answer", or "this won't make you feel 100% better, we are just aiming to find a sentence which might make you feel 10% better"
Once you've come up with some ideas to finish the first sentence, go on to the next one.
You might not get through all ten. Perhaps pick out two or three which you think particularly apply to your child/teen. The important point about this exercise is that you are NOT doing this when the child is upset or in the middle of the difficult situation. You are doing it in advance of the problem situation, while they are calm, to help prepare the sentences to use them later.
10 Sentence Starters Every Child/Teen should be able to complete:
1.It's not terrible to get teased by (insert name) because ....................................and also because......
2.I can cope with losing this game because.............................and also because.........
3.It's not the end of the world if I don't do as well as I'd like on a test because....................
4.Something I will do if I feel upset about a test result is....................................and...................
5.I can cope with having to turn off this device/game now because............................
6.I'll make having to do this (insert specific hated job/chore) slightly more enjoyable by..................
7. Something potentially good for me about being corrected or told off by an adult is.......
8. It doesn't really matter if (insert person/sibling/friend) thinks (insert negative belief) about me because.........
9. It's kind of okay to have to do this (job/chore) because............................
10. I don't know for sure that (insert feared negative event) will happen because...............
To do this even more thoroughly, ask the child/teen to write them down (or even draw a picture of themselves thinking/saying this sentence out loud). Some young people won't want to do this, in which case you might say "Is it okay if I write these down and put them in your drawer/send a copy to your phone/tablet"
Once children/teens have generated these sentences you can gently prompt them to bring them to mind when they are distressed. For example, you might ask them to read their calm sentences before or after talking with you about a difficult situation. You might prompt them to try to remember a particular calm sentence immediately before a tough situation is about to arise if you know what is about to happen.
Obviously this is a long term plan - I know that using calm sentences myself is not easy, nor does it make me feel instantly better. I definitely don't expect children/teens to feel magically better when they use them either. But slowly, over time, this is a skill which is really important for kids/teens with "big feelings" to help them manage life and distress.
Kirrilie
PS, If you have a 5 to 11 year old who could do with some help in this area, or you have some questions about how to do this - we have some videos about this topic for them inside Calm Kid Central. You can also ask us questions about how to apply this to particular situations (eg social worry, frustration with jobs/chores, difficulty getting off screens etc). For information, click here: Calm Kid Central
