A clinical psychologist offers tips to help kids struggling with negativity

As they deal with stresses ranging from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to war in Ukraine, many children may be struggling with negative thoughts and emotions.

A report from UNICEF published earlier this year found that negative coping strategies in children are on the rise, and that has consequences for parents and families. 

A Winnipeg clinical psychologist says cognitive behavioural therapy may be one way to help kids cope.

Dr. Cathy Moser is running group therapy sessions using cognitive behavioural therapy at Mind Matters Clinic for kids struggling with negativity.

She spoke with Marcy Markusa, host of CBC Manitoba's Information Radio.

Here's part of their conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell me the signs that a child or a teen is struggling with negativity.

Dr. Moser: Well, you can hear it in their voice when they're just low in the morning and they come home and they're just sighing, as well as [saying] things such as "my life sucks," or "I hate this life," or "I hate this world."

Maybe more frequent meltdowns, resistance or oppositional behaviour, and just a sense of that nothing is as good as it was before.

How can being negative affect the life and development of a young person? 

There's a saying that your family is only as happy as the least unhappy person. So it not just affects the child, it affects the whole family dynamic. And then the child also gets negative feedback and they're the problem in the family. 

Children begin to get negative feedback from others and then the more negative they are, they start to take it on as their own problem and feeling low on themselves. And it's like a depression that just compounds. 

What age groups will your workshop be looking at or offer right now? 

Well, we start at seven, and we actually have some mindfulness groups for teens, so we go all the way up to 18. 

What kind of tools do you use in your workshop to help children with negative emotions? 

Well, first … we teach them how to be present in the moment, and we teach them a variety of tools.

The best one — and I've been using this in groups since 2005, a long time even before "meditation" became a buzzword — I used to give children a little stopwatch and a votive candle, and I just said … "Before you get to school, after you come home from school, go to a quiet place and just breathe for five minutes and think of just your breath."

And that in itself is an amazing tool. Parents, years later, report that their child still meditates and it's done them wonders. 

We also teach them how to bring their mind back to this present moment and not to worry about what's going to happen in the future, because we don't even know if that's going to happen. It's like interest on a mortgage you didn't take out. 

For example, we say on the first group session, "How many of you were crying and yelling at your parents on the way here and saying this is the worst group ever and you don't know anybody and this is going to be terrible?" They all raise their hands. 

At the end of the group, I say, "How many of you here enjoyed yourself?" And they all do.

I tell them, "See all that commotion you caused, and maybe got grounded or whatever on the way here? It's all wasted because all that negative emotion you had from thinking about the future and thinking you knew what was in the future."

Do children also model each other's behaviour and feed off each other's negativity and challenge?

I think they boost each other more than anything. 

But I do think that maybe the family's negativity affects the children if they're listening to the news all day, listening to the weather and catastrophizing about what's happening and what's going to happen. 

I mean, even if they're not watching the news or listening to their parents, they're smart.

It's really important to be careful about what you say to your children because they don't have the emotional maturity to process that information. They like amusement, they like lightheartedness, and they need that in their home.