Helping Children Develop Healthy Self Talk

Just like a ship’s rudder is the unseen mechanism that largely determines a ship’s direction, self-talk is often our unseen director. While all of us have an ongoing internal dialogue, many of us are unaware of this dialogue or the impact it is having on us. Our mind is constantly assessing and putting meaning to what we observe. Consider the thoughts that ran through your mind the last time you were running late. Maybe you were thinking about how you could make up time or calculating how upset someone might be regarding your tardiness. You can be sure this internal chatter, whatever it was, impacted your emotions and actions. Developing healthy self-talk is a lifelong journey. What we do today to help our children become aware of their self-talk and to shape it in a healthy direction can help position them to walk in wisdom for their adulthood.  

Self-Talk: The Unseen Storyteller 

Children are very observant in some areas of life and amazingly unaware in others. Go for a walk with a young child and they might notice the parade of ants crossing the sidewalk but completely miss the reality that a car is headed in their direction. They must be taught what the road is and the key places to stop and look for cars before proceeding. Their thought life is one of the areas where children often lack awareness. They often do not realize they have a constant stream of thoughts, and those thoughts create stories that may or may not be accurate. 

God created humans with a mind that is capable of amazing things, including developing and getting lost in stories. We love stories – they draw us in and stir our emotions and imagination. The ability to communicate and connect with stories is a wonderful gift; yet it can become a hindrance if the stories are not managed well. The mind is always creating a story with the facts it observes. The beginning of helping our children develop healthy self-talk is helping them distinguish between objective facts and any “stories” they are telling themselves.  

We can help our kids recognize their self-talk by asking questions: 

• What are the facts of this situation and what are your interpretations (story)? 
• Example: Did that person actually tell you they don’t like you or is that the story you are telling yourself? 

Redirecting Self-Talk 

It is natural for all of us to experience unhelpful or inaccurate self-talk especially when challenges arise. When this occurs, we can listen to the stories our mind generates, or we can direct our inner dialogue toward truth. This is what the Psalmist does in Psalm 42. The Psalmist is experiencing challenging circumstances and painful emotions. Naturally, challenge or pain bring thoughts about how hopeless our situation is, doubts about God’s goodness, and likely a whole host of other unhelpful or inaccurate stories. It would have been easy for the Psalmist to listen to the thoughts and emotions that arose with the difficulty of their situation. Instead, the Psalmist recognized these thoughts and worked hard to redirect their inner dialogue with truth.  

Psalm 42:5 “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.” 

We can help our children develop healthy self-talk by teaching them to speak truth to themselves rather than only listen to natural thoughts and emotions that arise.  

Positive Self-Talk 

Positive self-talk is powerful, yet our default is often negative self-talk. This unhelpful default has led some to conclude that positive self-talk should be the goal. While positive self-talk can be helpful when challenges arise, it can feel disingenuous. Should we expect ourselves to think only positive things on a day we planned to have a picnic and a thunderstorm pops up? Or to have only positive thoughts when we get a flat tire on the way to our favorite fishing hole?  

Developing healthy self-talk is more about thinking in ways that are aligned with reality than trying to think positive thoughts. This means our thoughts grow in alignment with the aspects of Philippians 4:8 and the overarching realities the Bible reveals. We can help our kids develop healthy self-talk by instructing them to align their thinking with reality. This includes acknowledging when things are difficult and being able to express the thoughts and emotions that arise in challenges. Then to help them practice what it might sound like to think about the challenge through the lens of one of the descriptors listed in Philippians 4:8. For example, when a child reports feeling scared at night, we might extend compassion toward their fear while also asking them to think about things that are true. This, no doubt, will be a challenge for them just as it is for us but helping them develop the skill of speaking truth to themselves is foundational to developing healthy self-talk.   

Conclusion 

Helping our children become aware of their inner dialogue and directing it with truth is a challenging task. Humans do not have to work to develop thinking patterns that are unhelpful or inaccurate. This is the natural path and often leads to an inner dialogue of a mixture of self-criticism, entitlement, or self-righteousness and often it is difficult for us to correctly diagnose all that we are experiencing. Our children need support in this skill of developing healthy self-talk as we help them recognize their self-talk and redirect it toward truth.  

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For Further Information

Family Devotional Resources [ACCFS]
One of the great privileges we have as Christian parents is to point our children to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. This article provides resources that are meant to be a help in the process of reading and teaching the Scriptures to our children.

Shepherding Our Child’s Image of God Podcast Episode [ACCFS]
Youth is a time of life when all manner of ideals are being formed in a person: reasoning skills, social skills, character qualities, work ethic, and academics. And yet, greater than these is the formation of the image our kids will have of God. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Brian Sutter speaks to the importance of shepherding this important formation in our children.

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