Freeing Your Child from Negative Thinking: Powerful, Practical Strategies to Build a Lifetime of Resilience, Flexibility, and Happiness

by Tamar Chansky

Overview

From a leading clinical expert in the fields of child cognitive and behavior disorders, a new edition that addresses social media, bullying, suicide, and other challenges children and parents face today

If unaddressed at the early stages, negative thinking can become the gateway to depression and more serious mental health issues. Habitual negative thinking creates chronic or occasional emotional hurdles and impedes optimism, flexibility, and happiness. Being constantly being overloaded with information from friends, classmates, teachers, parents, and the internet, children need tools and strategies for redirecting negative thoughts when they come. In Freeing Your Child from Negative Thinking, Dr. Chansky provides parents, caregivers, and clinicians with clear, concise, and compassionate guidance in equipping children and teens to overcome negativity. She thoroughly covers the underlying causes of children's negative attitudes and provides multiple strategies for managing negative thoughts, building optimism, and establishing emotional resilience.

Now, in this revised and updated edition, Dr. Chansky addresses the complex challenges that come with raising kids in a digital age—from navigating social media use to cyber bullying, as well as the grim reality of increased school shootings and suicides. This new edition also includes an expanded section on depression, the importance of healthy sleep, and the parent's role in their children's digital lives. With practical tools for parents to guide their children through these challenges, Freeing Your Child from Negative Thinking is the handbook all parents need to help their children cultivate emotional resilience.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780738285955
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	01/14/2020
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	186,880
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Psychologist Tamar Chansky, PhD, is the founder and director of the Children's Center for OCD and Anxiety and the author of Freeing Your Child from Anxiety. She lives in Philadelphia.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Work of Happiness Begins on the Inside 1

Part 1 Changing Your Child's Mind

1 Understanding Negative Thinking: Wired to Quit (Too Soon) 17

2 Changing Your Child's Mind: Talking Back to the Negative Brain 37

3 Weathering the Storm of Big, Negative Feelings: Inviting Them In, Working Them Out 71

4 Shining the Light on Your Child's Unique Abilities: Finding and Applying Your Child's Strengths 99

5 Going from the "No" to the "Know": The Master Plan for Overcoming Negative Thinking 120

Part 2 Negative Meets World: Navigating the Glitches of Life

6 When Negativity Takes Hold: Does My Child Need Professional Help? 151

7 Preventing the Worst: Talking to Kids About Suicide 175

8 Losing, Failure, Perfectionism, and Jealousy (Oh My!): Walking Your Child Compassionately Through the Less Than Pleasant "Givens" of Life 190

9 Navigating Social Media: Taking Charge of a Life Lived On-Screen and Off 227

10 The Parent's Role: Teaching Without Getting Tangled Up: How Not to Turn One Negative Person into Two 242

Part 3 Turning on the Axis of Possibility

11 Resilience to Go and Happiness to Stay 267

12 Everyday Optimism: Planting Seeds for a Lifetime of Sustainable Living 285

13 Lighting Up the Future: Keeping Your Child on Track for the Long Run 315

Resource Guide 323

Acknowledgments 329

Notes 331

Index 339