Parenting Related: Negative Attitude

Abinormal

First of all, let me tell you a bit about my daughter, we'll call her T.

T is a smart, funny, outgoing and normally happy kiddo. She's 3, so she can be capable of insane mood swings within an hour's time, but overall she seems to be pretty good about not throwing super long tantrums or swinging from one extreme to the other without an explanation. As I said before, she's a smart kid and seems to be ahead of the game when it comes to language and understanding of academic and social concepts. I'm not really bragging, I'm just trying to give y'all info about her.

Anyway, lately, I've noticed that T can be very negative about certain situations and I'm beginning to be worried. At her school, there has been a lot of pushing, hitting and fighting that's been happening between her classmates. The teacher is working on solving the issues and teaching the children how to better communicate with each other and we've been working with T at home, to help her find ways to fend off some of the aggression without adding to it with her own aggression. Lately, whenever I drop T off at school, all of her comments are negative. "I don't want to play with L, she's mean!" "I don't want my friends touching me!" "They're saying "Boo!" to me, make them stop." "I don't like school, I want to go home." All of these comments make my heart hurt because I don't have the option of taking her out of this daycare right now and I don't have the option of staying home with her. Plus, the teacher says that she has good days at school and she seems happy when I pick her up. However, when I ask her about her day, all she talks about are the negative things that happened. "So and so hit me!" or "So and so hit L!" or "So and so was looking at me all day and I didn't like it!"

I've noticed the focus on the negative in other situations as well and I'm not sure how to get her to start focusing on the positive things in a situation. I know this is long and I thank you for reading... if you have any advice, I'd be happy to hear it! Thanks!

Abinormal

fredalina:

Char is very focused on negative after school, too. I ask specific questions like what she had for snack and who taught her a lesson and on what, did she read any words and what were they, whether she worked on the frog life cycle, etc.

Yes, I've done this as well and it seems to help. Plus, I ask her to tell me one positive thing that happened at school. I don't want her to think that I won't listen to her problems and try to help her, but I know there are positive things happening at school, despite the current struggles with the aggression.

FWIW, there are only 7 kids in T's class and they're all girls and they've all been in the same class together since they were infants. I think that ends up working both for them and against them in a way...

Ms5586

What about a daily activity that focused on the positive?  I know you said you talk about the positive, but what about something like this?

Make a reusable placemat (or a bunch of copies of one) that is split in 4 squares.  One square can have a sad face, and 3 squares a happy face.  She can draw or write 1 bad thing that happened, and 3 good. 

Or maybe while she's telling you about her day, stop her everytime she says something good that happened, and let her drop a penny in her bank, or a marble in a cup.  Once she reaches a certain number (or you could draw a line on the cup to "fill" it), she can have a special treat, or a little outing.

GrayGhost13

ItsAllGravy7:

Even as adults we can have a great day and then one bad thing happens and that's what we end up talking about with SO that night. KWIM? I think she's probably just learning to express the parts of her day that were less than awesome like most of us do when we "wind down"

I don't have a three-year-old yet, but this is my reaction too. I think it's human nature to remember the negatives over the positives. However, if you want to foster positive thinking, I am sure it is never to early to start encouraging sharing good memories too.

bearfootz

I think this might be a 3 year old thing.  We can be at a party and they'll be having a blast but if we ask them how their day was they'll say "so and so was mean to me".  I think they get their feelings hurt easily and it sticks with them - but overall they are happy kids.  I've just tried to get them to focus on the fun/positive stuff.

Abinormal

Bearfootz:

I think this might be a 3 year old thing.nbsp; We can be at a party and they'll be having a blast but if we ask them how their day was they'll say "so and so was mean to me".nbsp; I think they get their feelings hurt easily and it sticks with them but overall they are happy kids.nbsp; I've just tried to get them to focus on the fun/positive stuff.

It's good to hear this because it'll drive me batty when I know T had a great time somewhere and I'll say "T wasn't that fun?" And she'll say "No" and then pick the one negative thing that happened to talk about. Ugh!