Impact of Positive and Negative Thinking on Child Outcomes
Read the detailed description of Quest's Program Details!
Impact of Positive and Negative Thinking on Child Outcomes
This month I wanted to focus the newsletter on positive versus negative thinking since this area has been on my mind and in my heart a lot as kids have been found recently to have really high levels of anxiety, depression and stress. While at Quest, we have always focused on the power of our thoughts, this year I am committing significant amounts of our time and interventions for summer camp to more specifically target this area for our campers since I think it is so important for healthy development.
Repetitive negative thinking has been linked to anxiety and depression in children [1]. Whereas, positive thinking has been linked with physical health benefits (longer life span, stronger immune response, lower pain levels, improved heart health and reduced blood pressure), and mental health benefits (stronger problem-solving and decision-making skills, lower stress levels, better coping skills, easier time adapting to life changes, improved moods, fewer incidents of anxiety and depression and increased creativity). Learning and academic achievement, resiliency, and self-esteem and confidence have also been linked to positive thinking. [2]
These concepts of addressing repetitive negative thinking and creating positive thoughts is often thought of under the umbrella of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). What is exciting about this area is that CBT has already been shown to be an effective approach for teens across multiple areas including depression, anxiety, ADHD and anxiety for children on the autism spectrum. [3] More recent research is also showing the positive benefits of adapting components of CBT for young children that fit with their developmental brain maturity,. For example: 5-6 year-olds have shown the ability to identify feelings, recount autobiographical narratives, and discuss the concept of future events, which can be important components to improving treatment outcomes. [4]
Bramford and Lagattuta from the University of California, Davis, have studied the abilities of young children in regards to positive and negative thinking. Their research revealed that “children as young as 5 and 6 years understand the links between thinking and emotions and that this understanding improves throughout the grade school years. Children demonstrated the strongest insight about the influence of positive versus negative thoughts on emotions in ambiguous situations. The most difficult for them to comprehend was how positive thinking could make people feel better in objectively negative situations. Indeed, it was in these coping situations that both child and parent levels of hope and optimism predicted individual differences in children’s reasoning about the power of positive thoughts.” [5]
“The strongest predictor of children’s knowledge about the benefits of positive thinking — besides age — was not the child’s own level of hope and optimism, but their parents,'” said Christi Bamford, assistant professor of psychology at Jacksonville University, who led the study when she was at the University of California, Davis.
The findings point to parents’ role in helping children learn how to use positive thinking to feel better when things get tough. Bamford notes: “…[P]arents should consider modeling how to look on the bright side.” [6]
Bramford and Lagattuta “concluded that children as young as five years old had begun to develop the skills to understand how positive and negative reframing could change a person’s response to a situation. They suggest that training children to recognize the benefits of positive thinking and disadvantages of negative thinking may not only help children feel better emotionally during stressful life circumstances, but may also provide health benefits by decreasing the physical toll of stress.” [6]
Yeager and colleagues have also shown teen stress responses can be improved through an approximate 30-minute long, mindset intervention that targets both growth mindsets (the idea that intelligence can be developed) and stress-can-be-enhancing mindsets (the idea that one’s physiological stress response can fuel optimal performance). Across six randomized experiments they found replicable evidence that a single-session, self-administered, synergistic mindsets intervention can protect vulnerable adolescents against unhealthy threat-type responses to normal social-evaluative stress and the negative mental health outcomes associated with such stress responses. Yeager and colleagues noted that although their ”focus has primarily been on the protective effects of this intervention against the negative mental health effects of treat-type responses, it is worth noting that the profile of cardiovascular responses that are characteristic of threat-type stress responses (increased TPR and reduced stroke volume during active stress response, and a slower return to baseline PEP after stress offset)—and which the synergistic mindsets intervention protected vulnerable participants against—is known to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death.” Although these researchers found the most evidence that that their intervention was most helpful to teens with negative pre-intervention event- and response-focused mindsets, they make the case that this is a cost-effective intervention that could be used as universal prevention. [7]
This month I wanted to provide some information regarding how the field is advancing in the area of effective interventions for children. As a specialist in working with children with attention, learning and social issues I find these findings helpful as a place to start from, but that then can be adapted and simplified for children who need alternative ways to experience and process information. For me, this time of year is always exciting to reflect on how we can continue to adapt research-based concepts through an interactive summer program experience. I hope that this information was helpful to you for learning new information or creating an opportunity to reflect more of how you can incorporate some of these concepts for your children.
[1] How to redirect your child’s negativity. Medically reviewed by Jacquelyn Johnson, PsyD. — By Karen Sosnoski, PhD and Margarita Tartakovsky, MS on January 30, 2023 Psychcentral, accessed on January 30, 2023 from https://psychcentral.com/blog/3-handy-ways-to-help-your-child-overcome-negative-thinking
[2] The impact of positivity on students, Melanie Hess, October 14, 2022, Connections Academy by Pearson, accessed on January 30, 2023 from https://www.connectionsacademy.com/support/resources/article/positivity-impact-students/#:~:text=Mental%20Health%20Benefits%20of%20Positive%20Thinking&text=Stronger%20problem%2Dsolving%20and%20decision,time%20adapting%20to%20life%20changes
[3] How is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) different for kids? Medically reviewed by Karen Gill, M.D. — By Ann Pietrangelo on December 5, 2019, Healthline.com accessed on January 31, 2023 from https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/cbt-for-kids
[4] Can very young children do cognitive-behavioral therapy? Trauma Recovery Lab. Posted February 19, 2013., accessed on January 31, 2023 from https://trauma-recovery.net/2013/02/19/can-very-young-children-do-cognitive-behavioral-therapy/
[5] Looking on the bright side: children’s knowledge about the benefits of positive versus negative thinking, Bamford, C., Lagattuta, K.H., Child Development, Vol 83, Issue 2, accessed on January 31, 23 from https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01706.x
[6] The power of positive thinking, Entin, E. January 19, 2012, accessed on January 31, 2023, The Atlantic, from https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/01/the-power-of-positive-thinking/251500/
[7] Yeager, D.S., Bryan, C.J., Gross, J.J. et al. A synergistic mindsets intervention protects adolescents from stress. Nature 607, 512–520 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04907-7