Many people, whether adults or children, get stuck in unhelpful thought patterns. The survival part of our brain concentrates on the negatives of life because it is negative experiences (like touching something hot or being chased by a bear) that threaten us, whereas seeing a beautiful sunrise or having fun are pleasant but not life-threatening experiences.
For anxious brains, in particular, it is useful to notice when you spend more time dwelling on negative experiences or worries and retrain your brain to notice positive experiences.
One way to do this is to use a cognitive triangle.
Cognitive triangle
The cognitive triangle illustrates the relationship between thoughts, feelings and behaviours.
Most feelings do not just appear - there is usually a thought behind it and sometimes this is an unhelpful thought which just gets us tied in knots without actually solving the problem.
With the cognitive triangle you can help your child, or yourself, work out how their thoughts, behaviour and feelings affect each other.
In the example below the original, unhelpful, thought is on the left, and the more positive thought is on the right.
This example was made by a child I worked with who got angry and frustrated when he felt his homework was too difficult for him:
As you can see, when he thinks "It's too hard, I can't do it!" he says that makes him feel angry, frustrated and unhappy. This then causes him to give up, tear up the paper.
He then thought about how to change that thought to "I'll try my best and ask for help", which he said would make him feel determined and positive and ok, and then he felt he might surprise himself, get help and learn.
Challenging negative and unhelpful thoughts takes time and practice, but sometimes just helping a child realise that they can choose which thoughts they think can help them change everything about the situation.