Is Your Child a Catastrophizer?

It goes something like this: "I failed the exam for sure and now I'll never go to university and I'll be a failure for the rest of my life!" "My friend didn't call me back because she is dumping me. I have no friends left!" "My teacher wants to talk to me about my essay because she hates me and my work. I'll never get a good grade in her class!"

All of these statements are things that any tween or teen might say. Parents are often inclined to dismiss it as exaggeration or melodrama or hormones but it actually points to a style of thinking that can very much get in the way of your child's happiness and success in life. Psychologists call this type of "worst case scenario" approach to explaining unknown or feared events "Catastrophic Thinking". In it, the individual takes an unknown and explains it in terms of the worst possible outcome. Whether it is to try out how they may need to respond or it is to lower expectations in order to ward off disappointment, catastrophic thinking is highly associated with depression and often leads to self defeating behaviours and decisions.

Think about each of the statements in the first paragraph. Just saying each one out loud produces a strong emotional reaction - things like hopelessness, fear, anger, despondence, panic, anxiety. The truth about all of these scenarios is that these are possible explanations or predictions about why something happened or may happen in the future. Your tween or teen doesn't know if he's failed the exam until he gets his result back. She doesn't know why the friend hasn't called her back until she asks her. He doesn't know why the teacher wants to talk to him until he has spoken to her. Yet in each of the catastrophic explanations or predictions despite the lack of evidence, highly negative feelings are produced as if the worst case scenario had actually happened. As anyone who has attended my parenting workshops or my Set2succeed workshops for kids has heard me say over and over again - events don't produce feelings. Events occur, we have thoughts about them which then produce feelings and we take actions based on our feelings. So when our kids catastrophize, their actions will be based on those highly negative feelings produced by their thoughts, even though their thoughts have not been substantiated and may not even be true. Obviously the actions that arise from feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, panic and anxiety are not going to be productive ones.

So, how can we help our kids learn a better way of thinking about and explaining or predicting outcomes to events?

1. Understanding - help your child understand the whole concept of events leading to thoughts and thoughts creating feelings and feelings influencing decisions.

2. Awareness - Bring their catastrophic statements to their attention - Let them know when you hear them making these kinds of statements and help them to experience their feelings when they do. Ask them - "How do you feel when you say that?" They may answer with things like - pathetic, like a loser etc. Then ask them "What does that make you want to do about the situation?" they may say things like- nothing, give up etc.

3. "Is that really true?" Teach them to ask themselves if their catastrophic thought has any basis in reality. Is it really true that your friend hasn't called back because she is dumping you?

4. "What else might be true?" - Teach them to then search for alternative explanations - Why else might your friend not call you back?

By regularly repeating these exercises your child can learn a more optimistic explanatory style which is highly correlated with greater success in work and life and has even been shown to increase health and longevity

It goes something like this: "I failed the exam for sure and now I'll never go to university and I'll be a failure for the rest of my life!" "My friend didn't call me back because she is dumping me. I have no friends left!" "My teacher wants to talk to me about my essay because she hates me and my work. I'll never get a good grade in her class!"

All of these statements are things that any tween or teen might say. Parents are often inclined to dismiss it as exaggeration or melodrama or hormones but it actually points to a style of thinking that can very much get in the way of your child's happiness and success in life. Psychologists call this type of "worst case scenario" approach to explaining unknown or feared events "Catastrophic Thinking". In it, the individual takes an unknown and explains it in terms of the worst possible outcome. Whether it is to try out how they may need to respond or it is to lower expectations in order to ward off disappointment, catastrophic thinking is highly associated with depression and often leads to self defeating behaviours and decisions.

Think about each of the statements in the first paragraph. Just saying each one out loud produces a strong emotional reaction - things like hopelessness, fear, anger, despondence, panic, anxiety. The truth about all of these scenarios is that these are possible explanations or predictions about why something happened or may happen in the future. Your tween or teen doesn't know if he's failed the exam until he gets his result back. She doesn't know why the friend hasn't called her back until she asks her. He doesn't know why the teacher wants to talk to him until he has spoken to her. Yet in each of the catastrophic explanations or predictions despite the lack of evidence, highly negative feelings are produced as if the worst case scenario had actually happened. As anyone who has attended my parenting workshops or my Set2succeed workshops for kids has heard me say over and over again - events don't produce feelings. Events occur, we have thoughts about them which then produce feelings and we take actions based on our feelings. So when our kids catastrophize, their actions will be based on those highly negative feelings produced by their thoughts, even though their thoughts have not been substantiated and may not even be true. Obviously the actions that arise from feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, panic and anxiety are not going to be productive ones.

So, how can we help our kids learn a better way of thinking about and explaining or predicting outcomes to events?

1. Understanding - help your child understand the whole concept of events leading to thoughts and thoughts creating feelings and feelings influencing decisions.

2. Awareness - Bring their catastrophic statements to their attention - Let them know when you hear them making these kinds of statements and help them to experience their feelings when they do. Ask them - "How do you feel when you say that?" They may answer with things like - pathetic, like a loser etc. Then ask them "What does that make you want to do about the situation?" they may say things like- nothing, give up etc.

3. "Is that really true?" Teach them to ask themselves if their catastrophic thought has any basis in reality. Is it really true that your friend hasn't called back because she is dumping you?

4. "What else might be true?" - Teach them to then search for alternative explanations - Why else might your friend not call you back?

By regularly repeating these exercises your child can learn a more optimistic explanatory style which is highly correlated with greater success in work and life and has even been shown to increase health and longevity.