dysTalk Negative Self Talk - Talks - dysTalk

About the speaker: Founder of Inner Sense, Jenny is a Master Practitioner and certified Trainer of NLP and trained in Accelerated Learning techniques with the Buzan organisation. She is also an AAMET approved Advanced Practitioner and Trainer of EFT Levels 1, 2 and 3. Her years in teaching have given her a commitment to providing learning and fun in equal measure and a conviction that if you resource the learner, the learning often follows naturally.

Further information about this Talk

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Key Points Covered in This Talk:

• How negative self talk effects learning strategies: Many children with learning difficulties have good strategies for managing their difficulties (e.g. reading or spelling strategies) but they do not use them with any consistency. This is often due to negative beliefs about their own capabilities which could in turn lead to them developing limiting self-beliefs about themselves as people. This can undermine any chance these children have of achieving their potential, because it prevents them making use of the special literacy and numeracy strategies that they are given.
• What is self-esteem / how is low self-esteem demonstrated?: If you have a robust self-esteem then you find it easier to bounce back from knocks and set-backs. A child with low self-esteem finds it very difficult or even impossible to pick himself or herself up from set-backs. There are various different ways they may respond. It might be through angry or aggressive behavior. Sometimes you get the reverse and a child completely withdraws, becoming very quiet. They are not disruptive and therefore tend not to be noticed. Criticism of the work of such children needs to be handled cautiously. Comments such as: "wonderful story but it's a shame about your spelling" will ensure that a child with low self-esteem only sees the criticism. The word "but" has the effect of ensuring that everything before the word is wiped out and all that the child will take away / focus on is the criticism after the "but".
• How do children talk themselves into low self-esteem (negative self talk)?: Children can have a constant negative internal dialogue, described as Automatic Negative Thoughts ("ANTS"). Negative thoughts get into a child's head and then takeover at the expense of all other thoughts about themselves. Given how profound, pervasive and limiting this negative self talk is and the beliefs that it breeds about capabilities and the sense of self as a person, these beliefs will always take precedent over any strategies a child may have or anything else a child may achieve. Children will stop taking evidence that should moderate their self-belief (e.g. a well-received piece of work) and twist the evidence to fit their pre-existing self-belief (e.g. assume a piece of work has been marked kindly out of sympathy). For some people if they have enough of these positive experiences their belief may begin to change. However, for the vast majority it's a question of getting in there to do something about changing their self-belief and taking control of their negative internal dialogue in order to get a more helpful thought process. Without doing this, nothing will fundamentally change for the better.
• The reason this negative self talk is a problem: When someone senses danger or a perceived threat from outside you engage a particular mechanism in your brain called the HPA axis (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis). Once it's engaged it severely effects the capacity for decision-making and clear thinking. The brain makes no distinction between external dangers and perceived dangers (that can be in your head). Spelling, exams, tests or even reading out loud can all be perceived by a child as an external threat if they struggle with these things. Therefore in exams children with specific learning difficulties can engage the HPA axis and go completely blank and as a result see themselves as stupid.
• Interventions: There are numerous interventions out there to get children to recognise negative self-belief, control it and then begin to generate more helpful messages for themselves. Then there is a chance of accessing the useful strategies that they have been taught.