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Many children go through times when they think they are worse than their peers in some way.

You can be helpful to them by first trying to sort out whether external factors are instigating these ideas.

The first step is to see whether you or others are contributing to them putting themselves down.

Jeannie was an 11-year-old girl who seemed down for several weeks. She was making comments referring to herself as “dumb” and “stupid.” She told her parents that all the other kids in her class were smarter than she was and she couldn’t ever catch up. The teacher had given them an assignment to write an essay about a character in the book they were all reading. He had read aloud some of the ones he thought were best and Jeannie’s was not one of them. Then, she got a lower grade than any of her friends on her math quiz. Her parents were glad she told them about it but unsure how to help since she was actually doing quite well. Her assessment seemed without basis.

They came to one of us seeking guidance. We talked and outlined steps for them to follow to better understand what was going on.

In this kind of situation, the first step would be to clarify if this was coming only from within your child or if external factors were instigating it.

You would ask yourself how you have been approaching your child about the quality they are........

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