Why Positive Thinking is Important as a Parent

Do you find yourself to be a glass-half-empty or a glass-half-full type of person?

When faced with difficult situations or circumstances do you automatically begin to think negatively or do you try and look for the positive in every situation?

If your initial reaction in life tends to fall toward the side of negativity, you can thank your “negative bias” – an ancient survival mechanism we are all hardwired with.

This mechanism causes us to naturally navigate towards the negative and focus on things that could go wrong in order to “protect our tribe.”

Although this way of thinking may have allowed us to survive in the days of old, it does little for us in this new age.

A negative bias helped us to survive, but positive thinking is how we thrive.

As parents, we have all the reason in the world to adopt a habit of positive thinking.

The words we use and the thoughts we think around our children have a profound power to alter their every mood, attitude, and state of mind, along with our own.

Why Should You Adopt A Habit of Positive Thinking?

Positive Thinking Enhances Your Parenting Skills

You have an internal dialogue streaming through your mind consistently throughout every day. Most of the time the thoughts stay in your mind, and yet occasionally they even spill outside.

You may be cleaning up a mess and in your habitual negative self-talk, you absentmindedly begin a rant about how you are always cleaning up messes.

You may even take it as far as accusing your children of being lazy emphasizing how they never help out.

This negative self-talk is extremely counter-productive and doesn’t do anyone a bit of good. By engaging in this negative mindset, you have now worked yourself up into a fit of anger.

This is when the empty threats begin to spill out of your mouth. This is when oftentimes, the yelling begins.

If instead, you had taken the time to stop and avoid your negative self-talk, you would have realized what you are saying is not entirely accurate.

True, you may have to clean up messes. But you are not actually always cleaning them up. True, your kids may not always help. But it is unlikely that they literally never help.

Engaging in exaggerated thinking will leave you feeling helpless and reacting in ways that are not beneficial to you or your child.

Try instead a positive way.

Replace your negative thoughts with a positive affirmation. Before yelling out hollow threats, try the affirmation “Say what you mean and mean what you say.”

Even a simple affirmation such as this can give you enough motivation to follow through in a more productive manner.

A positive attitude can give you the foundation you need to use excellent parenting techniques in a consistent manner.

If you are throwing out hollow threats and ultimatums at your children, chances are you are going to end up in countless power struggles. These power struggles are not beneficial to anyone and will keep you from taking any of the necessary steps to actually end the mayhem.

By using positive thinking, and refusing to allow yourself to continue on in a negative mindset you can increase patience, and in turn, solidify your parenting skills.

Positive Thinking Reduces Stress

When you are able to take negative self-talk and change it to something positive, your state of mind will tend to be more optimistic.

Optimism helps you to be able to handle everyday stress in a more constructive manner.

It is no secret that parents are under an insane amount of stress and that stress in any amount will often cause your parenting to suffer- not to mention your health!

When you are stressed you are more likely to lash out in anger, more likely to have very little patience with your children, and more likely to just be generally unhappy and unhealthy.

By engaging in positive thinking and affirmations you can eliminate these negative side effects, reduce your stress, and improve your ability to parent.

If you need a few ideas for stress relieving positive affirmations, try the following:

“This too shall pass”
“I am feeling more and more peaceful”
“Every day, in every way, I am getting better and stronger”

The trick in creating these affirmations is to set your intention, make the affirmation positive, and of course, make it something that feels right for you.

If the affirmation seems to be too much of a stretch for you, and you immediately follow it with a negative thought, it is unlikely to be useful. Just experiment to find out what feels right for you, and practice repeating several times a day.

Your Thoughts Can Change Your Child’s Life

What if I told you that your thoughts have the power to impact your child’s behavior and even their future?

Do I have your attention now?

By making just a few changes in the way you act and react around your children you have the ability to not only change their behavior but also impact how successful and resilient they are destined to become as they grow into adults.

Your children will learn by the behavior that you model to them.

If you consistently react negatively towards situations and challenges in your life, your children will likely adopt the same attitude.

If, however, you are able to look at a situation as an opportunity and are able to find the good, even if you have to look a little harder, your children will learn to do the same.

You are what you think. Likewise, your children become what you think of them.

The words you speak to them on a day to day basis have the power to shape their perspectives of themselves and their lives.

This is a major responsibility.

You have every power to change your child’s view and perspective of the world around them and their view of themselves.

It is your responsibility to choose to use your power wisely.

It Takes Just 28 Days to Make or Break a Habit

Navigating away from a life of habitually engaging in negative self-talk will not be something that happens overnight and it is significantly easier to give in to your natural instinct to allow negative self-talk to take over your life.

Positive thinking, however, when practiced daily, can become a way of life and the benefits to your child’s mind, mood, behavior and way of life are endless.

You can do this, mama! Don’t wait another day!