No matter the age, a person’s emotions can be pulled down by small disappointments being made to feel like disasters. With CBT, people are able to identify errors in thought, and learn to avoid ‘disastrous’ outcomes. People can learn to avoid irrational thoughts, and by aligning thoughts with reality, they are better able to think in a clear, healthy way about every day situations. It has shown that it could be particularly useful to start teaching these thought techniques at a young age.
With ‘resilience training,’ fifth, sixth and seventh graders, at New York City’s KIPP Infinity Charter School in West Harlem, learn about self-talk, the things you tell yourself, and how they effect your emotions regarding what is happening in negative situations. What they are learning is not the act of blindly creating positive thoughts, but reality based positive thinking, helping kids to step back and assess a situation before reacting.
Empirical evidence shows that two years later, students who had gone through this resilience training had fewer incidents of depressive and negative thinking than students who had not gone through the training.
To learn more about this emotional training for children, go to:
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122526518&ps=cprs