E 236 The Mindset Shift That Can Break Your Teen’s Negativity Cycle

The Mindset Shift That Can Break Your Teen's Negativity Cycle
Struggling with a teen who's trapped in negativity? In this episode, discover powerful mindset tools to help both you and your teen break free from negative thinking patterns. Learn the crucial difference between fixed and growth mindsets, and how simple shifts in language and perspective can transform your teen's approach to challenges.
I share practical strategies you can implement today, including:

How to model positive mindset techniques for your teen
The power of adding "yet" to limiting beliefs
Ways to reframe setbacks as opportunities for growth
Simple daily practices like gratitude journaling and celebrating small wins

Whether your teen seems resistant to everything you say or you're caught in your own negativity cycle, these evidence-based techniques can help create lasting change. Learn how mindset work is fundamental to anxiety management and how these shifts can improve communication and resilience for the whole family.
Subscribe for more strategies to help teens and parents thrive through life's challenges! 

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Email me: ccoufal@cynthiacoufalcoaching.com
Text me: 785-380-2064
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Transcript

 Have you ever felt like no matter what you say to your teen, they just won't listen? Or they seem stuck in this cycle of negativity? Or maybe you feel like that. Well, today we're going to talk about something that you can truly do to change your teen's mindset and your mindset, because mindset is part of what is involved with our anxiety.

And as part of my program, I teach mindset to my clients and help them to understand how to reframe things, where our mindset even comes from and what we can do about it, because I really notice with teens and I know I felt the same way. When I woke up in the morning, if I felt terrible, I thought, well, that's just the way it is.

I feel terrible and today's going to suck and this is the worst. And maybe as a parent, you feel like that too, because we are not [00:01:00] taught about mindset and how we can change our mindset. And when I learned these tools for myself, it totally changed everything. And I want to teach those things to you. And I want you to kind of see into what does my program do and how does it teach this mindset shift?

So I'm just going to give you some tools today. So as a parent, you can use not only for yourself, which is amazing because if your mindset is good, it's obviously going to affect your child's mindset, especially this beginning part where you're talking to your kids. They're not listening or they're always negative.

Well, I'm not blaming you, but sometimes our energy and our negativity and our anger and frustration with the way things are going is affecting our teens are reacting back to us. And so if we can fix that for ourselves, we might be able to help our child. We can also learn some role modeling ways that we can help [00:02:00] them to learn these skills too, or to teach them or to talk to them about it.

That's what I want to talk about today. So our mindset is how we. Approach everything in life, whether it's good things or those challenges and setbacks, and we need to look at these things as opportunities, even when they're things that we don't want opportunities for us to learn new skills and new ways and our.

Kids go through lots of challenges because they're learning so many new things and they're feeling like there's nothing they can do about these feelings that they have and so you can be teaching them and telling them that these are more like opportunities to learn new things and our teens This is a great time for us to start teaching this and role modeling it because, well, even before teens, but if you're just starting now and you have a teen, this is still a good time because they're still learning [00:03:00] how to see the world and they're, they're starting, they're still forming their mindset, like how their mindset's going to go.

And so you can have a huge impact on that being more positive and better. So most of you, I'm sure have probably heard of fixed mindset versus growth mindset. And I've done other podcasts about that. So you can kind of look through my catalog of episodes. If you want to have a little more information about that, a fixed mindset thinks that something is bad and there's nothing you can do about it.

So I'm just bad at math. You know, maybe your teen says that. And sometimes I still say that, but I know when I say it, that it's not true. Or I'll never be good at sports or I'll never understand how to do technology or whatever it is. When you say I'm just bad at it, it just means, well, I guess there's nothing I can do about it.

Or people who identify as being anxious. Well, I'm just an anxious person. Well, if you think that then your brain doesn't look for any ways to [00:04:00] problem solve it because it's like, well, there's nothing you can do about it. And if you say, I'm just bad at math. Your brain doesn't look for any new ways to try to help you with that because it's telling your brain that there's nothing you can do, or, you know, I'll never be good at technology.

I hear that so much from people my age, and I know a lot of stuff about technology. I always tease people my age that, or I tell young people, even that I'm practically a genius and technology in people in my age group. And it's just because I don't think that I can't learn it or that I don't know how to do it.

I just allow. The frustration and figure it out and just try new things. And I always learn new stuff. And there's like a million videos you could watch about how to do anything. So you can just go watch video about it or look at a check sheet about the things that you could check off and try to do. But a growth mindset says [00:05:00] that you can get better.

So if you are thinking, well, I can't ever learn technology. You could change that to a growth mindset would say, I can learn technology. I can do it one step at a time. I can just watch one video at a time. I can try to learn one platform or one, one new thing in technology. I don't have to learn it all at the same time or mistakes help me learn, you know, talking about those challenges are actually opportunities to learn new things.

And so when we are. When our kids are frustrated about stuff, we can help them turn their thoughts around by giving him these growth mindset ideas. When they say, well, I'm just anxious. So I can't go to school or I can't do math. So forget it. You can help them to understand how they can change that into a growth mindset.

And think about this for yourself. Like you're probably saying things around your house. That are in these fixed [00:06:00] mindset ways, and your kids are hearing that. And so you need to change the way you say things and think about your own self, which will help you to help them have the same growth mindset.

And our mindset affects our anxiety because. If we're seeing failures because we're going to have failures, oh my goodness, or challenges, we are going to have challenges in our lives. If we see those things as the end of the world, and this is terrible, we're catastrophizing everything and we're the victim of everything, then of course our anxiety is going to go up because if our brain and our body thinks there's nothing we can do about something that's bad or we can't think about it any different than negative.

That produces anxiety in me. I'm, I never want to think those things, or I never want to be in that position where I'm trapped. That's where my biggest anxiety comes from is when I think I'm trapped in something that I don't want to be trapped in. [00:07:00] And I used to have a lot of. Well, that's successful ways to deal with that kind of anxiety.

And I'm sure lots of other people do too, but that's where, that's why our mindset is so important when we're trying to manage anxiety, because we don't want to be the victim and negative. And so we need to reframe those challenges and disappointments and failures into learning, this as a learning experience.

And this is recently I was going to record a podcast with a guest and those are, you know, harder to schedule and set up. And the guest came and we were we always talk a little bit ahead of time, like what, how, which direction do we want to go? And a lot of times I've never met these people before.

I've only talked with them through messages. And so I'm meeting them and talking to them. And I always ask them about their businesses and give them, give me some tips on things that have helped them. But during our conversation, the guest's internet went out. And so then they were sending me messages, you know, they were [00:08:00] trying to fix it and they were trying to get it to come back on.

And then the time is ticking by. And because I have a schedule, you know, I have another recording or I have an, a client or I have like the next meeting or whatever is supposed to happen. And I'm not, I'm running out of time to be able to do it. And so we ended up being able to schedule it for the next day and it all worked out fine.

And I, sometimes those things used to really frustrate me, like this is wasting my time and this is terrible. And I wish this wouldn't have happened or whatever, but I just started telling myself that it wasn't supposed to happen that day. It was supposed to happen the next day. It's actually going to be better because we did it the next day and we, and it was better.

For one, I was really tired the day that the internet went down and I wasn't really super excited. I mean, it was a great guest and very fun things, but sometimes I'm just tired and like things are off. And so I really think that that was the universe saying. You know, you need to do it on a different day when you're fresh and feel [00:09:00] good.

And it was such a good interview. So when things look like setbacks, we need to try to reframe them into what's good about this. And maybe it was supposed to be this way. And one of the coaches that I've listened to before said, well, why? Is this happening because it was supposed to, so no matter what, and I mean, even bad things and that's terrible.

Like, I don't want to say, oh, why did that person die? Well, they were supposed to die. I don't really think about it like that, but, you know, why am I in this? I'm of my life, or why are these things happening? Well, this was the plan. This was the trajectory of what was supposed to be happening. And there's some learning here and there's some growth experiences and you just need to kind of turn things around like that.

So we need to be modeling that growth mindset ourselves as parents and even talking, I, this is part of my what I tell parents in the anxiety program when their child is in the anxiety program that we [00:10:00] need to be modeling how we manage. Our anxiety. And if we're not managing our anxiety, we need to be getting on top of that too.

But if we are trying to manage our anxiety we need to be role modeling that and talking out loud, how we do it their whole lives, but especially in the teen years. So when you're sitting down to supper or you're, you know, Watching a TV show in the evening or whatever, you could say to your teen I have this presentation tomorrow and I am so nervous about it and I want to make it really good.

And I've been doing some practices and you know, just whatever it is that you've been doing to help yourself manage, but also being prepared. Cause a lot of times we're anxious about things because we haven't prepared very well for them, like testing or. Or do you know, kids are, our kids have to do presentations at school and sometimes we're really nervous about them because we really haven't prepared for them.

And so talking it out about how you prepared for something and how you, you know, you're nervous, but you're going to go anyway, or how it feels [00:11:00] in your body, but here's what you've been doing to manage it. And, you know, I've been doing some mindfulness or I've been doing some journaling or, you know, whatever it is that you've been doing and you're not telling them that that's what they should do too.

You're just talking about your lived experience, which there. They're going to hear that. And maybe the next time they're anxious or have a presentation, they'll think, well, my mom said that she did this or she, you know, she was really preparing for it or whatever. I think I need to do that too. Or you could even talk about things that you used to struggle with that you don't struggle with anymore because you learned them or even using experiences in their life, like showing them, you know, you used to not be able to ride a bike, but then you were amazing.

Or And all of them, unless they weren't able to learn to walk, but for the most part, most people have that, you know, talking about a baby just falls and falls and falls. I literally thought my daughter was going to have brain damage by the time she really [00:12:00] learned to walk because she fell and hit her head all the time that didn't stop her from, you know, getting up and trying to walk again and all of those falls and all those times they have to.

You know, push themselves back up again. That's strengthening, strengthening their muscles and making them, you know, get stronger so they can balance and they can walk. And so all those things you could, you know, explain to them how those things that they're falling around on are actually helping them get stronger to do the thing that they're wanting to do, whatever that is.

Or you can ask them some questions when they're talking to you. One of the best things you can say to anyone, and I say this to my clients when they are talking about something and they kind of stop on an area, just saying, tell me more because it makes them dig a little bit deeper into it. Or if they have some limiting belief or fixed mindset.

Sentence that they say, like, well, I'm just bad at math or I'm just anxious. Is that really true? [00:13:00] And just asking them that, or what's another way you could see this? And it's not, you know, it's just helping them to think about things differently. And of course, you can't ask them these questions when they're super upset.

If someone is dysregulated, whether the parent is dysregulated or the kid is dysregulated, this is not a time for any kind of processing or talking about anything because their brain is shut off. Your brain is shut out shut off when you're having those casual times. You're driving somewhere. You're setting watching a show You're having a meal These are the times where you can talk and ask these kinds of questions when people are just ready to to handle that And helping them to use the word yet.

So just putting the word yet the end of a sentence Like I'm I don't know how to do math Yet. I don't know how to drive yet. I don't, I'm not sure [00:14:00] if I can do this presentation yet because that again gives your brain this idea that there is a different alternative. There is something else that I can problem solve here.

There's something else that I can try or think or do. And that's what we want them to. Know that there is an opening, there is light at the end of the tunnel that they can look towards and do, and they can just keep practicing or doing things. Another thing to do at the end of the day, and I'm trying to think about this in busy families, like what you, you just find a time, you know, like what, if you go to each person's room at night to say good night, I love you.

Ask what went well today. That's one thing you can tell me that really went well. That's kind of like that gratitude. Sometimes when we talk about gratitude journaling and I love it. And I think writing things down is really important. If you can't get your kids to write down in a gratitude journal or [00:15:00] whatever, just ask them out loud, what went well today?

How in, or if they tell you about something that. You know, maybe was a challenge, say, what was good about it? What, what part of that are you proud of? Because there's usually a part you can pick out to say, well, I'm really glad I did it this way, but the outcome still wasn't very good. And you can, again, show examples in your own life about how.

Part of it was good, or you learned this one part in this challenge, but yeah, I didn't like how it turned out. Or, you know, I went to this job interview, and I felt really confident, and I answered the questions really well, but I didn't get the job. And I feel really sad about that. But I, You know, it was really good in the interview.

And so I can take those skills into the next interview. Also telling stories about resilience. Now I did read to my kids pretty late [00:16:00] into their lives because I love reading out loud and I just think it's fun. And my kids wanted, I mean, even though they could easily read things, they liked to hear my voice where I read out loud to them sometimes.

And so you can tell them resilient stories and they can be really short. They can just be ones that you memorize and just talk about. They don't have to be like in book form, but you can also get ones that are in book form. And there's one I asked chat GPT to tell me some resilient stories, like some short ones.

And one of it, one of them that they came up with was the broken compass. Imagine a young adventurer who sets out on a journey with a compass that breaks halfway through. First, they're frustrated and they feel lost, then they soon realize that they can navigate by observing the stars, listening to the wind, learning from the terrain, and of course you can, you know, in the daytime you can watch the sun, where it's at, and that can help you navigate things.

So the lesson is sometimes losing what you [00:17:00] rely on forces you to discover new strengths and skills that you didn't know you had when you could ask them, was there ever a time in your life where you were going to use one way of doing something? And then that didn't work, but you still learned that anyway.

And what, what parts of you did you learn? And then tell a story about yourself. This wasn't me like looking for new skills, but recently I had to go to a conference. And I knew how to kind of get there, but I didn't, you know, I didn't know the exact specific steps to get to this hotel and there was a road closed that was super important in the direction that I was going.

And so I had to reroute a really long ways on roads. I have, I've never been on in my life. Now, the good part was it was a beautiful drive. And I saw things I never saw, and that is my reframing of it, and I, you know, it didn't make the time too much later. And I always leave so much earlier than I'm supposed to that, [00:18:00] like, I don't get late because of these kinds of things.

That could have been a stressor. That's why I always leave so early because I don't like it's going to stress. It was a beautiful drive, but I did have to drive like 2 miles on gravel, which I hate. And I was really. I was really sad that that part happened but I did still navigate it. I still got to the hotel easily.

It was just like this rerouting thing. And sometimes, you know, that's good. And I did see some beautiful country and I might take that direction again on a time when I just want to see pretty things. So that's all right.

If your child is extra negative or really focuses a lot on problems, then try to help them shift their, their sentences or the way they talk to themselves to, I can handle this and I am learning and growing. And sometimes we need to write these sentences down and put them in places. And I did an episode about that too, about power sentences, where we need to put them where we're reminded of [00:19:00] them.

We can see them, whether it's on our refrigerator, on our bathroom mirror. Having it on our phone, anything that's going to remind us what those power sentences are. Cause when we were really frustrated, we're going to forget that we can handle this or I'm learning and growing. We're going to be like, no, this is terrible.

And so being reminded of those things when our brain won't come up with them is a good idea. And after a while, I really feel like if you really get into the practice of having growth mindset, you as a parent do and your child. Then it is gonna come a lot more easy because your, your brain is gonna be, it's gonna create a, a rut or a track in there that goes to the more positive, even if you haven't been that kind of person before.

If you like journaling, gratitude journaling is amazing. You just write down three things that went well that day. You can do a lot of other things with gratitude journals. You can buy gratitude journals that kind of give you some questions or space to write your [00:20:00] three favorite things, but you could just write 'em on pieces of paper.

But I think the act of writing them down is really important and gratitude journaling can change your brain. And so if you tend to be negative cry it for a while Maybe you could do it as a practice together with your child Hey, let's write in our gratitude journals before we go to bed or this morning before we go like while we're having breakfast However, it works in your family.

Everybody's going to be different And just looking at those small wins every day, it's so important and we forget about them. I have a a pad of paper where I write down everything I'm going to do that day and I like to write, what was a win today? What was something, you know, even if it's just been a really tough, you know, lots of clients and meetings and.

Maybe boring or maybe just firing or whatever, but think about, you know, I met this person that was really cool, or we had this insight in this one client meeting. That was so great. Whatever your win is and ask your [00:21:00] it's what their wins are. And just remember that if you've been in a negative. Mindset for a long time or a fixed mindset for a long time in your, or your kid has, it does take time to change this.

But if you make small shifts every day, just some, you know, reminding yourself that you could change it and reframe it, asking your child to reframe theirs, it is going to make a difference. And so just think about what is one way that I can practice this today and how can I help my child practice it every day?

And it's going to make it so much better. And don't forget, I can help you with all of this. I can work with your family. I am a teen anxiety coach, but I'm getting ready to add a parent part. And so if you're excited about that, I'd love to hear from you anyway, because that's going to give me the. I'm going to be able to vet the idea that parents do want help from me too, not just their teen.

And I've actually had some parents [00:22:00] that wanted to work with me, but their teen was really reluctant. And so I think this is a way for me to get those parents some help, even if their teen doesn't want the help. Cause like I just said, if you practice these things and you know these tips and techniques, you can be teaching your child, you can be role modeling them without me, but.

It's going to work beautifully if we are all working together. So contact me, we'll set up a time where we can talk about what is it that you need? How can I help you? How can I support your family? And let's get to work because we can make, we can help every teen manage their anxiety. And I can help every adult manage their anxiety because it's actually works the same way.

So let's talk. I'd love to hear from you and I'll see you next week. 

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