S3 EP14 - SEL Summer Camp Week 4: Garden of Weedy Thoughts: Helping Middle Schoolers Bust Cognitive Distortions & Calm Anxiety

Well, hello everybody, and welcome to Middle School Mary Poppets.
I'm Suzanne M.
Swain, EDS, LMSW, your friendly neighborhood kid therapist who happens to work in schools a lot.
And as always, it is a beautiful day to bust some cognitive distortions.
But before we jump into today's episode, I want to take a minute to brag on you and say thank you so much.
Over the past week, so many of you reached out with really nice messages, encouraging emails, and positive reviews for the podcast.
Your support really has meant the world to me.
This community has always believed in lifting each other up, and you've reminded me once again why I love what I do.
And from the bottom of my heart, I really want to say thank you.
I had an issue with a hacker this past week who put a bunch of negative reviews on my site because of a hiring situation, and it just got a little nasty.
So today we're actually talking about the weeds of emotion, and it was kind of poetic, really, because when I started seeing what the community was doing to try to lift me back up from he got me down to I think a 3.1 on Apple, but you all lifted me back up, and I'm right back where I need to be.
So I thank you listeners.
It's such a beautiful thing to see this happen, and I thought things were pretty gloomy.
So once again, I appreciate you so much.
But now today we're finally going to talk about something you've heard me say every single time since the very first season of this podcast.
You may notice that I always say it's a beautiful day to bust some cognitive distortions.
Well, if you ever wondered what in the world I was actually talking about, today's the day.
We're actually going to explore how anxiety quietly plants little seeds in our minds and how those thoughts can grow into sticky weeds that really kind of seem impossible to ignore.
And more importantly, how we can teach our kids and ourselves to recognize those thoughts before they take over the entire garden.
So joining me once again is my lovely friend Jessica Reno, MSW L-I-C-S-W clinical director at Might Ear.
And Jessica's been helping us through our socio-emotional learning summer camp series, and she's really fantastic at taking the neuroscience behind emotions and turning it into practical strategies that families can really use.
Also, speaking of Might Ear, if you'd like to bring some of these regulation tools into your own home, don't forget that listeners of middle school Mary Poppins can save 15%.
You just use the code Mary Poppins all as one word.
And we'll remind you about that again at the end of today's episode, along with this week's free garden of weedy thoughts family activity.
So that'll be really fun.
So we always have a free download every single episode.
So we've got something great for you this time.
And I hope you're able to play the fish game.
It was a lot of fun last week.
So grab your gardening gloves because today we're going to wander through a very unusual garden.
The one where flowers talk and the weeds tell convincing stories, and together we are going to learn how to tell the difference.
So let's get started.
We are talking about something, I mean, emotions really affect all of us in every way, and really potently.
So, I mean, kids and adults alike, our thoughts are extremely important and valid.
And in an effort to validate those emotions, we want to talk about cognitive distortions or those thinking traps that our brains can fall into sometime.
So, joining me, of course, is Jessica.
And Jessica, when people hear the phrase cognitive distortions, it kind of sounds like a really clinical term.
And let's face it, they've been listening to it for a while on my show and probably weren't sure what it meant.
But what exactly are they and why should parents care about cognitive distortions?
Yeah.
Suzanne, thanks for having me back.
And this is a great, great topic.
I honestly I don't know why.
I love the topic of cognitive distortions.
You're so right.
It's sound, it's a very very clinical term.
Like we do not go around just like saying cognitive distortions literally, but um we all have them.
So like thinking traps is like a much more relatable, like useful way to like describe this.
But so we all have these thinking traps or cognitive distort distortions, and they are essentially like inaccurate or unhelpful ways of interpreting situations.
They're often influenced by two things.
One is our emotional state, and then two is the core beliefs that we hold about ourselves, about the world around us, sort of like these deeply rooted belief systems that we have around like our values, how people see us, how loved we are, things like that.
So let me give you some examples.
Imagine you have the job interview coming up.
And if you are feeling really anxious and nervous about that interview, and you already have the underlying belief that like I'm not good enough, your brain is much more likely to generate thoughts like I'm never going to get this job, or they're going to think I'm completely unqualified, or they're just letting me apply to be nice.
Now, those thoughts might not be true at all, which is a weird thing to think that like your thoughts might not be true.
We tend to think our thoughts are true.
Right.
Yeah.
Those thoughts might not be true at all.
You could be incredibly qualified and the interviewer, you know, could end up loving you, but if you walk into that interview believing you're going to fail, it is probably going to affect how you feel and how you show up.
Right.
So that's really like the heart of cognitive behavioral therapy that our thoughts, our emotions, and behaviors are all closely connected and they all feed off one another.
Okay.
So it's not all of our thoughts always reflect reality.
They're often reflecting what we're feeling in the moment or the beliefs that we have about ourselves.
And I would think that, you know, maybe the smarter you are, probably the more scary they become, I think.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I think because you can spiral.
And I'll get into some of the different types of cognitive distortions that we experience because I they're so common they have names.
They have like there are patterns that they tend to work in.
But a lot this thread of like we can feel anxious and therefore our thoughts can assume the worst and really go in this negative direction.
The opposite is also true.
So when we are feeling confident and we have a balanced view of ourselves, we're much more likely to interpret situations in a realistic and helpful way.
I mean, it can also go like far into the other side as well, where we get like grandiose and like we think nothing bad can ever happen to us, right?
Like there's there's a whole range and a whole spectrum of like how our thoughts can impact how we feel and our and how we behave, you know, and our emotions impact how what we think and you know, all that.
But understanding that core connection is a really, really important and powerful place to start for us as adults and for kids.
Okay.
So can you tell us more about that connection?
Yeah.
So when we think about this connection between thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, we we really need to think about how to understand it and also how to change it, right?
So for example, I'm gonna give you another example here.
Imagine you're cleaning up after a family dinner and your father-in-law says, Wow, our kids would never have talked to us like that.
The event itself is just a comment.
But if your immediate thought is he's criticizing my parenting, you know, then you're likely to feel hurt, defensive, or angry.
And maybe you spend the rest of the evening irritated or you end up arguing with your spouse after everyone leaves.
But if your thought is, oh, he's commenting on how I handled a tough situation and some pretty rude comments from my child, then your emotional spots might be completely different.
You might feel validated, you might feel like, wow, like I handled this really well.
He's noticing how I stayed calm.
You might even feel proud in that moment.
So it's like the same comment from your father-in-law.
You, depending on who you are and sort of like your core beliefs, you or your mood, you have different, you could potentially have different thoughts, and then therefore different emotional responses, different behavioral responses, depending on which thought you had.
Right.
And you know, whatever's been happening, everyone's a unique individual with unique experiences, so it's hard to, you know, you can't really pinpoint what's gonna happen definitively because everyone is so different.
But it's such a good reminder that it's often not the event itself, it's just the meaning that we assign to it.
And how does that show up for middle schoolers, though, in your opinion?
Yeah, yeah.
So a middle school, middle school is a place where, and we talked about this a lot last week, where middle schoolers are they're becoming much more self-aware and much more socially aware, right?
So now they are aware of their own thoughts, they are aware that other people have thoughts.
They are now very concerned with the fact that other people might have thoughts about them, right?
This is very new for middle school.
Your your younger child, your elementary age child isn't quite there yet, but in middle school, this is this is where you are, right?
So there's just like a lot to think about.
And again, like your your emotional capacity is much broader in middle school than it was when, you know, when you were younger.
So for a middle school example that might resonate is you know, let's say a student says hi to a friend in the hallway and the friend doesn't respond.
One child might think, oh, they're mad at me.
And then they might feel anxious, they might avoid that friend, they might, by the time they get home, they might be like convinced that the friendship is over, right?
That is probably that might be what could play out for a child who's like a little self-conscious, anyways.
That friendship is really important to them, but like they're maybe a little worried that like they're worried that the friendship is on rocky grounds, anyways, you know, something like that.
But another child who maybe is a little is a little more self-confident or doesn't feel like as can like as worried about that friendship, might think, oh, they didn't hear me.
And they go continue about their day, they're totally unfazed.
So same event, different thought, different response, and it really just depends on sort of like these core pieces of what how is that child feeling, what are their core beliefs and their and that impact their thoughts.
Absolutely.
And their behavior keeps that cycle going, right?
Yep, yep, exactly.
So if I believe that nobody likes me, I might stop joining conversations, I might sit by myself at lunch, so I might engage in behaviors that because I'm worried about how people feel about me, I might avoid other people.
And those are behaviors that then make it I do that to protect myself, right?
But those are also behaviors that would make it harder to have positive interactions with people.
And therefore, I am proving my original thought to myself in a sense, because I am worried, I'm worried about the social piece, I avoid it, and now I'm getting less positive feedback that, like, no, actually, it could be okay.
So I'm it it it feeds on itself.
We see kids responding differently to their thoughts, though.
So one, what a lot of what I've described so far has been what we would call like internalization.
These are kids, you know, if you think of your child, they might be a little more of like an internalizer or an externalizer.
So an internalizer is someone who maybe like they worry a little more, they overthink, they maybe blame themselves, they might be a little more self-conscious, they feel everything really deeply, but they like turn it in on themselves a lot.
So you it might be harder to actually see how they're feeling and see their behavior because they're holding a lot of it in.
So this might be the child that like is a little more shy, they get quiet, they're kind of when when something makes upset or anxious, they they turn away from it.
Versus a child who's an externalizer.
And it might be a we we work with a lot of kids who are more on like that externalizer side, both both types of kids, but the externalizers, like it's a little more obvious what they're feeling because when they whatever they're feeling, but like let's take anger, for example, it gets big.
They like it comes, you see it like coming out, right?
They might argue, they might act out, they might yell, they might lash out, like that you see their emotions behaviorally in a pretty obvious way.
So, like, and it could be the same emotions at the core, right?
It's just sort of like how different kids handle those, whether it goes in internal or external in like how they express it.
But oftentimes it's like rooted in embarrassment, it's rooted in fear, it's rooted in disappointment, it's rooted in anxiety, like, you know, kind of the same core emotions.
Sure.
And you know, defense when attacked is that amygdala kicking in, like, oh my gosh, what do I do?
And it, yeah, exactly.
I also notice a lot of kids who are perfectionists, they tend to be internalizers.
And, you know, they come from a high achieving type of family, and they will take on that internalizer because they feel like the externalizing isn't socially acceptable because they're so, you know, I had a lot of eighth graders like this who were very caught up in the social circle, and you know, they maybe had high-achieving parents and they didn't want to upset their family because reputation is important.
So it can become a dark spiral.
And I've seen a lot of, you know, my older kids in in older middle school really struggle with this.
So where do these thoughts come from in the first place?
Yeah, yeah.
Um, actually, Suzanne, just to like comment on what you just said as well, I think that's a great point.
Like, oftentimes internalizers they might have that awareness of, oh, I know what isn't is not in appropriate.
And I also have like the self-regulation ability to like keep myself from like reacting behaviorally to it, right?
Like whether they think of it that way or not.
Versus we have a lot of kids.
We've talked about self-regulation, emotional regulation a lot.
That is still a skill developing for kids.
And so for kids who maybe have are more on that like externalizer side, and you see their emotions get really big big and the reactions get big, it's also because emotional regulation is really tough for them.
They haven't built that skill yet.
Um, and and and so that's something we we do a lot of work with on the mightier side with our biofeedback program.
But to your question of where do these thoughts come from in the first place?
So these core beliefs, they are really shaped by our experiences, the messages we've heard over time.
Um so these, like I said, they might be these thoughts of like, how are you like, I feel like I'm good enough or I'm not good enough, or I have to be perfect, or I don't have to be perfect, or I am safe, I am valued, I am loved, versus I am not safe or valued and loved.
A lot of this develops over time through our relationships, through our experiences.
I mean, we you could look at like a developmental map of sort of like what's happening for kids at different stages.
You know, you think of when your child's a baby and like they are really at the there, it matters that they are getting their needs met, that they are cared for, that they are safe, right?
And like at that point developmentally, they are learning like I am, I am safe, I am loved, I you know, I am cared for when when my when I need something, my needs are going to be met, right?
There's different stages to this as kids grow up, but those are like that's what we're talking about when we say core beliefs and how kids see themselves and what they believe about themselves.
Absolutely.
Kind of, you know, it reminds me of Inside Out too.
They have that really, really good definitive visual on core beliefs.
And as she starts to believe that, you know, Riley is not as good as everybody else, the the anxiety core belief kicks in and rides up the you know, into her brain and whatnot.
But I I think that you know Pixar did a really good job of explaining that.
So you know, it may be a good idea to go back this week and watch Inside Out too, so you can kind of get an idea of that.
That would help to solidify it visually for your kids.
But you know what?
That's now bringing us to cognitive distortions.
So, Jessica, what exactly are cognitive distortions?
Yeah.
So let's go back to our weeds metaphor, which is like so, so perfect.
This this weedy garden.
So I mean to carry the metaphor, like our brain grows these, plants these seeds, it grows into you know, these different sorts of thoughts.
That's always gonna happen, right?
Like we're gonna have different sorts of thoughts, we're going to have cognitive distortions all the time.
Part of the goal is to like understand them and catch them, and then also learn some tools to manage them.
So we'll get to the tools in a second.
Some of the most common cognitive distortions that we would see in middle school would be mind reading.
So this is the if you've heard your middle schooler say, say something that implies they can read someone else's mind.
She's mad at me.
They don't like me.
He doesn't want me there.
Like things like this, right?
Like you would have to be inside that person's brain or have had that person say those direct things to you in order to know that that is true.
Yeah, right.
So I used to tell them I was like, you know, the because the eighth graders do this constantly, all day long.
And they always assume things.
And I'm like, okay, turn off, but this is not a psychic reading.
Okay, we are not doing tarot cards today.
This is you, you are not mind readers, y'all.
Otherwise, you'd have a 1-800 phone number and get lots of money per minute.
That is not your job.
So, and they were like, Oh, okay.
But somehow I had to remind them a lot.
And and maybe with some of the older kids, perhaps even the younger, you know, you may have to point out that that's what they're doing.
And I tried to make it funny at least, but that's the one that is is very prevalent.
So forgive me for sticking up on that one.
But yeah, that one all day long, y'all.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And I think, and part of why we're like naming them is because d just what you said, Suzanne, like if you can put a name to it and like, yes, make it funny, also, it's like, oh, okay, I get it.
And it's it it's it's relatable, like we all do this, and it's it's super common, but also like we can call it what it is, right?
Like, can you read mine?
I have a crystal ball, like yeah.
I'd be like, this is just silliness, and I I would lay, I would say silliness a lot, because silliness can be good too, but I'm like, this is a silliness that can get you down a rabbit hole you don't want to go down.
So put the kibosh on it right now.
And you know, so far so good.
But but yeah, that was something we had to work on all year.
And some of the, you know, some of the others are are also equally as important.
So I'll let you explain.
Yeah.
Um, so catastrophizing is another one we see a lot.
So this is like I failed one quiz, I'm going to fail the class, like jumping to that worst case scenario situation.
Something small happened, but it spirals into like meaning something big in the future, but like you can't predict the future, right?
You don't know what's going to happen, but like you like truly believe the worst case scenario is what's going to happen.
Negative filter is another one.
So, like, this could be you kind of like ignore the positives and focus on one little negative piece or like a piece of criticism.
So, like if your child got feedback from a teacher and like it was mixed, some was positive feedback, some was negative, all they come away with is the negative feedback, right?
They don't hear the positive.
Or if your child was, say they like had a soccer game and they made a mistake, a couple of mistakes, but they also played really well.
All they're gonna think about is like that negative moment, like the mistake that they made.
So negative filter is a big one, and then comparison, and that's because of the social awareness piece, kids comparing themselves to other people all the time.
Other like they're smarter than me, they're funnier than me, they have more friends than I do.
Which, like, these things could be true or not true, and they could also matter or not matter.
We'll get to the tools, but one of the downloads that is attached to this episode is a visual, you know, we're wrapped in our weedy, weedy metaphor, but like a visual for all these cognitive distortions.
So you can actually like look at them and like you know, talk about them with your child.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think when parents are talking about in families, they're gonna recognize themselves in that list as well.
And one thing that I I did use to talk about, because I did talk about cognitive distortions even way back when, but I used to say it's a C D, guys, it's a C D.
And then what I would do is actually grab a CD, because there was like, ooh, that's vintage.
And I would play a CD as a cognitive distraction.
So I was like, rather than cognitive distortions, cognitive distractions when you feel that way.
So I the CD was kind of a representative of that, to say, oh, CD, oh, that's what you need to fix this.
So it gave them a definitive, here's what I do when I feel this way, because my mind is just playing tricks on me.
And, you know, so little things like any kind of little mnemonic or anything that you can do to just help reinforce that with your, you know, with your children, that can be a very helpful thing.
So but one thing I hear a lot is that, you know, just tell your child to think positively.
But that's really not what we're talking about, is it?
Yeah, definitely not at all.
We are not talking about, I don't know, like the posters you get at Marshalls that are like live, laugh, love, like hang in there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
These like blanket positivity statements that like barf.
Yeah.
No meaning at some point, you know, like they were like a nice they're It's a the positivity is a nice idea, right?
But like if you are really struggling with negative thoughts and you truly believe your cognitive distortions, like that's it's not gonna cut it, right?
So we're more talking about we're not talking about like replacing negative thoughts with unrealistic positive ones.
We're talking about like the pivot.
So really, this is like helping kids develop more helpful, more rational thoughts, thoughts that are realistic, thoughts that are evidence-based.
We'll talk we'll talk about what that means, and like move toward this goal, move them towards their goals instead of like keeping them stuck.
So it's also important to help kids understand like how their thoughts are either helpful or unhelpful to them.
Do their thoughts an example would be like, I'm so worried about trying out.
I'm so worried I'm not gonna make the team and therefore I don't try out, right?
So like my thought, I might not make the team, but like if if I let my thought of I'm not gonna, I know I'm not gonna make the team and therefore I don't even try out, like I have not helped myself move toward my goal of making the team, right?
Right.
So catching that moment or catching that that impact of our thoughts and knowing when they're unhelpful or helpful to us is really important.
So, how do we help, you know, how do we help the kids challenge these thinking traps?
Because they can be pretty devastating.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So the first thing to remember, uh, like honestly, like everything, is that this is a skill and it takes practice.
It also requires, it requires flexible thinking, it requires self-awareness, attentional control, problem solving, all these things that are still developing in middle school.
And also, these are executive functioning skills that are gonna, they are gonna be a little more challenging for other, for certain kids.
But that means we need to spend time on them.
We need to practice.
So if you think of your your brain kind of works in certain patterns, you if you you tend to see things in certain ways, we got to build a skill for you to like practice challenging those thoughts and seeing things in different ways.
So one of the skills to practice is fact-checking.
This is what I was talking about, like the evidence-based thing.
So this is forcing yourself to like find the evidence.
What evidence do I actually have that this thought is true?
And then actually come up with the evidence for and against the thought.
So it would be like, you know, if I believe someone is mad at me, did they tell me they're mad at me?
Do I have a time when they acted like clearly acted like they are mad at me?
Do I have evidence against that?
Right?
Like force yourself to come up with that.
Help your child come up with the evidence for and against.
Even like, do I know this is 100% true?
If the answer is no, I don't know this is a hundred percent true, then like it's not necessarily true.
And this is a big thing for kids to like realize the shift from I might I have a thought and therefore it is the truth, to oh, I have a thought and it might not be true.
I can't always trust my thoughts.
Like that is a pretty big concept for kids to grasp.
Yeah.
Um, but it it is important to talk about it.
And like you can use examples from your own life looking for evidence to support different ideas.
Well, it's a very Socratic method.
I mean, we do that in teaching, you know, we we take something and pick it apart like a lawyer and then prosecute it.
And that develops critical thinking, which is something that also is a skill.
So this is a real critical thinking piece and essential for middle schoolers to practice with because you know, this is the time when that's developing as well.
So anything that gets them to point to evidence is is always good, in my opinion.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Another one is I call this possibility play.
I'm sure it has another.
But it's like the idea of like finding alternatives.
So the thought you have is one possible explanation.
And then there are other possible explanations.
And so brainstorm them.
Figure what are the other possibilities?
What are the alternatives?
If a friend didn't text you back, maybe they're ignoring you, or maybe their phone died, or maybe they're busy, or maybe they just forgot, right?
Like maybe there's nothing behind it other than they forgot.
Um a lot of times.
Yep.
And then another one that I really like is this idea of just like finding the feeling underneath your thought.
So again, back to that connection between thoughts and emotions.
A child, if your child is assuming that other people are mad at them, don't like them, like whatever it is, that might be because they actually really care about what other people think of them and they're worried that their relationships are at risk, right?
They're worried that someone might not like them.
So that doesn't mean that their thought is true, but it does give you a signal into how they're actually feeling and the things they really care about.
And again, those core beliefs.
So, in this sense, helping them understand that the thought she's mad at me is actually, I'm worried she's mad at me, or I'm worried they don't like me.
Like that's an important distinction for us as parents, and to help your child get to that point where they're like, so they, you know, they can separate from the thought, put some distance between it, between themselves and the thought, and then like get to the heart of what they're actually feeling.
Oh, I love that.
I mean, it feels so much more collaborative than trying to convince kids that they're wrong, because you know, that's that's really not good.
But as we wrap up, what's one thing you want parents, teachers, and therapists to remember?
What's what's a good takeaway?
Yeah, I think the main thing is just like our thoughts are not facts, they are interpretations.
And when we teach kids to get curious about their thoughts instead of automatically believing them, we are helping kids develop a skill that they're gonna use for the rest of their lives well into adulthood.
Because you all, you know, wow, we all could get better in this skill as well, even as an adult.
Oh, yeah.
In fact, a lot of adults need it absolutely.
So, yeah.
I mean, rather than jumping in with reassurance, though, we can ask questions like what went through your mind or what else could be true.
And those conversations, I mean, they really build that flexibility and resilience that you know we need to be teaching.
So that's fantastic.
Thank you very much for that.
And and Jessica, thank you so much for joining us today.
I really appreciate all of your insight.
It was it was wonderful to hear what you had to say, and I think we can take a lot from that.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Absolutely.
And don't forget, everybody, that you can go to Mightier.com and check out what they remember, it's biofeedback video games where you can learn self-regulation on your own, which is really, really neat.
So they use a heart rate monitor that the kids wear on their arm as they play, and then they teach those self-regulation skills.
It is honestly amazing.
Absolutely love what they do.
And you can get 15% off if you like over at Mightier.com.
Just use the coupon code Mary Poppins as one word, and you'll get 15% off.
And next week we are talking about one of my most favorite emotions, anger, right?
Are you ready for anger next week?
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Let's do it.
Absolutely.
All right.
Well, everybody, I want to thank you so much, and hopefully, we all have been versed well in cognitive distortions.
But until next time, stay clever little foxes, and don't forget to stop, regulate, and listen.
Thanks so much for joining us, and we'll see you next week.