"I'm so dumb!" Neurodivergence & Negative Self-Talk

Apr 17, 2023

boy wearing white shirt and black shorts carrying backpack standing on black concrete road between vehicles and trees during daytime

Photo by Jesús Rodríguez on Unsplash

LIVE workshop on this topic at 10:00am ET this Friday, February 2nd. Details at the link.

One of the most heart-breaking things a parent can hear is a child being mean to themselves. Some children get so overwhelmed at times that they call themselves names, or even worse, hit themselves when they are upset. As adults, we can feel helpless in these moments and are quick to say something to negate our child’s statement like “Of course you’re not stupid” or “Don’t say that; it’s not true.” But, responding with comments opposite of a child’s thoughts can feel dismissive and leave them feeling emotionally alone. So, what is happening for our kids in these moments and how can we support them?

[Note: These ideas are for informational purposes only. If you have concerns about your child’s safety due to physical self-harm or verbal self-criticism, please talk with their mental health or medical provider.]

Why Kids Engage in Negative Self-Talk

They Assume They Should be Good at Everything or They are Good at Nothing

Young children are concrete thinkers and neurodivergent kids can be black-and-white thinkers later into their elementary and teen years even if they are highly intelligent. Concrete thinking can sometimes lead kids into making assumptions like “I am really good at reading so I must also be good at building things” or “Everyone in third grade has a friend and I don’t, so I must be a terrible person.”

Concrete thinkers may see a classmate succeed at academic and social things and therefore assume that their classmate is good at everything.

We know as adults that no one is good at everything, but I bet you can think of a classmate who seemed good at everything. When did you realize that this wasn’t true? We have to help our kids understand that while some of us are neurodivergent, we are neurodiverse as a human population; no one person is good at everything.

They Have Asynchronous Skill Development

Growing up with a neurodivergent brain means that at some point you realize that your skills are slightly unpredictable. Kids need to know that they may be better than their peers at some things and need more support than their peers with other things.

In case you haven’t listened yet, Penn Holderness explains in his podcast interview with me how his creativity and learning in math were much stronger than his ability to control his body growing up. Even though he wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until college, he is grateful for the opportunities he had to lean into his musical and video production interests in school as an outlet for his creative energy.

The sooner we can normalize for our kids that human brain development is not linear, the better. They will likely strengthen skills faster that align with their interests and must work harder on tasks they find boring. This is part of the learning process.

Mistakes Overwhelm Them

Many neurodivergent kids are also highly sensitive and easily frustrated by mistakes. When you pair concrete expectations with sensitive emotions, it makes it hard to process the disappointment of failure. If you’re growing up with impulsivity, you may make mistakes often causing you to be reprimanded frequently by adults, which can lead to feeling like you’re not good at anything. It’s incredibly important that we help our kids understand their lagging skills so mistakes aren’t always surprising. We can then empower them to ask for help so they don’t begin making assumptions that one mistake means they aren’t good at anything.

Below, I walk you through how to support the emotional development of neurodivergent kids and teens. I want you to feel prepared and able to trust that you are the best person to support your child in these moments.
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Supporting the Emotional Development of Neurodivergent Kids

Teach Them About Neurotypical Deficits

Neurotypical brains aren’t better, they are just different! One of my favorite things to share with neurodivergent kids and teens is about my neurotypical brain weaknesses. If I’m talking to a kid who has a deep interest in U.S. Presidents, I make sure to explain that I would have to Google everything they are telling me. I’ve also been known to say to a kid, “I have many gifts, but understanding the periodic table of elements is not one of them.”

Being honest with kids about the things my brain can’t do but their brain can gives them a thrill that we love to laugh about, which then increases our connection and their curiosity about neurodiversity.

I encourage all adults to normalize these differences with curious conversations about neurodiversity. Believe kids when they say they can remember amazing things and explain intricacies of topics most neurotypical brains wouldn’t even notice. Celebrating neurodiversity in this way becomes a protective factor so that neurodivergent kids believe in what they can do when faced with something they can’t do yet.

Teach Them About Their Brain

If a child is engaging in negative self-talk, they are noticing differences and already feeling less-than, so it’s time to start talking to them about their brain. Your child doesn’t have to have an official diagnosis to talk through and understand what they are already noticing about their learning. You can validate the experience of noticing what feels hard and what feels easy just by talking about it. Talk about what’s hard for you and what you don’t need any support with anymore because you practiced it or figured out a strategy for it. We have to teach kids about everyone’s variability in skills.

Some kids’ skills align with traditional school curriculum really well and some don’t. Just because our strengths are not academic or social (i.e., things that stand out in the school setting) doesn’t mean we don’t have strengths.

The more kids hear this the better.

Practice Frustration Tolerance

All children go through a period of development when they realize that learning is a process. It boils down to this: We are born not knowing how to do stuff and we are looking around at all these people who know how to do all this stuff, and then we realize that we have to try, fail, and practice all the stuff to build our skills. This calls for flexing our frustration tolerance and many impulsive and emotionally sensitive children struggle with tolerating this feeling.

Due to our evolutionary survival instincts, our brains are lighting fast at registering our emotions. Something an adult would likely see as just frustrating might register as a stress response to a neurodivergent brain leading to a fight, flight or fawn response.

In this moment, we must help our child stay safe while feeling stressed, then help them slow down by describing what we see (e.g., “Your fists are going like this”), taking a deep breath for ourselves so we can begin co-regulating with them, and giving them the words that match their emotions (e.g., You are frustrated because you wish you could get this right the first time”). We need to keep showing up for our kids in these moments to model the emotional regulation and provide the language that matches their emotional state.

We can also say out loud when we are frustrated and why it’s worth it to keep working on it or ask someone who knows more about the task for help.

When to Get Professional Support

If your child is distressed on a daily basis, it’s time for a professional to work with them to figure out the root cause and support their understanding of their skills. If your child is avoiding activities for fear of failure or is refusing to go to school, it’s time to talk to a therapist for support. And, of course, if your child is harming themselves physically, or emotionally, and you are having difficulty helping them, it’s time for professional support.

Our goal is not to help our children become great at everything so they will never experience failure. The goal is to help them feel supported in the midst of these setbacks, knowing that many neurodivergent brains are sensitive to mistakes and concrete thinkers may struggle to accept the variability of their learning. It can be quite liberating for kids and teens to figure out their strengths, it just might not be the school stuff, or the sports stuff, or the social stuff. Finding their interests, their people, and their JOY is the goal.

Let’s Stay Connected!

~Dr. Emily

"I'm so dumb!" Neurodivergence & Negative Self-Talk

Photo by Jesús Rodríguez on Unsplash

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