Self-defeating Thoughts

<font face="Comic Sans MS" font color="333399">Often, what and how, a child feels about him or herself is the result of feelings that have arisen from an accumalation of many experiences. These feelings generalize into one "umbrella" feeling that becomes that, more or less, consumes all other feelings. The child then automatically falls into the umbrella feeling even when the new situation the child is not necessarily related.

For example, a child may think "I am no good at math so I cannot do my homework." or "Everyone thinks I´m stupid." When, in actuality, the child may be good at multiplication, but struggling with division. Or, the child had some bad experiences where members of his/her peer group were calling him/her names, but the child also has numerous other friends that like him/her very well.