Negative thoughts are total confidence smashers. Of course we are all guilty of having negative thoughts, but my heart breaks a little each time I hear one of my girls say they aren’t good at something, or they're not smart enough and end up giving up on the task they're working on. A great way to conquer those negative thoughts is to have a regular practice of daily affirmations.
As it turns outs, there’s a lot of science to back up exactly how a set of positive words (affirmations) can dramatically improve your mind and body. By offering these stones as something to focus on they have a chance to redirect their thoughts & create a more positive outcome.
1) Positive affirmations are always in the present tense. If you see a positive affirmation that says “I will,” “I used to” or “I’m going to,” move on. Your brain only responds to present tense statements.
2) Positive affirmations only include positive words. If you see a positive affirmation that has words like “don’t,” “can’t” or “won’t,” it’s not a statement you’ll want to repeat. It takes your brain a lot of extra work to get past negative statements and transform them into positive ones.
3) Positive affirmations are spoken as statements of fact and truth. Statements that contain words like “might” and “could” aren’t nearly as powerful as statements that contain words like “am” and “do.”
It’s best to have your affirmation be clear & easy to remember so I just added one simple word to each stone using the Sharpie pens (we got some clear decorative stones at the dollar store). You could add any number of affirmations to the stones & choose different ones to suit your child's situation. If your kiddo struggles with anxiety you may want to add more calming, peaceful words, or if you have a child who struggles with their confidence, maybe affirmations focusing on strength, positivity, & uniqueness would be more helpful.
Each morning encourage your child to take one of the stones from the box. Encourage them to read aloud the word written on that stone, this becomes their affirmation for the day. "Today I am...". Using "I AM" at the start of the affirmation creates a bold empowering statement for a child, focusing on what is achievable, rather than what is not. Also by using a present tense they begin to create the outcome now. At the end of the day, talk to your child about times throughout the day when they had been calm/helpful/brave. Praise your child when you see them being calm/happy/brave. praising your child can only be a good thing, & who knows what a difference that may have on their thinking & behavior.
I hope you have fun creating these powerful affirmation stones together!
Namaste- Cassy