How to Raise an Optimistic Child: 7 Ways to Build Resilient Thinking

When something goes wrong, we naturally try to figure out why.

Children do the same thing.

“I’m terrible at math.”

“Nobody likes me.”

“I never get picked.”

“I can’t do anything right.”

As parents, our first instinct may be to jump in and reassure them.

“Of course people like you!”

“You’re great at math!”

“Don’t say that. Everything will be fine.”

We mean well. We want our children to feel better. However, raising an optimistic child isn’t really about convincing children to look on the bright side. Instead, it’s about helping them learn to look at difficult situations accurately and flexibly.

Psychologist Karen Reivich, Director of Resilience and Positive Psychology Training Programs at the University of Pennsylvania, describes optimism as an important part of resilience. Her work also focuses on recognizing “thinking traps”—patterns such as catastrophizing and jumping to conclusions that can make a difficult situation seem even worse.

Fortunately, children can learn a more flexible way of thinking.

1. Teach Kids That Optimism Doesn’t Mean Pretending Everything Is Fine

Suppose your child comes home with a poor grade and says:

“I’m so stupid. I’m just bad at math.”

We don’t need to respond, “That’s ridiculous. You’re so smart!”

After all, your child is disappointed. Maybe they really didn’t understand the material. We don’t need to talk them out of that.

Instead, we can help them distinguish between what happened and the story they’re telling themselves about what happened.

For example, there is a big difference between:

“I didn’t understand this chapter.”

and:

“I’m stupid.”

Similarly, compare:

“I didn’t do well on this test.”

with:

“I’m terrible at math.”

The first statements describe a specific problem. The second turn the problem into something much bigger and more permanent.

This kind of flexible thinking is an important part of resilience. In fact, I talk more about this in Resilient Kids: Teaching Kids to Be Flexible Thinkers.

The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Resilience Program similarly teaches people to identify inaccurate thoughts, evaluate them, and consider more accurate and constructive ways of interpreting difficult situations.

2. Help Your Child Catch the Thinking Trap

One of the simplest ways to help children become more optimistic is to teach them to notice words such as always, never, everyone, and nobody.

“Nobody wants to play with me.”

“I always mess up.”

“My teacher never likes anything I do.”

“Everyone else is good at soccer.”

Sometimes these words are clues that a child has taken one painful experience and turned it into something much larger.

Rather than arguing with your child, get curious.

“You weren’t included today?”

“This test was really hard for you?”

“It sounds like you’re having a hard time with soccer right now?”

In this way, we’re helping children make the problem more specific.

That matters because a specific problem usually feels much more manageable than a permanent one.

3. Teach Kids That Feelings Are Real, But Thoughts Aren’t Always Facts

This is where empathy becomes especially important.

Imagine your child says, “Nobody likes me.”

Our instinct may be to respond immediately with, “That’s not true!” Instead, start with the feeling.

“That really hurt.”

“You felt left out.”

“It sounds like you were really hoping they’d include you.”

Once your child feels heard—and once the emotion has settled a bit—you can begin to look at the thought itself.

“Do you think nobody likes you, or did it feel that way today?”

“Is there anything that happened this week that doesn’t fit with that?”

“Who did you play with yesterday?”

At this point, we’re not trying to prove the child wrong. Instead, we’re teaching an important life skill:

I can have a thought without automatically assuming that thought is completely true.

This is also why empathy is such an important part of raising resilient kids. When children feel heard, we don’t have to rush in and solve the problem for them. I discuss this further in Building Resilience in Kids: How Empathy Changes Everything.

Psychologist Tamar Chansky, author of Freeing Your Child from Negative Thinking, similarly focuses on helping children recognize and redirect habitual negative thoughts. As a result, children can develop greater optimism, flexibility, and emotional resilience.

4. Ask, “What Else Could Be True?”

Children often settle quickly on one explanation for another person’s behavior.

“She didn’t sit next to me because she doesn’t like me.”

Maybe.

But what else could have happened?

“Could someone have saved her a seat?”

“Perhaps she wanted to sit with another friend today?”

“Is it possible she didn’t realize you were waiting for her?”

Of course, this isn’t about making excuses for other people’s behavior. Sometimes someone really was unkind.

Instead, we’re simply teaching children not to automatically accept their first explanation as the only explanation.

Over time, that flexibility becomes an important part of optimistic and resilient thinking.

5. Watch for Catastrophizing

A small disappointment can become enormous very quickly.

“I didn’t get invited.”

becomes:

“Nobody likes me.”

which becomes:

“I’ll never have friends.”

Catastrophizing is one of the thinking patterns addressed in resilience training. Instead of getting swept up in the worst possible outcome, children can learn to look at what they actually know.

First, start with empathy:

“You really wanted to be invited. That hurts.”

Then, when your child is calmer, you might ask:

“Does not getting invited to this party mean you don’t have any friends?”

“What do we actually know?”

“What don’t we know?”

That last question is especially helpful. Children—and adults—often fill in what they don’t know with the worst possible explanation.

6. Move From “Think Mode” to “Action Mode”

Eventually, we want to help children get to one more question:

“What can I do?”

For instance, your child might ask the teacher for extra help.

Perhaps they need to practice.

In another situation, they might talk to their friend or realize they need to apologize.

Sometimes, however, there really isn’t anything they can do about a particular situation. In that case, they may simply need to tolerate the disappointment and move forward.

Optimism doesn’t mean believing that every problem has an easy solution.

Rather, it means recognizing that one difficult experience doesn’t necessarily determine what happens next.

Once children understand this, we can help them shift their attention away from an unhelpful thought loop and toward what they can actually do.

7. Let Your Child Hear You Think Optimistically

We can teach these skills directly, but children also learn a tremendous amount from listening to us.

Think about what they hear when something goes wrong:

“Of course this happened to me. Nothing ever goes right.”

“I’m terrible with computers.”

“I’ll never get all of this done.”

We all say things like this sometimes. However, we can also let children hear us correct ourselves.

“I can’t figure this out. Let me try something else.”

“That didn’t go the way I wanted it to.”

“I made a mistake. Now I need to figure out how to fix it.”

“I don’t know how to do this yet. Maybe I can think of someone to ask.”

In this way, children get to see something important: Adults get frustrated, too. Things go wrong for us, too. We don’t always know what to do. Nevertheless, we can regroup and figure out our next step.

Don’t Rush to Rescue Children From Disappointment

Perhaps the most important part of teaching optimism is knowing when not to teach it.

Your child has just been cut from the team.

A friend was mean to them.

Maybe they weren’t invited to the party.

Or perhaps they studied hard and still got a poor grade.

That probably isn’t the moment for a lesson on thinking traps.

Instead, it’s the moment for empathy.

“You really wanted this.”

“That’s so disappointing.”

“I can see why you’re upset.”

Later, when they’re calmer, we can help them think:

What actually happened?

What am I telling myself about what happened?

Is that completely accurate?

Is there another possible explanation?

What part of this can I do something about?

Ultimately, this is a much more useful kind of optimism than simply telling children to “think positive.”

When we’re raising an optimistic child, we’re not teaching them that difficult things won’t happen. Instead, we’re teaching them that they can feel disappointed, angry, or hurt when they do. At the same time, the first story that pops into their head doesn’t have to become the story they live by.

They can stop, look at the situation again, and decide what to do next.

That’s not just optimism. It’s resilience.

References

Chansky, T. E. (2020). Freeing Your Child from Negative Thinking: Powerful, Practical Strategies to Build a Lifetime of Resilience, Flexibility, and Happiness (2nd ed.). Da Capo Lifelong Books.

University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center. Penn Resilience Program and Karen Reivich’s work on resilience, optimism, thinking patterns, and effective action.