“I’m so stupid!” - Part 1

Ever since Ryan Wexelblatt and I talked about it on his ADHD Dude Live last month, I’ve been thinking about why some kids use self-defeating comments (e.g., “I’m a failure”, “I’m so stupid”, etc.), and importantly, what to do about it. Here is that video in case you missed it:

I believe it all comes down to competence, or how competent an individual might feel at any given moment. When kids do not feel competent, the self-defeating comments can start.

First, let’s talk about what I mean by competence. To me, competence means: 𝐼 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑑𝑜 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑙𝑦, 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑎 𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝑏𝑖𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑/𝑜𝑟 (𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠) 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑎 𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝑏𝑖𝑡 𝑜𝑓 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑝.

In my experience, the key to 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 self-defeating comments is 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 the amount of time kids feel competent. Co-regulation helps us create competent, authentic roles for kids. I want to share one story with you of how to get started, but you can also check out Chapter 5 of 𝐶𝑜-𝑅𝑒𝑔𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝐻𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑏𝑜𝑜𝑘 (Moving Towards Independence: Co-Regulation and Executive Function) for more ideas.

I work with a family whose teenage son often says things like “I’m not smart”, “I can’t do XYZ…” and “Nobody likes me.” Although this teenager’s mother, Julie, may frequently work to build him up with her own praise or encouragement, it does not seem to help in any lasting way. On top of this, Julie and I agree that there are likely many times in his day that he does not feel competent. So building authentic experiences of competence is our priority.

To figure out the best place to start in creating competent roles for him, we reflected on their day and week. Many daily tasks are hard for him, primarily due to executive function difficulties. As a result, it felt overwhelming for Julie to know where or how to start. We talked about starting small, one opportunity at a time.

We first thought through different areas in their day to day life where she currently helps him, with the intention of picking just ONE of these areas to target first - using co-regulation. Julie picked getting dressed – or more specifically – helping her son choose clothes to wear to school each day. Because mornings are hectic, Julie has gotten in the habit of choosing and laying out clothes for him, to help him be ready on time. But she felt this was an area that she could start to transfer some responsibility to him.

Next, we thought through what is involved in this task. It may seem simple on the surface, especially for those of us that can choose clothes easily. However, with dressing comes higher-level skills such as decision making, gestalt thinking (putting the big picture together), and consideration of the future. For example, how we dress each day depends on the weather. And not just the weather now, as we are getting dressed, but also what the weather might be as the day progresses. We also must consider where we are going, and if there are any considerations in that regard (i.e., For kids they might need to recall whether they have PE that day, or if there are any special events that they need to dress for). Importantly, our clothes must also match! Last, add on time management. We must make all this happen under time constraints, to get out the door on time.

Although Julie’s son can physically get dressed with relative ease, it is likely the decision making and searching for the right clothes under time pressure that creates challenges for him. In breaking the process down into all its component parts, we could both appreciate how this seemingly simple task may feel overwhelming to her son.

Once the many layers of the task were acknowledged and named, we could work to create competent roles for Julie’s son using partnership and co-regulation.

Stay tuned!

We’ll get into those details in “I’m so stupid! - Part 2”, next Sunday!

Have a great week!

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