Learned Optimism

What Applied Science Tells Us About Choosing Our Attitude

What if you could choose the outcome of your circumstances and how you felt as a result? Imagine what your life might look and feel like then…

Now what if we told you that you actually can make this happen – at least to a large degree – by how you reframe your thoughts into beliefs, while feeling more empowered and optimistic as a result.

Even (and especially) when things seem bleak, science shows us that we can learn how to choose optimism and model this for our children. Join us this month as we share more about how to raise resilient children as we practice optimism more in our everyday lives.

Dr. Martin Seligman, dubbed the “Father of Positive Psychology,” has studied how humans learn to either embrace optimism or adopt an attitude of learned helplessness – one of the underlying causes of depression. In his thought-provoking book, The Optimistic Child, Seligman shares that “we can teach our children the skills of a flexible and reality-based optimism.”

If optimism can be learned, where can we begin?

From his studies on learned helplessness, Seligman found that “optimists resisted helplessness and did not give up when faced with unsolvable problems and inescapable noise.”  

Optimists recognize that they are always at choice – they understand how their feelings create an internal dialogue that shapes what they choose to believe as truth. Likewise, teaching our children that they are able to choose what they think about and how they respond in a variety of circumstance is vital to fostering optimism at a young age.

“At stake is nothing less than the future of your own offspring and the very existence of the next generation of children, that they might be clear-eyed, forward-looking, and confident,” Seligman champions.

What is the best way to imbue children with a sense of optimism and personal mastery? Here are three steps to raising more optimistic children.