CBT Workbook for Ninja Kids and Teens: A FUN, INTERACTIVE GUIDE WITH COPING STRATEGIES TO SELF-REGULATE NEGATIVE THOUGHTS, EMOTIONS, AND BEHAVIORS (OVERCOME ANGER, ANXIETY, STRESS, AND WORRY).

By Angela Wade

Unlock the power of hope - Create a lifeline for kids and teens struggling with anxiety and stress

Picture this: Your child, once vibrant and energetic, is now consumed by anxiety, stress, and low self-esteem, unable to navigate the turbulent waters of adolescence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Angela Wade
• Release date: Feb 29, 2024
• ISBN: 9781739234720

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

You are not your thoughts!

Every day, thousands of thoughts run through your head—from the moment you open your eyes in the morning, throughout your day, when you’re ready to sleep at night, and even in your dreams.

Swimming in different thoughts makes it easy to feel overwhelmed and have automatic reactions—sometimes rashly. However, regardless of these thoughts, know you are not your thoughts. Your thoughts are not always facts, even when they seem to be.

Do you have thoughts like: I am so bad at everything; I am a failure, I am not good enough and afraid to meet people because of what they’ll think of me, or Everyone has their life together, except me. I am always the one struggling!

If any of these thoughts sound familiar, they are the voices of fear, anxiety, and depression in your head. When you pay attention to them, they feed you negativity, affecting your life. However, when you train yourself to ignore them and throw them in the trash, you take charge of your life and what you become.

At some point, we’ve all felt sad. Sometimes, this feeling can be fleeting and pass like a storm that fades away after the rain clouds clear. However, it was different for me. At age 8, I constantly felt sad and didn’t see any purpose in life. I always felt awful, didn’t want to make friends, avoided going to school, and just wanted to be alone.

I thought everyone hated me; I was a failure at such a young age and wondered what I was doing in this world. This went on for months, and everyone started noticing. Kids close to me thought I was weird, worsening how I felt. My mom did everything she could to get me to open up about what was wrong, but with no luck. I was already a shadow of myself. I lost interest in things I once enjoyed, failed my subjects in school, lost weight, and felt ugly.

A family friend encouraged her to take me to a mental health professional. Looking back now, I am glad I had someone in my corner ready to go to any lengths to find solutions for me.

So, I started meeting a therapist who introduced me to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Like my old self, the word therapy might give you a mental picture of laying on a couch while a strange man wearing spectacles puts you through different nosy questions. But CBT is quite different; it is an evidence-based treatment that analyzes what you think and what you could do to influence how you feel.

For example, because I thought nobody loved me, I avoided going out and meeting people. As a result, I got lonely and isolated, leading to depression. When I made the mistake of burning the family’s breakfast, I worried terribly, thought I was hopeless, and could never get things right. As a result, I withdrew from people and avoided doing anything that’d cause embarrassment.

The therapist, working with me, used CBT skills and strategies to break this cycle of thoughts by figuring out what attitudes, feelings, and behaviors contributed to my problems and how to replace them with positive thoughts.

Little by little, I saw the unproductive thoughts and behaviors I was creating. By learning to recognize my negative thoughts, I could change them into positive statements. For example, instead of thinking my mom hates me for giving me difficult chores, I started thinking, My mom gives me difficult chores because she believes in me and knows I can handle them.

It also introduced me to problem-solving techniques. I faced my fears using positive reinforcement techniques, and soon, I started to calm myself without help. I took a fearless look at myself, and I’d never been clearer in my thoughts.

Today, I am proud to say that I’ve taken control of my life—CBT helped me to put the pieces together. And I know you can do the same!

So, perhaps you’re a parent whose kid is struggling. Or you’re a kid, or teen, experiencing negative thoughts, finding it hard to shut your brain off, and having difficulty managing emotional/stressful situations. If emotions often get the best of you and you can’t handle anger, worry, and stress and need coping strategies, you’re reading the right book.

CBT is helpful for kids and teens with nearly every emotional and mental issue, including anxiety, depression, stress, anger, worry, etc. It can be delivered through one-on-one sessions, online, in groups, or through self-help books.

With CBT, you can practice new ways of thinking by challenging inaccurate and negative thoughts and restating positive and logical ones. Of course, it isn’t that easy, but you can take effective steps to handle any problems you face and start living life to the fullest.

Seeing my younger self experience so much pain for a long time and knowing so many kids are battling their inner demons, I’m taking a leap of faith and sharing everything I learned that can benefit you.

I’ve written this book because I’ve had the same experience—I’ve been in your shoes. So, I know how frustrating it is to be in this situation. Know that all hope isn’t lost; this book will guide you to make amends and start living a peaceful life.

Being passionate about helping kids, teens, and parents of kids who find it hard to cope with stress, anger, excessive worry, and sudden outbursts. I took my time researching, studying, and gathering information from experts. I also used real-life experiences to write this book. You can be confident that you’ll get a jam-packed guide to help self-regulate your negative thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

If I can overcome my baffling experiences, you can, too. Use the information in this book to start creating a beautiful story for yourself. I know you’ve got this—you have a cheerleader in me.

Now I believe you’re motivated to start this exciting and life-changing journey, where you overcome anger, anxiety, stress, and worry and delve into the world of self-regulating your emotions effectively.

Stay with me.

PART I

CBT FOR MENTAL HEALTH

1

WADING THROUGH THE WATERS OF ADOLESCENCE

I experienced intense emotions during my teenage years - from fear and anxiety to anger, loneliness, shame, guilt, and exuberance. For me, I constantly struggled to regulate how I dealt with those emotions; it was never-ending emotional turmoil.

Just like every kid, you experience more intense emotions than adults. As an adolescent, you’re wired to shift through different moods daily. One sad reality about being young and going through major emotional changes is that you don’t have the coping skills for these intense emotions.

Well, I may not have had the coping skills as a kid. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. What you’re about to learn would have made a difference for me when I was your age.

It will be immensely helpful for your development if you understand what’s happening to you emotionally during adolescence. After all, this is a crucial time for developing healthy coping skills. That’s why this chapter will focus on exploring all you need to know about this developmental stage (adolescence).

THE ADOLESCENT BRAIN

When you move from childhood to adolescence, your brain grows and changes. These developmental changes affect how you think and behave. Your early years are critical to brain growth, but the brain still needs major remodeling before it fully matures. The bulk of this brain remodeling begins in adolescence and continues into your mid-20s.

Your teenage years are a period of significant development for your teenage brain. The primary change during this phase is pruning, which is when your brain eliminates faulty and unused neural connections in its cognitive (thinking and processing) area. Simultaneously, it strengthens other established connections to become more efficient. In other words, you either use it or lose it.

Pruning begins in the back of your brain and ends in the front, where you have the prefrontal cortex—the part responsible for decision-making. The prefrontal cortex controls your ability to plan and consider potential consequences for your actions, control impulses, and solve problems. This will continue to develop well into early adulthood.

Since your prefrontal cortex is developing, you rely on your amygdala to solve problems and make decisions. The amygdala controls emotions, aggression, impulses, and instinctive behavior. So, many decisions you make as a teen will be majorly influenced by your emotions.

You might notice that sometimes your thinking and behavior are quite mature, although you behave impulsively or illogically at other times. These shifts and changes are due to the back-to-front development in your brain.

Adolescence is characterized by physical, psychological, and social growth. The changes you experience during this phase make your teen years vulnerable and adaptable. They also make adolescence a period of heightened emotional reactivity. In other words, you are more susceptible to strong emotional reactions as a teen.

During this phase, your social environment changes so much that you spend more time with your peers than with your parents and other adults. This may lead to more conflicts between you and your parents. Consequently, the changes in the social environment and interactions increase emotional reactivity.

Also, due to the rise in risky behavior and choices during teenage hood, you tend to exaggerate the value of negative information over positive information. This makes you vulnerable to negative thinking.

Remember, being a teenager means navigating your day-to-day life with your brain still under construction.

THE DEVELOPMENTAL CHANGES THAT OCCUR WITH ADOLESCENCE

Adolescence is a period of big emotional, social, and relationship changes. Whether