8 year old thinks she is the worst person ever

[Neggroni]

My DD8 had was not treating her older brother 10 nicely yesterday. When we asked themnwhat was happening she got really upset and went to her room crying. I went up to chat with her about it buy after a short conversation she asked to just be left alone.

At bedtime she asked me if she was the worst person in the world. I reassured her that she wasn't by a long way. She asked if she should rip the page she wrote out of her notebook. I asked if I could see what she had written and she agreed.

She had basically written that she was the worst person in the world. She was bossy, a bully and gross. She wasn't good at anything, no one wanted to he her friend. We loved her brother more than her and rightly so. That her parents dream was she had never been born.

I discussed with her that she knew this wasn't true and she agreed she did. She didn't feel like this anymore but she did feel like it was genuinely true when she was upset.

I am really upset by her reaction to telling her off. She did need to know her behaviour wasn't acceptable but I don't want her yo feel worthless. I believe that it helps her to write her feelings down and I was glad that after the moment she felt she could discuss how she felt. But it worries me for the future. Dies anyone have any advice on how to negotiate this?

could be hormones really impacting her
you could try lots of gentle reassurance especially when theres negative interactions
discussions about feelings and communicating them

Ds who is also 8 gets like this too, thinks he's the worst at everything and say so when he's been told off or had a bad day.

We've found journalling really helps - we got one of the Happy Self kids journals and every day he has to write in 3 things hes grateful for that day, it really helps to shift his focus to positives as he can absolutely bring himself down with negative self talk. He puts a lot of pressure on himself for everything to be just right and to succeed and gets really upset if he struggles with something that it's good to shift the focus to the great things he has going on too. One of us sits with him a she writes so we talk about the 3 things he's chosen.

I remember I used to write things like this in my diary as a kid. It's usually just venting frustration and her heightened emotions after her argument. A natural part of growing is looking inward at the part we play in things. Often, children think in absolutes. I don't think it's too much to be worried about unless she is writing things like this often/ often expressing these thoughts in other ways.