4yo "rubbish at everything"

[Rachie1986]

I don't know if this is a normal phase. My 4yo, over the last couple of months, when she gets upset, starts saying that she's rubbish at everything, can't do anything, is just a nobody, etc etc.

I'm worried if this is normal, and also any ideas on how to help with this mindset. We remind her of things she's great at, and how much we love her, but I wondered if anyone had any advice on whether we should be concerned about this "phase" and any strategies for helping her with it.

It doesn't help that I have suffered with anxiety and tried very hard not to pass those feelings onto her, but obviously it plays on my mind.

Thanks

Really sorry OP, I don’t have much of an idea on this one but sorry to hear that you suffer with anxiety. Have you talked to her about things that help you when you’re upset or worried? It might help her see that these feelings can be normal but we can do something about them. A Mighty Girl has some good books that might help here.

Hopefully this will bump for you and somebody who knows what they’re talking about will come along soon

My 5 year old ds gets very frustrated if he can't do something the first time. He goes off into a sulk and I have to gently encourage him. His favourite phrases are 'nobody loves me' and ' I wont do it if you don't want me to'. Both of these are far from true he's just a bit of a drama queen!
I think some children just automatically assume they can do everything and get cross when they discover they cant. Doesn't help if they have older siblings that can do things.

My 4 yo has just started school and I've started to notice if I correct her (albeit gently) about how she writes or sounds a letter she gets very grumpy and almost tearful. She doesn't say those words that your child does but it wouldn't surprise me if she does soon. Pretty sure it's developmental and really wanting to be good at everything when we all know that's not possible & takes practise which we keep assuring her of.

Thanks for the replies, just hate it when she feels like that, even just for a few minutes.

My 5 year old can be like that. Praising effort rather than outcome can be helpful as they don't focus on the result so much then, and it avoids suggesting that there are fixed things they're good at (and therefore not good at).e.g 'wow you're working so hard on that drawing' 'well done for keeping going after you made that mistake'.

My ds when around 8 years old got like this. We eventually pinned down where it was coming from to his class teacher. There wasn't a lot we could do about that relationship but in the meantime we worked very hard at rebuilding his self-esteem in ways pp have suggested. He did slowly stop calling himself rubbish at most things but it was only when me moved on to a different class the following year with a fantastically supportive teacher that his confidence in his school work mostly recovered.

Has your dd recently had a change of some kind? Could be as obvious as a different teacher or perhaps different peers or different 'work' (used in the loosest possible sense) expectations.

My DD (4) is like this. She has SEN and I had put it down to that but perhaps it's a normal developmental stage. I have a thread at the moment asking for help to get her to practice letter sounds because she refuses because she "can't do it".

I'm trying lots of praise and, like the pp above, ensuring it's for effort not for attainment.

Excellent point - effort not attainment. We do also praise her for things like being kind, helpful, because I think those are so important anyway and she genuinely is very kind and helpful (most of the time!).

She has just started school- this started a couple of months back though - but then she was anxious about starting school over the summer so it could all be linked in. That's an interesting point too. I'll monitor it for a while.

Thank you - you've all been so helpful. My DH suggested I post on mumsnet when I was upset about it last night, I'm so glad I did.

Also, the power of yet.

e.g.
"I can't do x, y, z"
"You mean you can't do x, y, z yet..."

Look up Growth Mindset for children, if you haven't already done so.