I'm Bad, I'm Stupid—Kids Being Harsh on Themselves

Respectful Parenting: Janet Lansbury Unruffled

JLML Press

Kids & Family, Parenting

4.7 • 3.8K Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"I'm annoying, bad, stupid, not good at anything. I hate myself." It can be disconcerting to hear our kids say such unkind things about themselves, using harsh words that we've made a point not to use with them. Is this perfectionism? Low self-esteem? Passing feelings of vulnerability? What can we do to encourage our kids to stop bagging on themselves like this? How can we build up their self-image and self-confidence? Janet responds to notes from two concerned families, weighing in with encouraging advice and a point of view that can make all the difference.

Janet's "No Bad Kids Master Course" is available at NoBadKidsCourse.com.

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Transcript

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1:00.5	Hi, this is Janet Lansbury.
1:02.7	Welcome to Unruffled.
1:04.3	Today I'm going to talk about an issue that a lot of parents have been asking me about lately.
1:09.0	It's when our children are saying unkind things about themselves.
1:14.4	They're getting harsh on themselves.
1:16.4	And these parents want to respond in a way that's going to help their children feel better, of course.
1:20.7	But the responses they're giving just don't seem to be doing that, so they're getting concerned.
1:25.4	The feedback I'm going to offer actually also applies to
1:28.7	children saying unkind things to us, or generally acting out in that way, even behaving in
1:35.4	unkind ways. So I really hope that this might help parents dealing with those kinds of issues as well.
1:42.7	Okay, so here's the first note I received. Hi Janet, my daughter's seven
	...

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