Understanding Children's Cognitions
EMDR for Kids and TeensGetting a negative cognition for younger kids is a big deal. It's all about understanding where the child is developmentally and changing your languaging, communicating with them exactly how they understand things to get the full appreciation of where they're coming from and to really understand this. So younger kids may be very concrete in how they communicate a negative cognition. They may tell you in a feeling word. They may give you a cognition as a description.
They may also give you a cognition in a fantasy or in a metaphor. So all of these ways can be very tricky for a child therapist to tease it out and figure out exactly what the negative cognition is. And, also, kids may talk to you in ways that are third person, so that's a little confusing. They may say David hurt or David sad or David mad and give it to you in terms of an emotion.
What's important to know is with young children, just for the fact that they could label it and give it a word, it has moved to that cognitive portion of their brain, and we're gonna accept that as a cognition. For adults, we are asking the question for negative cognition is, what's the negative belief about yourself now? No child-- no young child is gonna understand what you're saying to them. And so I like to ask kids young kids, what's the bad thought or what's the bad thought about you?
And then for the positive cognition, I'm simply asking, what's the good thought, or what's the good thought about you? Or you could substitute something in there like, what's the happy thought, and what's the yucky thought? So you know your client, so you can substitute words that have meaning to that child but also are reflective of the spirit of those criteria for a negative and positive cognition.