I generally tend to dislike nonfiction books that take the form of workbooks, but that aside, this book is very good. I'm not sure if this is the originator of the similar ideas or if there are other similar ideas flourishing in the field that use different words for the same, but for me, the idea of an optimistic child was new even if the ways there seemed pretty straight forward and familiar. In any sense, I got the idea that Seligman was and is a pioneer with his heart and mind in the right place.

Most of the book is written for parents of already older children and not babies or toddlers, so the information on how to prevent the onset of pessimism and depression later in the first place was a bit scarce, even if one of the later chapters tried to remedy that.

Now I just need to remember these things for when it is time to apply them, either to prevent depression in my child or to have a tool if it happens.

I've read a fair number of child-development/parenting books. And a fair number of books about depressions, etc. This book addresses the issue of helping children develop a more positive outlook on life, that would, in turn, decrease their susceptibility to depression and other psychological difficulties.
In some ways, the approach discussed here is similar to cognitive therapy approaches in terms of modifying self-talk and positive-negative thought ratios,etc. But it actually had a few new ideas (or perhaps just described something in a way that I saw it differently). The first was about creating a 'blame pie', so that an adverse event could be analyzed for an honest accounting of what things led up to it (instead of automatically taking all the blame internally). The second was about coming up with worst outcomes/best outcomes/likely outcomes, and then planning a course of action for each outcome and particularly to achieve the outcome you'd like best. This idea, in particular, appealed to me because it turns a negative response to something towards actions to improve the situation.
I read this book, in part, because my son is (at four) already prone to catastrophizing situations and negative self-talk. This book was aimed at educating slightly older kids, but I thought the ideas were very useful for how to talk with my kids at their age, too. Additionally, I thought there were some useful ideas for adults to think of.
In terms of a parenting book, I particularly appreciated that there very specific ways to speak with your kids and specific exercises to work on both for the adult and the kids.

I had somewhat high expectations for this one, but unfortunately, they weren’t fully met. The first part of the book was ok, and there were occasionally good tips and methods for preventing depression in children. I can also see that Seligman is passionate and skilled in his field, but the book falls short for me mainly because it contains so many forms and tasks to keep track of. Since it's in English, it also becomes somewhat time-consuming and difficult to adapt to my own children into norwegian, although I’m sure it’s possible.

Another reason the book might not have resonated with me is that I read it as a bedtime book and therefore it took longer to finish it than usually with most books I read. As a result, some of the book’s coherence may have faded from memory, reducing some of the meaningful impact it could have had for me. I also think the book becomes somewhat repetitive, with little new as you progress further into it. The book also has a lot of stories, and sometimes it's difficult to distinguish if Seligman is telling a true story or a fictional one.

Of course, the book might work for someone who wants to put its content into practice, but for me, it felt like a bit too much. Nonetheless, the topic is important: working to ensure that children face an optimistic future, rather than a pessimistic and depressive one. It gets two strong stars!

Great book for parents; excellent reading to help me be a better mama and pedi OT.

Helpful ideas based on solid science, also has a section for how to implement a program with your own child. I'm not sure how that would go down.

Good book. I don't have kids but it's good to know and apply in my own life

This was pretty awesome. It teaches parents how to teach kids healthy mental and emotional habits.

It is also depressing learning the self- esteem push of “you are special” has increased depression 10 fold. But this book teaches us how to increase our children’s self confidence by having them do hard things and accomplish difficult tasks.

This is something I hope to keep referencing for many years to come.

I've avoided writing my review on this for a couple of reasons. First, because I wanted to try out what I learned. I wanted to examine my own behavior, give my kids the assessment, and then observe and implement some simple practices outlined in the book. Second, I've avoided writing a review because I've felt it to be a daunting task. Given that it's been several months since my initial reading and I've had time to really think about the overall book, it's time to just spit out my thoughts.

I loved this book. I loved Sligman's perspective, the informative research, the detailed practices, methodology and the curriculum he and his team crafted. I think his critique of the term "optimism" is well-founded and that we really can affect our kids/youth, along with ourselves, to be more actively engaged in pursuing positive outcomes and avoiding depressionistic cycles through deliberate and consistent cognitive thinking patterns.

As a parent, I believe this book to be darn-near invaluable. I've used what I've learned so much, and not just with my kids, but with myself as well. One of the great benefits of the material in this book is the breadth of ages and personality/learning styles that it targets (IMO). So, that being said, I felt confident in the "toolbox" from the book as I worked through the assessments (I typed up the assessments into Google docs, message me if you want the link) with my two oldest children. I actively brought up principles and behaviors, in subtle ways and sometimes not-so-subtle ways, as I attempted to help shape their mental patterns in dealing with problem scenarios. And, it's worked, in many situations. I didn't adopt the entire program, not even close, but kept it rather simple with this first go around. So in the end, I think the timing for me in reading this book was perfect for my two older kids (8, 10). It's on my bedstand and I've made a mental note to review some of the key sections every 6 months or so.

As I finished the book I was amazed at how touched I felt with Seligman's conclusion and it was a real motivation for me. I was surprised at the feelings of inspiration in really pondering and recognizing that there are very real and positive consequences associated with his research and recommendations. At this point in time, I can certainly vouch for some of it given our family's experience thus far.

This book cured my depression. I'd suffered depression from age 16 until about age 28, including postpartum depression; I picked it up so I could eventually help my two-year-old but realized shortly that he was far too young to do the exercises. I did them for myself anyhow, then set the book aside to come back to in about five years.

When I came back to this book five years later, I'd no longer been suffering from depression. Even after my second baby died at two hours old, I suffered grief but not depression. On the second read, I realized I'd been putting into practice many of the techniques taught in the book.

Yes, I have written Dr. Seligman to thank him. And yes, I've recommended this book to just about everyone I can.

Really detailed, too much for me; I would do better with salient points highlighted with end of chapter tables bullet pointing major points.

Two key take away:

Page 45 - "Children need to fail. The need to feel sad, anxious and angry. When we impulsively protect our children from failure, we deprive them of learning the 606 (rebounding an coping) skills. When they encounter obstacles, if we leap in to bolster self-esteem, to soften the blows and to distract them with congratulatory ebullience, we make it harder for them to achieve mastery. And if we deprive them of mastery, we weaken self-esteem just as certainly as if we had belittled, humiliated, and physically thwarted them at every turn."

Page 297: "It should be clear to you by now what I mean when I use the term optimism. Let me remind you what optimism is not. Optimism is not chanting happy thoughts to yourself. Vacuous slogans of the sort "I am a special person," "People like me," and "My life will get better and better" may make you feel warm and fuzzy for a moment, but they will not help you to achieve your goals. Optimism is not blaming others when things go wrong. Dodging responsibility for problems will serve only to exacerbate them. Optimism is not the denial or avoidance of sadness or anger. Negative emotions are part of the richness of life and they are usually healthy responses that encourage us to understand or change the things that upset us.

When you teach your child optimism, you are teaching him to know himself, to be curious about his theory of himself and of the world. You are teaching him to take an active stance in his world and to shape his own life, rather than be a passive recipient of what happens his way. Whereas in the past, he may have accepted his most dire beliefs and interpretations as unquestionable fact, now he is able to reflect thoughtfully on these beliefs and evaluate their accuracy. He is equipped to persevere in the face of adversity and to struggle to overcome his problems."

The Optimistic Child is the follow-up to Martin Seligman's bestseller Learned Optimism.

With Learned Optimism Seligman became the pioneer of the Positive Psychology movement. This movement shifted its focus from talk therapy, which focuses on giving patients psychological air to discuss past trauma, to giving patients tools to overcome psychological obstacles.

Seligman doesn't invalidate the benefits of talk therapy. He's only offering another tool.

Although I could have read Learned Optimism first, I chose to read this book first since it seemed more practical in mentoring situations.

The book begins with a good amount research on the growing rates of depression in youth. It then delves into intervention programs aimed at children at greater risks of developing depression, using the very techniques illustrated in the book.

The research itself is convincing, showing that building optimism and grit in children inoculates them from the paralyzing effects of depression and other mental illness later on in life.

Later on, it spends a good portion building an argument against the misuse of the concept of self-esteem. Seligman believes the original self-esteem research by Nathanial Brendan was poorly interpreted and taught. False and empty praise don't help children. And it can hurt their psychological resiliency in the long run.

The rest of the book focuses on specific techniques that teachers, mentors, and parents can use to help children develop habits of practical optimism in their day to day lives.

One term unique to this book is that of "catastrophizing". In essence, catastrophizing is taking a failure or setback and convincing yourself that failure is permanent, personal, and pervasive. The book calls them the 3Ps. How a child interacts with the 3Ps makes up their explanatory style. Or how they interpret setbacks.

Ultimately, we want them to move from the 3Ps and see setbacks as temporary and local. Temporary in that their failures are not permanent. Local in that their failures are not personal and pervasive. Failing to make the basketball team should not be an indictment of being a good son or student. The failure was local to the athletic tryout.

If a child's explanatory style is pessimistic, such a setback would derail any attempt to try again the following season. It may affect his schoolwork and how he acts at home.

Using the same example, we can show the child that missing the final roster on the varsity team is not permanent. They can try again next year. It's not personal. The coach picked better players based on his judgment, not the child's self-worth. It's not pervasive. Is basketball the only sport you can try out for? Can the child use the setback to get better for next year's tryouts?

The book has detailed scripts and countless examples how to help children alter their explanatory style from a pessimistic to an optimistic one.

Seligman is aware that some children are naturally more resilient than others. While others give up more easily and have a tendency to ruminate, so it's up to you as a mentor or parent to alter your approach and the book has tons of resources to help you.

Don't look at it this book and its techniques as a magic bullet, only as another tool to help you in your efforts to impart strong habits of psychological resiliency to the younger people you influence.

You may also find yourself using these techniques on yourself as well.

Dr Martin Seligman is a highly accomplished and highly regarded psychologist, revered for his work into the field of Positive Psychology.

Seligman has a belief that someday, similar to how we have studied diseases and found immunisations for them, that we can work towards finding immunisations against depression using psychology, and that we can start fighting off not just physical illnesses but also mental illnesses from a young age.

This book, The Optimistic Child, details his long-term research experiments with children, written to be very accessible by anyone and even includes activities you can practice by yourself and with your child. While I believe I'm probably far off from having kids of my own (but hopefully not too far!), I found this book incredibly insight into the psychology behind raising a child to be highly resilient and masterful of their arts.

I absolutely read this seeing the reflections of some of my own pessimistic thoughts in the past, so although this book is by title for helping you raise your child, I discovered a great deal even for my adult life from it.

Seligman is able to accurately define optimism, and gives us tools to boil adversities down into 3 essential descriptors: pervasiveness, permanence and personalisation. He shares tactics, backed by thorough long-term research and investigation, of how to identify these things, reflect upon them, dispute them and how to gain energization from them.

He stresses the importance that optimism is not "chanting happy thoughts to yourself", such as "I am a special person". This is meant in the sense of not just instilling "unconditional positive regard" into today's youth. The "feeling-good" viewpoint has severe negative effects in the long run, such as leading to depression. People need to understand the "why" of feeling good. You cannot teach self-esteem directly. You must teach "doing-well", as actually feeling good itself is not a causality of "feeling-good". Seligman reveals this is the key to optimism, and calls it the "explanatory style".

He also teaches us the psychology behind learned helplessness, which I found very fascinating. By teaching children mastery through allowing them to fail and retry (where safe, of course) they are taught the valuable skill of control and resilience - and not the trait of relying on others incessantly to solve their problems for them.

The end of the book also includes some 'rules' (which, as he diligently points out, are less researched than his other points, but are still very valuable insights from him as he is a very well established psychologist!) for raising your child, which can also be applied to toddlers (most of the book is for about 6-8 year olds and up, when children begin to become more and more "metacognitive").

Note to self: do another read-through when someday you're hopefully a dad