ANTS – Automatic Negative Thoughts – Item 380

Automatic negative thoughts are those awful little thoughts that pop into your mind. They bug you and they are always negative. It is hard to stop them and get rid of them. Of course the more they bother you and bug you the more you start to believe them. This resource will help children to recognise those thoughts and do something about them. They can learn to change them to more positive thoughts.

I personified the common types of ants to make these more child friendly.

We have:

• Emotional Edna  always thinks with her feelings.
• Blaming Barry  always blames everything on someone else and doesn’t take responsibility
• Negative Nancy always sees the negative even though there are lots of positives there
• Mind Reader Mavis can read people’s minds and knows what they are thinking
• Fortune Teller Felicity  can see into the future and knows what is going to happen
• Labelling Lawrence has a habit of calling himself and others names
• All or Nothing Audrey sees everything in black and white
• Guilty Gertrude uses words like should have and feels guilty over everything

This resource pack contains:

• 8 posters in colour
• 8 posters in black and white for colouring
• 8 cards with example ants and questions to help children squash them
• 16 worksheets to help children turn the negative into positive