Children need emotional validation.  If their negative feelings 
about what is happening in their lives are not validated, they 
may continue focusing on the negative until they are validated. 
Children can become pessimistic if they do not feel they are 
being emotionally heard and validated.

As the parent of four children, I have learned to not skip the 
important step of emotionally acknowledging my children.  
Before I realized how important this was, I was eager to try 
and quickly change their negative feelings and views of their 
life into positives.

Once you have validated your child's negative feelings, you 
can give your child a choice: to continue to perceive his/her 
situation as negative, or to choose to change it to a positive. 
The first choice teaches our children to be victims in a world 
of random events they are powerless to control.  The second 
choice teaches them they have the power to change anything for 
the better.  

Recently my daughter came to me expressing her negative feelings 
about a friend's treatment towards her.  I could have quickly 
dismissed her feelings and encouraged her to not let it bother 
her, or joined her by saying, "That is terrible!  She is so 
mean."

I did neither.  Instead the conversation went something like 
this:

Mom:  "That is unfortunate, Anne.  You must feel really sad 
about the way she treated you."

Anne:  "I do.  I don't like it when she treats me that way."

Mom:  "I understand.  Nobody likes to be treated that way.  You 
deserve to have your friends love and respect you.  When you are 
ready to clear these negative feelings, and would like my help, 
let me know.  Or, you can continue feeling bad.  But remember, 
whatever you focus on in life, you will have more of it show up 
as your experience."

Anne:  "I want to clear these bad feelings right now and create 
a positive friendship with her."

At this point I took Anne through a process called "Emotional 
Freedom Technique"   (see attached) which is designed to clear 
negative feelings and stressful energies that keep us from 
progressing.  

I have taught my children that the law of attraction, or the 
law of the harvest (which is that whatever we put out returns 
to us multiplied) is in constant operation in their lives.  
If they put out negative thoughts and feelings, they will have 
more negative experiences show up in their lives.  If they put 
out positive thoughts and feelings, they will have more 
positive experiences show up in their lives.

Anne understands this universal principle and was eager to 
clear the negative thoughts and feelings and change them into 
positives.  It was important that her negative feelings were 
acknowledged and validated first.  

Most adults in our world were not emotionally validated.  They 
were emotionally shut down or ignored.  As parents we can do a 
much better job of validating our children's emotional response 
to their lives' events-free of any judgment.  Once validated, 
those negative thoughts and feelings can be easily released 
and positive thoughts and feelings can be created.

After Anne cleared her negatives, she decided what she wanted 
to create was a fun-loving, kinder relationship with her friend. 
She helped put this into motion in her life by speaking what 
she wanted in positive "I am" statements such as this:

- I am experiencing all my friends respecting me and being 
  kind to me.
- I am respectful and kind to all my friends.
- We have fun together and support each other.
- Things always work out the best for me.
- I am grateful for the love and support of my good friends.

After Anne's energy-clearing session, she called her friend and 
easily made amends.  Her friend was apologetic, they laughed 
and started planning their next activity.  What Anne had asked 
for in her affirmations had already begun to show up for her.

Children model their parent's perception and language about the 
world.  If Mom and Dad are pessimistic, the children often are 
too.  If Mom and Dad are optimists who are willing to validate 
their child's negative emotional responses to a situation and 
then help them change that, they play a powerful role in 
teaching their children they can have lives that are positive 
with many successes to look forward to.