Your Mind Tells Stories

The mind is a great storyteller. The difficulty with the stories we tell ourselves, however, is that we believe them — whether they’re true or not.

Before we get to parenting, let’s talk about what your brain actually does with reality.

How many black dots are in the image above?

The answer is 12, but your visual system won’t let you see them all at once. 

Or how about this one:

It’s hard to believe, but the horizontal lines in this image are all perfectly parallel. Don’t believe me? Try squinting your eyes or looking at the image from the side.

This one’s my favourite:

Stare at the dots on the nose for thirty seconds. Then look at a blank wall and blink rapidly. 

Whoa!

Illusions aren’t just entertaining distractions. Illusions provide a profound view into the workings of the mind. And they remind us of a fundamental truth about the human condition: we don’t see things the way they really are.

Which brings us to parenting.

We notice the storytelling habit easily in our kids. They’re struggling with something and exclaim, “I can’t. It’s too hard.” I’ve yet to meet a loving parent who hears their child say “I can’t make friends” or “this maths is too hard” and responds with, “Yep. You’re right. You’re not very bright and not very likeable. Fact is, you’re a bit of a Nigel-no-friends.” Cruel. And wrong.

Instead, we look at them, square our shoulders, and smile. We offer encouragement: You’ve got this. I believe in you. You’ve done it before. Maybe we even jump in and help a little. What we’re doing is offering them a new script — saying, in effect, “the story you’re telling yourself is unhelpful, and probably untrue.”

So we rewrite it for them.

Here’s the blind spot: we do this for our kids, but rarely for ourselves.

When we’re in the thick of a hard parenting moment, the stories come thick and fast. She’s driving me crazy. He never listens. I’m doing everything wrong. We’d never let our children marinate in that kind of self-talk — but we accept it in ourselves without question. Limiting and negative self-talk hampers our effectiveness as parents. It interrupts our relationships. And it depletes us.

Why do we do it? Simple: it’s a habit. And like most habits, it can be changed.

Consider a simple swap. Instead of “she’s a good kid, but she’s driving me crazy,” keep the honesty but switch the focus: “She’s driving me crazy right now, but she’s such a good kid.” Almost the same words — I’ve added right now to signal that this isn’t a permanent feature of your child’s personality — but now it’s a different story. The first version ends on the problem. The second ends on the person. And she’s a good person.

Or this one: “My child can’t do school camp.” Objectively, that’s probably not true. But once we make it the story, we — and they — start to believe it, and that changes attitudes and behaviour for the worse. What’s true is that your child is struggling. But with some care and consideration, perhaps some gentle accommodation, they probably can go to school camp. “Can’t” forecloses possibility. “Struggling, but finding a way” opens the door to it.

My University of Michigan friend, research psychologist Professor Ethan Kross, has spent his career studying the voice inside our heads — what he calls our inner chatter. His research shows that the way we talk to ourselves doesn’t just reflect how we feel; it actively shapes what we do, how we cope, and what we believe is possible.

His studies confirm: negative self-talk narrows our thinking and keeps us stuck.

But with the right tools, we can change the channel.

One of Kross’s most practical findings is that creating distance between yourself and a difficult moment changes how you experience it — and the most effective way to create that distance is to tell yourself a different story. When we’re deep inside a hard moment, we lose perspective. We’re so close to it we can only see it one way, so everything we tell ourselves feels like fact. This kid is out of control. I have too much to do. I can’t handle this any longer.

Yet even a small shift in framing can interrupt the spiral. Kross calls it cognitive reappraisal: deliberately stepping back and asking whether the story you’re telling is the only one available. Not toxic positivity. Not pretending everything’s fine. Just — is there another way to see this?

For parents, this is powerful. The stories we carry about our children — he’s a handful, she’s anxious, this ADHD is out of control — become the lens through which we see every interaction. And children, who are exquisitely tuned to the emotional world of their parents, absorb those stories too.

So what does this look like in practice?

When you notice a limiting story — about your child, about yourself, about your relationship — pause and ask one question: Is this the whole story, or just the loudest part of it right now?

Remember those illusions. Your brain was absolutely certain it was seeing things correctly. It wasn’t. The dots weren’t there. The lines were straight all along. The image on the wall was something your mind had already decided it knew.

Parenting works the same way. You see a kid on a screen when they should be doing something else. Your read: not productive, being sneaky. But is the story accurate? Sometimes, yes. Often, no.

You don’t have to manufacture false optimism. You just have to create enough distance to see that the story is a story — not a verdict.

From there, you rewrite. Not dramatically. Not with a motivational poster. Just a small shift in emphasis, in framing, in where the sentence lands.

Stay curious. Be humble. Show compassion. Reduce judgement. Look again.

The mind is a great storyteller. But you’re the author.