It's a New Day! Research from the fields of positive psychology tells us that very early in life, children develop explanatory styles to understand events that happen to them and their emotional reactions to those events. These styles can be positive or negative, and are the roots of optimism and pessimism. As a child experiences events she internalizes self-talk to explain these events, and the Songs of Hope and Optimism are designed to make that self-talk hopeful and optimistic.

We created these songs based on research on optimism within the relatively new field of Positive Psychology.  These tracks help children:

• Develop a future orientation
• Better handle negative life experiences
• Internalize positive mindsets

As Dr. Martin Seligman clarified in his book, The Optimistic Child, it’s not the good and bad things that happen to children that determine their beliefs about themselves, others and the world in general.  Rather it’s how children explain these events to themselves.  This “explanatory style” is characterized by either optimism or pessimism.  As parents and teachers, we can influence a child’s explanatory style both through modeling optimistic statements and by helping a child understand both positive and negative events.  We can help a child understand that bad things are the exception and not the rule; and that bad times are temporary.
 

“On behalf of Amazing Grace Preschool, I want to thank you for the fantastic songs you provide. I have used the songs for parent events, graduation and step-up to quality programs.  The “New Day” cd starts our morning. We discuss about new days and today will be better, yesterday’s mistakes are gone.  I get so excited about this CD that I bought one for my car!  These songs aren’t just for children, the songs can also give parents a new perspective about their child.  Thank you again for using your God given talents to enrich the lives of children through song.”
-Karen Schmidtgoessling, Amazing Grace Preschool